Four Slow Breaths for Tuft

Something in the basket was breathing. Small, round puffs, in and out, in and out, like a bee asleep in a jam jar. Jun leaned over until a horn tapped the rim of the basket, and a wisp of hay drifted up. Jun was a young unicorn, the smallest one at Sleepy Farm, and the only unicorn there with a tail that would not hold still.

Mama had carried the basket down from the farmhouse at dusk, lined with an old wool blanket that still smelled of apples. "Her name is Tuft," said Nell, "and she's ours to keep." Nell was Jun's big sister, and she said "ours" the way someone hands you a warm mug. Tuft was a meadow piglet, no bigger than a kettle, with ears like folded leaves and a snout that snuffled even in her sleep. "A new pet," Jun whispered. "My own new pet."

Jun had wanted a pet for as long as Jun could remember. Something small and warm that would trot behind Jun to the hen house and curl up at the end of Jun's hooves. Jun had a private worry too, folded away where worries go: that a unicorn with a tail like a flag might be too much for a small pet to love.

So when Jun leaned in to say hello, Jun wanted to show Tuft everything at once. The long sweet hay bale with its tunnel in the middle. The lantern swinging on the barn door, out and back, out and back. The hens in their straw, muttering themselves to sleep, cluck-cluck-mutter. Jun's tail swished with the excitement of it, this way and that, and a puff of golden hay dust rose up and hung in the lantern light.

Tuft's ears went flat. She tucked her nose under her own ear, pressed herself into the corner of the basket, and her small sides went in and out, quick, quick, quick.

"It's all right," said Jun, in what was meant to be a gentle voice. It came out big and loud. Tuft squeaked, a tiny hinge of a sound, and sank deeper into the wool.

Jun tried an apple slice, crisp and pale and sweet. Tuft pressed her snout into the blanket. Jun tried a nest of hay patted into a round bed, with a little apple path leading to it, one slice, then another, then another. Tuft watched the apples and stayed where she was.

Jun tried humming, low and steady, the way Mama hummed at the end of the day. For a moment Tuft's folded-leaf ears lifted to listen. Then Jun's tail swished with all that wanting, the hay whispered, and Tuft scooted back into the wool. "She doesn't like me," said Jun, and the words came out cross. The cross felt hot in Jun's chest, tight as a knotted rope, and it made Jun want to stamp both front hooves.

Mama came to the barn door and hooked the lantern on its nail. "Give her a night, small one," she said. "New places take a while to feel like home." Jun nodded, but the knot stayed knotted, and the tail kept swishing, and being cross made Jun crosser still.

Nell came and sat in the hay beside the basket. "She's new," she said. "Everything here is big and strange and loud, and she's the smallest thing in all of it. She doesn't know yet that she belongs." Jun looked at the little heap of wool and piglet, and the knot pulled tighter.

"I was cross too, my first night in this barn," said Nell, quietly, as if it were a secret between the two of them. "I knocked a bucket over and everything clanged, and I thought the whole farm was cross with me." She shrugged her brown shoulders. "It wasn't. It was just loud."

"When I get cross," said Nell, "I take four slow breaths. In through the nose for four. Out through the mouth for four, like cooling porridge." Jun frowned. "How is that going to help her?" "Come and see," said Nell, and she smiled her small smile, the one she wore when she knew a thing before anybody else did.

So Jun lay down in the warm hay, near the basket but not too near, and folded all four legs underneath. Jun breathed in through the nose. One, two, three, four. Jun breathed out, slow and soft. One, two, three, four. The knot loosened, just a little, like a stone turning over.

Jun breathed again. Four in. Four out. And then a strange, good thing happened. The small sides in the basket slowed down too. In, out, in, out, and the puffs were no longer quick and sharp but long and round, matching Jun's, breath for breath, as if the two of them were rowing the same slow boat.

Jun kept counting. Four in. Four out. The whole barn seemed to breathe along. The lantern swung out and back, out and back, slower now. The hens muttered and settled into their straw. Somewhere under the hay, a cricket kept a slow and sleepy time.

Then a nose came out of the wool. Just a nose, pink and twitchy, with a small breath of hay dust on it. Then one folded-leaf ear. Then a round dark eye, looking straight at Jun.

Jun didn't move. Jun's tail lay perfectly still in the hay, which was the hardest thing Jun had ever done. "Hello," Jun whispered, and it came out a whisper this time, small enough for a small thing.

Tuft climbed out of the basket, one little hoof at a time, and crossed the hay on her tiny legs. She stopped in front of Jun's horn, which glowed faintly in the lantern light, warm as a lit window. Tuft sniffed it once. Tuft sniffed it twice. Then she sneezed an enormous sneeze for such a small piglet, and Jun laughed out loud, and Tuft did not mind the laughing one bit.

"It wasn't me at all," said Jun slowly, working it out. "You were waiting for everything to be slow." Tuft tucked herself against Jun's side and let out a long, pleased sigh, warm as a fresh loaf of bread.

Nell came over and set the lantern on the box by the door. "The slow breaths helped you," she said. "Then they helped her." She gave Jun a gentle nudge with her nose. "She's been breathing in time with you all evening. She only needed the whole barn to slow down."

Jun counted four more breaths, just for practice. Tuft's sides rose and fell with every one. Then Tuft trotted three small steps to the hay tunnel and looked back over her shoulder, as if to say, well, are you coming?

So Jun crawled into the tunnel after her, and they stayed there a while, warm and quiet, while the lantern swung and the hens slept.

The barn grew dim. The lantern swung slower. Out and back. Out and back. The hens' muttering faded to a soft rustle of straw. Tuft's small sides went in and out, in and out, slow and round as a bee asleep in a jam jar. Jun's tail lay still at last in the warm hay, and the last thing Jun felt was the small warm weight of a new pet, breathing slow and even, right beside Jun's heart.