Mossy

It had rained for six days.

By day six, Mossy was horrible.

Mossy had snapped at Glowy. Mossy had found the television annoying, and the floor annoying, and the sound of somebody eating an apple so annoying that Mossy had to leave the room. Nothing was interesting. Everything was slightly too warm and slightly too loud and Mossy could not have told you one single thing that was actually wrong.

"What's the matter with you?" said Glowy, reasonably.

"Nothing," said Mossy, in the voice that means everything.

Tipsy, passing through, asked a question that sounded completely irrelevant.

"When did you last go outside?"

Mossy opened the mouth to say this morning and discovered it was not true. Nor was yesterday. Mossy had not been out of the door since Sunday, because it was raining, and going out in the rain seemed like a lot of effort when you are already grumpy.

"It's still raining," said Mossy.

"It is," Tipsy agreed.

Mossy put boots on, entirely to prove a point, and went out into the wet garden to be miserable in a different location.

Three green things. That is Mossy's own rule, invented by Mossy, forgotten by Mossy: go outside, find three green things.

One: the moss on the wall, absolutely soaked, gone the deep colour it only goes in proper rain.

Two: a beetle on the fence, going somewhere important.

Three: the whole hedge, dripping, smelling like the best thing in the world.

Mossy stood in the rain for nine minutes and came back in a completely different fluff.

Nothing had changed. The floor was the same floor and the television was the same television. Glowy was still eating the apple.

"Sorry I snapped," said Mossy.

Mossy knows every bug's name and is not remotely surprised by this any more. Fresh air fixes more than you would think, and a lot of what feels like a bad mood is only a fluff who has been indoors since Sunday.