The farmyard was enormous when you were a very small duckling. And Pip was, by her own careful measurement, the smallest duckling on the entire farm. She was always last in the line from the duck house to the pond, because her legs were shorter than everyone else's and she had to run to keep up.
This particular morning, something exciting happened. A tractor rumbled past the duck yard, huge and green, pulling a trailer of hay. All the ducklings stopped to stare. The line bunched up. Ducklings bumped into each other. Someone quacked in surprise.
And Pip, at the very back, hopped sideways to see better — and tripped over a stone.
She landed in a patch of clover. By the time she picked herself up and brushed the dirt off her beak, the line was gone. The duck yard was empty.
Pip stood very still. She could hear the tractor fading toward the top field. She could hear the hens in their run. She could hear the wind in the big oak tree. But she could not hear her family.
"Hello?" said Pip.
Nobody answered.
"Hello, I am still here," she said a little louder.
A pigeon on the cow barn roof looked at her and did not say anything helpful.
Pip's bottom lip wobbled. For a moment she thought about sitting down right there and waiting. But then she remembered what her mother had told her: "If you ever get lost, do not stand still. The world will not come to you. You must go to the world. Take one step, then another. And if you need help, ask. Most creatures are kinder than they look."
The pond was on the other side of the farm. She would go to the pond.
She marched toward the gate. It was tall, made of solid wooden bars. Pip flattened herself and squeezed through the gap at the bottom, popping out the other side with her feathers sticking up in fifteen different directions.
She was in the farmyard proper — a red barn, a stone shed, a silo, a row of white chicken coops. And right in the middle, blocking the path, was a goat.
He was grey and ragged, tied to a post by a long rope, chewing something that looked like a shirt sleeve.
"Excuse me," said Pip.
The goat opened one eye. "You're small," he said.
"I know. I need to get past you. My family is at the pond."
"This is my yard. I decide who passes."
"Could I please pass?"
"No," said the goat. He went back to chewing.
Pip looked at the rope. The goat's rope was about as long as a garden hose, which was not quite enough to reach across the whole path. If he would just move a little...
"Could you move a little to the left?" she said.
"No."
Pip thought. Then she had an idea.
"What are you eating?"
"A shirt," said the goat. "It's okay. A bit salty."
"I know where there are better shirts," said Pip. "Behind the cow barn. Crisp and dry and flapping on a washing line."
The goat's ears perked up. "Better shirts?"
"Much better."
He looked toward the cow barn, then back at Pip. "Fine," he said. He untangled himself from the rope and trotted off.
"THANK YOU!" called Pip.
"BRING ME A GREEN ONE!" the goat shouted back.
Pip did not think she would be bringing anybody a shirt. She kept going.
The path led past the cow barn toward the stream. Usually there was a little wooden bridge, but when Pip got there, the bridge was lying on its side in the water. The stream was moving fast — brown and noisy from all the rain, full of little whirlpools.
Pip's feet were very clear about not wanting to go in that water.
She sat on the bank and thought. She could go around, but the stream curved into the woods. She could go back, but she did not know another route. She could wait for someone to fix the bridge, but nobody was coming.
"Right," she said.
She walked downstream and found a wider, shallower spot with rocks. If she was careful, she could hop across.
The first rock held. The second wobbled, but she balanced. The third was fine. The fourth was too far.
"One big hop," she said.
She jumped. Her front feet landed on the far bank, but her back feet slipped on the wet rock. For a terrible moment she was hanging over the water with nothing solid beneath her. But she kicked — harder than she had ever kicked — found a ledge in the mud, and scrambled up.
She lay on the bank, breathing fast, covered in mud and quite proud of herself.
"You did it," she whispered. She ate a berry from a nearby bush. It tasted like victory, mostly, but also a bit like not-very-ripe.
Beyond the farmhouse was the hedge — a long, thick, tangled wall of green. The only gap was blocked by a huge pile of pruned branches the farmer had left there.
Pip walked the hedge one way. Then back the other. No other gap.
She sat down. She had crossed the farmyard. She had tricked the goat. She had crossed the stream. She was not going to be stopped by a pile of sticks.
"Small things fit through small gaps," she said. "And I am very small."
She walked up to the pile and studied it. There were gaps. Tiny gaps. Gaps that might just be big enough for a very determined duckling.
She chose one and pushed her head in. The branches poked her. A thorn caught her wing. She backed out, chose a different spot, and tried again. She ducked under a branch, climbed over another, got stuck halfway through, backed up, took a very deep breath, and pushed with everything she had.
The branches scratched her. A twig got caught in her fluff. But she kept pushing.
She popped out the other side covered in leaves and bits of bark, looking like a duckling-shaped hedge. But she was through.
The pond was right there. Her whole family was floating in the afternoon sun, looking perfectly happy.
"Pip!" cried her mother, paddling toward her. "Where have you been?"
"I got lost. But I found my way back."
Her mother looked at the mud on her feathers, the leaves in her fluff, the small scratch on her beak. "Did you cross the farmyard alone?"
"Yes."
"The stream?"
"Yes."
"The hedge?"
"Yes."
Her mother was quiet for a moment. "That is very brave."
Pip puffed out her chest. "I was determined."
She stepped into the water and felt it close around her, warm and familiar and safe. She floated over to her brothers and sisters, who gathered around her in a circle.
"A goat?" said one.
"A fast stream?" said another.
"A whole pile of hedge?" said a third.
Pip nodded, very important. She told them everything — the shirt sleeve, the slippery rock, the thorn that caught her wing.
"Was it scary?" asked the smallest of her sisters.
Pip thought about it. "A little," she said. "But I did it anyway."
That evening, as the sun went down behind the big oak tree and the sky turned pink and gold, the ducklings settled into the duck house for the night. Pip's mother came and sat beside her.
"I am proud of you," she said.
Pip leaned against her warm side. "I am proud of me too."
And she closed her eyes and fell asleep, the smallest duckling on the farm who had crossed the whole world that day.