It’s #BookQW and will ‘candy’ bribe a badger?
More from Chapter 16:
This was crazy. Clearly, the badger didn’t want her cutting across the meadow. If he didn’t leap at her after that wild dance, he probably wasn’t going to. “Well, how am I supposed to get up there, then?” She jerked a thumb toward the top. “I’ve gotta trade these plants for one of Lady Soila’s. What’ll it take to get you off the path?”
In answer, the badger pawed the cape pocket and then backed off the path between two bunches of grass and stared up at her.
“Duh. I get it. You don’t want the cape. Not with your fur coat. You smell my Snickers. Food, right? You want food?”
The badger laid his head on his front paws, looked up with a most mournful expression and whimpered.
Oh. My. God. She, Fern Fields, was having a conversation with a badger. Wait until she told Beri about this. With a grin, she set aside her bag, jerked the cape to her and got out the candy. The badger didn’t take his eyes off of her while she unwrapped it and placed the chocolate bar on the path between them.
“It’s yours.”
Daintily, he walked forward and picked up the candy. Then the badger turned his back on her and disappeared into the tall grass.
With trembling hands, she picked up her bag and stepped carefully past the spot he’d been. Among thoughts of magic and how this might mean she really had some, the most bizarrely practical consideration cropped up: She shouldn’t be giving wild animals people food. But, shoot. Just how much junk food was this badger likely to eat in his lifetime? Not as much as the ground squirrels at Rocky Mountain National Park.
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