Bert believes that he is amazing at tree climbing, he has had a revelation in a dream about a

special tree climbing power that has been passed down on to him.

He summons all the animals in the forest and then prepares super glue just in case he is
wrong, then ends up getting superglued to the tree and unable to get down. He is not able
tto climb trees at all. He envisions himself as being able to save all the other animals from
having to eat rotten acorns and apples on the ground. I’ll be the Robin Hood of the forest.

Arch nemesis a squirrel who is really good at climbing. Finds out about Bert’s dream and
then tries to challenge him to climb. Squirrel is really self-assured but always eats the crème
de la crème of the berries/acorn, fruit and never gives the berries to the rest of the animals.
Make him climb in front of everyone else and also since he is really good at climbing, make
Bert look bad.

Bert is at home, woken up in his den, the Castle, then in the forest, keep on having a dream
about being able to climb.

Groggily Bert forced his eyelids to open. He could still taste the apples. Fresh from the
branches and crisp, rather than bruised and mushy from their fall to the forest floor. This
was the third time he’d had the dream this week. He was lithe and agile as a squirrel, his
freshly manicured paws moving nimbly across the twigs as he scurried effortlessly from
branch to branch, unafraid of the vast space between him and the ground. Three
centimetres was the usual distance between hedgehog belly and the world but here in his
dream he was 6, maybe 7 metres above the earth, without even a quiver of fear.

The blackberry stained mudwalls were still blurry, and he tried to rollover onto his belly but
his spikes were stuck in the dirt, it must have been the part of the dream where he was
stealth crawling along the underside of the branch, flipping down apples to the adoring
crowd that he’d flipped over onto his back and gotten stuck in the dirt. Another day another
broken quill he thought as he righted-himself and tidied his pile of orange leaves, that
looked like the sun had set in them. He’d collected them a few days ago, feeling like his
bedding needed a change to be more reflective of the season. It clashed with the purple
streaked walls that he’d managed to stain with the last of the berries from outside of his
burrow. He thought about his dream. Usually hedgehogs couldn’t climb trees, but the
repetitive nature of this dream was starting to convince Bert otherwise, maybe this talent
had been growing inside him and he just hadn’t known it or maybe the heavens were just
started to bestow the gift of tree-climbing upon him and these dreams were their way of
heralding in the gift.

The sun was high in the sky, Bert had hoped to sneak out to the wizened apple tree before
any of the other animals were up but it had been rather further than he remembered. And
higher. Furtively he glanced around the clearing, with all the thick undergrowth it was hard
to tell but Bert was pretty sure that he was alone. He ambled up to the tree and looked up
to its summit. A veritable Mt Everest. But laden with apples like baubles on a Christmas tree,
only better because they were edible. He felt like his neck was almost parallel to his back as
he craned to follow the branches to their tips. He was not quite sure about it but confidence
from his dream was still glowing through him so he clenched his front paw and swung out,
striking about 10 centimetres up the trunk of the tree. Right paw. Left paw. Both back paws
were still on the ground and Bert’s belly was hugging the knots of the apple tree. Back paw
go! Thought Bert. He was just about to spring off it and leave terra firma when he heard a
chattering behind him.

Darn, it’s that haughty squirrel. Bert had seen him quite a few times before as he was
snuffling at the bottom of the apple tree, he was living every hedgehog’s dream, scurrying
along the branches like a mini 747, plucking off the choicest of apples and cramming them
into his cheeks one after the other. Not the animal that Bert wanted to run into today, on
his first day of tree climbing.

“Whatcha doing snuffle-face?” Asked the squirrel. “You thinking you can climb this tree?”
The squirrel burst into a machine gun of mirth. Not on your life, hedgehogs are the least
spritely of all the animals in the forest… You just leave this climbing to the experts. He
managed to spit the words out through the apples in his cheeks.

Bert’s pride was piqued. There was nothing for it. “You scruffy squirrel, you hain’t seen
nothing yet. I’m the best tree-climbing hedgehog out there. And I’m happy to prove it.”

The squirrel smirked and flew up the tree. “Oh yeah prickles, come up here and tell me
about it!”

*Chagrined, Bert peered up at the squirrel. Just a ball of fluff, so high up, and about the
same size as the tantalizing crimson apples that beckoned him up the tree. Bert was gritted
his teeth and took a few steps back. “Spring like a tiger!” he thought to himself as he
charged towards the tree. Yes! He was doing it! One paw, two paws, three paws, four paws.
All on the trunk of the tree. “I’ll show you, you scoundrelly squirrel.” He bared his claws and
dug them in deeper. Now he was two hedgehog lengths up the tree. He looked up and the
burls in the tree streaked up ahead of him, like a multi-lane highway up to the top of the
tree, egging him on higher and higher. Bert extended front right and left back paw. Another
apple’s length up the tree. He was doing it, he was living the dream. Front left, back right.
The deep blue sky seemed to intensify in colour as he got closer and closer to the top.
Nearly there he thought. The squirrel squirreled more apples into its cheeks and into its
pockets. “Stop eating all my apples you varmint squirrel. I’m nearly there and when I reach
the top of this tree, I’ll be the king of the forest.”

An apple fell from the tree. It splattered resoundingly on the forest floor below. Bert looked
down to see where it landed. Suddenly, he noticed how high up the tree he had come. It
was unnatural, hazardous, a life-threatening height. He saw the way that the apple exploded
into bits, ricocheting across the glen and into several bushes on the other side. The
ridicularity of a hedgehog climbing a tree, and the fact that he could easily follow the apple
struck home. As he eyed off the hard dirt below him, he felt his limbs starting to tire. His
claws stuck firmly into the bark of the apple tree were starting to ache from the magnetism
between his hindquarters and the ground. Bert felt like a fool. The squirrel scampered down
the branches, a bullet train along the tree until his nose was nearly touching Bert’s. “So king
of the treetops, gonna join me up higher for lunch?” Bert looked upwards, at the banquet of
apples, so close but not quite close enough. Bert blushed and felt rather like a prickly scarlet
apple himself. “Ah sure, you just go on up and I’ll, ah, join you soon.” He murmured feeling
like he never wanted to sleep again, just in case dreams of such foolish proportion caused
him to do something equally preposterous again. And with that he started to slide
backwards, backwards, backwards down the tree. He dug his quills in behind him, they went
in under some bark and then before he knew it Bert was catapulted nose-side down
towards the beckoning ground below.

He landed nose in apple. Mushed and slightly gritty but at least it was some kind of success.
Apples after all were the aim of the game. He snuffled it up and as he chewed it down he
ruminated on his failed bid to be the king of heights, the ace of apples, the darling of the
woodlands. Ah well, he thought. There was no harm in trying. And though there were still
plenty of apples in the trees, he knew that they couldn’t stay there forever. Patience,
patience, good apples come to those who wait… He huddled in next to the trunk of the tree
to wait…

The first thing to come down was not an apple. Rather it was the squirrel. “Never seen
anything like that in my life. You’re the bravest hedgehog I’ve ever met. You’ve got courage,
maybe not brains to match but a good fighting spirit nonetheless. Most entertaining
morning of this year. Thanks, young fellow.” He nattered faster than he moved among the
branches. Bert smiled embarrassedly and thought maybe he should come back later to look
for apples. He shuffled away from the trunk, belly up to stop the dirt from rubbing into the
scratches, snout low to the ground and eyes not much further away.
“There, there champion, not so fast. You can’t leave without taking with you what you
want.”
“It’s okay, I’m done with tree-climbing, it’s not in my genes. I’d rather wait until they fall
down than falling down again myself.”
The squirrel zoomed up the tree again and then came back down with a cheekful of apples.
“Snout up young fellow, here’s enough apples to last you for a while anyway.”
Bert nodded in thanks and rolled his apples home, where he stayed safely until his bruises
had disappeared.

Think like a tiger, go go hedgehog heights n