From the author: Small children tend to associate themselves with the world of animals (however, adults too) and through the image they can be brought closer to the frightening world of adults. This is a story about a little prickly hedgehog who one day learned about people and was inspired by them. About trust. Once upon a time there was a hedgehog. He was small, nimble and, as befits hedgehogs, with thorns. The hedgehog lived in a small hut on the edge of the forest. In the summer, the hedgehog ran through the forest, finely moving its paws and collecting winter supplies - mushrooms, berries, roots and anything edible that came across. Especially the hedgehog loved apples! In the fall, when it became quiet in the village near the forest, the hedgehog, moving its paws, rushed into the gardens. He really loved the gardens in the fall, when they became bright. Among the brown-green leaves under the apple trees lay apples that exuded their delicate aroma, enveloping the village in a cloud of apples. In particularly fruitful years, the entire village became one rotten apple and attracted forest newcomers with its smell. First, in the morning, magpies flew in, filling the gardens with their chatter, then tits, waxwings and bullfinches arrived. And in the evening, closer to dusk, the smell ferrets, weasels and hedgehogs flocked. During the day, foxes and raccoons easily visited the gardens and remained until late in the evening, piercing the darkness with burning embers of their eyes. The tireless hedgehog, fascinated by the apple smell, once stopped and met people. Bristling out of habit, he put his needles in different directions and hid his small nose. After a few minutes of the fuss that people had organized around him, he got used to it and decided to see what was going on around him, especially since his nose was irritated by some new smell, unknown to him before. After rustling a couple of steps, he saw a saucer with something - white. People dispersed, making way for the hedgehog, and he, completely emboldened, licked this white thing in the bowl. As you already guessed, it was milk. The hedgehog, having tried it a couple of times, could not tear himself away, it seemed so tasty and satisfying to him! lapped it all up! Licking his lips, he rustled towards the forest. Confused by the milk and the people he saw for the first time, the hedgehog returned to his house. Since he visited the people and tasted the milk, his life has changed. Now every evening he I visited people and found a saucer of milk on the porch. And when he returned to his place, inspired, he collected leaves and wrote about their amazing stories. When there were so many stories that the leaves filled the whole house, he hung them on the trees around his house, where magpies, the same ones that flew, often visited in the morning to the apple orchards and so, thanks to the magpies, all the inhabitants of the forest learned about the stories of the hedgehog. They learned about apple trees, milk and people, who now did not seem as scary to them as before..