On a rainy morning, a stray dog named Teddy found an open umbrella leaning against a village gate.

 

He squeezed underneath and found a little duck already there, wearing a red bow.

 

“I’m Poppy,” she said, shuffling over. “There’s room for two.”

 

Rain drummed overhead while Poppy talked about Willow Farm, where she lived with the Bennett family.

 

“Red is partickly my colour,” she said, fluffing her bow.

 

Teddy tilted his head. “You mean particularly?”

 

Poppy blinked. “That’s what I said.”

 

And she kept talking.

 

She told him about the vegetable garden, Mr Bennett’s muddy old ute, and the pond at the bottom of the hill.

 

“The pond belongs to the Bennetts,” Poppy explained, “but mostly it belongs to me. I swim in it the most, so that seems fair.”

 

Teddy looked at her. “Did the Bennetts tell you that?”

 

“Not in those exact words.”

 

“I see.”

 

Poppy nodded, satisfied, and carried on.

 

She told him how Hannah had made her red bow, how Mrs Bennett called everyone in before dark, and how every Christmas the whole family sang Silent Night together, though, according to Poppy, “none of them ever find the same note.”

 

Teddy listened.

 

Poppy had stories about breakfast at the kitchen door, warm lights in the windows, and people who noticed when she was missing.

 

Teddy had nowhere he was expected to be.

 

So he listened a little more closely.

 

When the rain finally stopped, Poppy marched him up the hill.

 

At the top, the wind rushed in from every side, flattening Teddy’s ears and tugging at Poppy’s bow. A butterfly tumbled past his nose. He bounded after it, tripped over his own paws, and rolled through the grass.

 

Poppy hurried after him, quacking.

 

Behind them, round paw prints and little webbed feet crossed and re-crossed along the muddy path until it was hard to tell whose were whose.

 

At the bottom of the hill, Poppy stopped proudly.

 

“This is it,” she said. “My pond.”

 

Teddy glanced at her.

 

“Mostly,” Poppy corrected.

 

She slipped into the water and vanished beneath a lily pad while Teddy sat on the bank beside an old fishing rod.

 

A moment later she popped up again, a lily pad perched on her head, her red bow still bright.

 

“I’m a partickly good swimmer.”

 

Teddy sighed. “Still particularly.”

 

“That’s what I said.”

 

By evening, the farmhouse windows were glowing.

 

Poppy waddled through the gate.

 

Teddy stopped.

 

She turned. “Aren’t you coming?”

 

Teddy looked at the warm windows.

 

“You live here,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”

 

For once, Poppy had nothing to say.

 

Then the farmhouse door opened.

 

Mrs Bennett looked at Teddy, wet and muddy beside the gate.

 

“Well, Poppy,” she said softly. “Who have you brought home?”

 

That night, Mr Bennett brought Teddy a bowl of water, and Hannah spread a blanket beside the back door.

 

Teddy circled it once before lying down.

 

He did not sleep straight away. He kept one eye open, just in case the blanket was only for tonight.

 

But when morning came, the blanket was still there.

 

So was the bowl.

 

So was Poppy, already talking.

 

The Bennetts asked around the village, but no one came looking for him.

 

Days passed.

 

No one told Teddy to leave.

 

One afternoon, Hannah sat beside him with a scrap of blue ribbon. She tied it into a bow and fastened it gently around his neck.

 

“Poppy has red,” she said. “I thought you should have one too.”

 

Teddy looked down at the blue bow.

 

Then at the blanket beside the door.

 

Then at the family behind him.

 

His tail gave one small wag.

 

Then another, not so small.

 

Poppy puffed out her chest. “Blue is partickly good on you.”

 

Teddy opened his mouth to correct her.

 

Then he smiled instead.

 

“Partickly,” he agreed.

 

Poppy gasped. “You said it wrong!”

 

“That’s what I said.”

 

He had followed a duck home.

 

And somewhere between the red bow and the blue one, home had become his