Nim the owl opened her eyes and it was the middle of the afternoon. The sun came through the leaves like a spilled bucket. She could not see a thing.
Somewhere below, something small was crying. Nim leaned out of her hole. "Who?" she called, which is the only question owls know how to ask.
Nim shut her eyes and listened instead. She heard water on the left, a road on the right, and the crying moving between two roots. She followed her ears down.
It was a duckling called Dilly, wedged where the roots crossed. Nim could not lift him and could not see him properly either. So she called "Who? Who?" until the whole wood answered.
Dilly's mother came round the bend at a run. She had been calling all afternoon on the other side of the water. "Who?" said Nim, quietly, and then went back to bed.
