Chapter 1

Something was different.

The fox sensed it.

Curled up in its daytime hiding place in a nest of brambles, the fox lifted its head. It pricked up both ears to listen.

It heard a car and voices. Next, a big moving truck drew up on the road outside the house. Someone banged a door at the back as they opened it.

For hours, the moving men went back and forth, carrying boxes into the house. Tables and chairs came next; beds and bookcases, lamps and cushions and rugs. A whole house-load of things was carried out of the truck, up the front path, through the open door into the house.

All day, the fox tried to sleep, curled up with the tip of its tail wrapped around its body, but its ears twitched, listening for danger.

As evening came and shadows lengthened across the grass, the truck drove away. The front door banged shut. At last it was quiet—just the normal sounds of an autumn evening. A blackbird sang at the top of a tree. A squirrel ran along the edge of the rickety wooden fence.

The fox uncurled itself. It yawned and stretched.

Silently, on velvet paws, it slipped through the bars of the gate into the garden. No one saw its slim, red-brown body and long tail as it stopped at the edge of the lawn to sniff the night air. It looked up at the house.

The fox called out into the dark. It was a strange sound, an eerie, high-pitched scream that echoed around the night garden and made everything afraid.