"Corianne Meets Moose" by Gwenivere Stephan

It was a beautiful spring day in Elanthia. The first true day of spring for the year. Sometimes spring pretends to come, but there’s always a touch more winter just around the corner that pops up instead, just after you’ve put your winter gear away.
In a little house in a small forest, it was the first day of cleaning. The house smelled musty and it felt cramped after the winter and now it was time to air it out. It was a little Forest Gnome house and living inside of it were seven little gnomes. Five of the gnomes had brown hair. The other two had red hair.
One of the little redheaded gnomes did not enjoy cleaning day. Or, that is to say, she loathed it. She would have preferred to be out in the sunshine and sweet wind. So, as soon as she could, she slipped out of the house and into the beautiful forest.
It seemed to her that every tree had decided, in the night, to put out its pretty green leaves all at once. She wandered through the forest, looking up and down and around as fast as she could. She watched butterflies twirling around pretty yellow flowers and she examined the wide green leaves of the ferns around her.
If she had not been looking so closely at everything, perhaps she would not have noticed the dark lump on the ground to her left. It was very huddled and lay in a patch of dark leaves leftover from last autumn. She stopped in her tracks and dashed behind a tree, her heart beating very quickly and a slow grin spreading across her face.
She peered around the tree and squinted at the dark lump. Then, with an excited squeal, she sprang forward and caught it up in her hands. Then she sneezed, because the little lump smelled pretty awful. Examining it, she smiled again. She had been right.
It was a mouse.
"Oh!" she told it, looking into its small little eyes. "I have always wanted a little mouse pet! Won’t yous be my friend?" The mouse looked at her, the flopped a little and was looking blankly up at the sky.
The redheaded gnome squealed and hugged it to her chest. "Oh, goodie!" She turned and ran as quickly as her short legs could carry her back to her house. She burst through her front door without even thinking about her absence during cleaning day. She was hopping from leg to leg and clutching her new friend close.
"Corianne!" shrieked her mother, appearing from a pile of bedclothes that she had been trying to fold. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, Mother!" Corianne shouted, holding her new mouse friend out for everyone to see. Her sisters shrieked and jumped back, her father began to laugh, and her mother paled.
"Corianne! You throw that thing outside this instance!" her mother snapped.
"But, Mother! He’s my friend! I’ve always wanted a pet mouse…" Corianne looked down at her mouse with love in her eyes.
"But, it’s… it’s…" her mother was flailing her arms up and down.
"He’s my friend! Yous can’t make me get rid of him!" Cori shouted. She scowled and hugged him closer to her.
"Get out! You get rid of that thing or else, Corianne!" her mother was saying. Cori hardly heard her, though, because she was leaving.
"Don’t worry, friend," she told her mouse as she fled the house. She did not pause or look back. She could not hear her mother shouting at her in the distance or her father’s roaring laugh.
It was beginning to get dark before she stopped. She looked around, confused. She was not in her forest, although she was in a forest. It was darker and larger than she own was. She shivered, a little afraid.
"Well, friend," she said, "I guess we’s adventurers now." Then she sat down and rested from her long run.
"We’ll have to give yous a nice name," she said. She set him on her knees and stared at him for a long time. She shook her head over and over. "Do yous like the name Kitty?" she asked him. He just stared at her scornfully. She sighed and leaned against the tree at her back. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep.

When she awoke, she knew two things. Firstly, that she was very hungry, and secondly, that her new mouse friend’s name would be Moose.
"What do yous think of the name Moose?" she asked him as she got up and stretched. He looked up at her skeptically. "No! It’s not a silly name! It’s dignified. And it’s interesting, so peoples will remember it!" The mouse decided that it was all right, if she liked it, which she did.
"All right, Moose! Let’s go hunting so we can gets some skins to sell for money so we can eat! We’re adventurers now, we’s gots to take care of ourselves!"