She loved messing about with grasshoppers, cockroaches and beetles. And she didn’t play with them like ordinary children – she was always kissing them and telling them stories. Then she would let them go and start crying, calling for them to come back. Last autumn the old woman had brought her a hedgehog from the forest. The girl had followed him wherever he went. He only had to give a little grunt and she was beside herself with joy. And if he went under the chest of drawers, she’d just sit there on the floor and wait for him. She’d say to her mother: ‘Sh! Can’t you see he’s asleep?’ Then the
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