Pouty

The picnic had been on the calendar for two weeks.

Pouty had thought about it every single day. Pouty had decided what to wear, and which blanket, and exactly where to sit so as to be next to Mopsy and also near the sandwiches.

At eleven o'clock, the picnic was cancelled.

Pouty went flat. That is the only way to describe it. All the puffed-up happy excitement went out at once, like a balloon with the end let go, and what was left was a small deflated fluff on a step with a wobbling bottom lip.

"But I really wanted to," said Pouty.

And here is the important part: nobody said don't be silly, it's only a picnic.

Hopsy sat down on the step and said, "That's really disappointing."

"It is," said Pouty, and cried a bit, and was allowed to.

They sat there for a while. Disappointment is a heavy, flat, sulky sort of feeling, and it does not like being rushed. Pouty let it be heavy for about ten minutes.

Then Hopsy said, "Right. What can we do?"

"Nothing. The picnic was the thing."

"One idea. Any idea. Doesn't have to be good."

Pouty scowled at the floor. "Eat the sandwiches anyway," said Pouty, meanly, meaning it as a joke.

Hopsy sat up. "Where?"

And that is how the Indoor Under-The-Table Picnic was invented, which had the blanket, and the sandwiches, and Mopsy sitting exactly where Pouty had planned, and also a torch, which no outdoor picnic has ever had.

Everybody agreed it was better.

Pouty still deflates. Pouty will always deflate, because Pouty is a fluff who looks forward to things properly, with the whole heart, which is a lovely way to be and does mean you have further to fall.

But Pouty has noticed something, and says it now to anybody who has had a bad morning.

My Plan B is usually better than my Plan A. I just have to be sad for ten minutes first.