Tandy Breadburn's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Tandy Breadburn had baked forty test bagels this week. Every morning, she found them gone. The kingdom's grand baking contest was three weeks away, and the winner took home the golden rolling pin. Tandy wanted it more than anything. But she couldn't judge a single recipe if something kept eating her proof. She was a small, round old woman who lost her glasses in her own hair. This time, she was sure of the crime. Last night she had left six garlic bagels cooling on the rack. This morning only crumbs remained. Tiny muddy prints crossed the flour dusting her counter. Something with paws had climbed through her cottage bakery window again. "Not tonight," Tandy said. She would catch the thief and get back to work. That evening she baked one perfect bagel. She set it on a plate in the middle of the floor. Then she wedged herself behind the counter with a broom and waited. The warm kitchen smelled of yeast and butter. Upstairs, her little rooms creaked. Tandy fought to keep her eyes open. Near midnight, a paw curled over the windowsill. A small red fox dropped to the floor. It padded to the plate, ears flicking, and sniffed the bagel. Its ribs showed under its fur. It was starving. Tandy raised the broom. The fox froze and stared at her. It did not run. It only looked from her face to the bagel, then back, shaking. Tandy lowered the broom. She could not do it. "Oh, you poor scrap," she whispered. She broke the bagel in half and slid a piece across the floor. The fox snatched it and ate in three gulps. Then it crept closer and pressed its head against her hand. Tandy laughed, surprised. She fed it the second half. "You've eaten my whole week," she said. "But you needed it more than my contest did." The fox curled beside the warm oven and slept. Tandy watched it, thinking. The little thief had a nose for good bread. It had ignored every failed batch and gone straight for her best ones every single night. An idea bloomed. She had no judge for her recipes. She had a starving fox that only ate the best. "You're going to help me win that rolling pin," she told it. But when Tandy reached for a rag to make the fox a bed, she knocked her tin of measuring spoons off the counter. It clattered across the floor. The fox bolted up, terrified, and shot back through the open window into the dark. Tandy hurried to the sill. The fox was already gone. Cold air poured in. Her thief was hungry, tamed for one night, and now loose in the woods. "Come back," she called. Nothing answered. She had solved one problem and made a bigger one. She no longer needed to catch the fox. Now she needed to find it again.