Newby

There was a green thing on Newby's plate.

Newby had never seen it before. It was green, and slightly bumpy, and it was sitting next to the things Newby knew about, looking suspicious.

"I don't like it," said Newby.

"You haven't tried it."

"I don't need to," said Newby, with enormous confidence. "I can tell."

This happens rather a lot with Newby. Newby likes the same four meals, the same walk, the same story, and the same seat, and everything outside that list has been quietly filed under no thank you without ever being opened.

Wondy, who once went through a hedge without looking, thought this was the strangest thing in the world.

"How do you know, though?"

"I just do."

"You said that about the yellow one," said Wondy. "Then you ate nine."

Newby went slightly pink, because that was true and everybody at the table remembered it.

So they did the One-Bite Rule, which Newby's family made up years ago and which has only two parts. Part one: you try one tiny bit, smaller than a pea if you like. Part two — and this is the important half — you are allowed to not like it.

That second part is the whole reason it works. Trying something is easy when nobody is going to make you finish it.

Newby took the tiniest possible corner of the green thing and put it in, and chewed it about four times, with the face of somebody being extremely brave in difficult circumstances.

"Well?"

"It's... alright," said Newby, astonished. "It's a bit like the yellow one."

Newby had three more and then stopped, which was allowed.

Some weeks the new thing is horrible. Newby tried a purple one in October and still talks about it with a shudder.

But Newby tries one new thing every week now, even the wobbly-looking ones, because of a quiet arithmetic Newby worked out over tea one evening.

Every single thing on Newby's favourites list was once a new thing on the edge of the plate.