The mouse took a deep breath and looked at the rocks on the far side of the river. He gripped his oars. Between him and the rocks the water flowed fast and the rapids churned and swirled to make the whitest foam. Behind him on the shore stood a bobcat with cinnamon fur and a puff of white hair on its chest.
‘It’s a long way to the other side,’ the bobcat purred, almost triumphantly.
The mouse said nothing. His brown fur was wet and his paws were raw. The far shore could not be farther, and the whitewater menaced him as it threw its pale arms upward and outward. He pushed, and his raft inched forward. The bobcat roared, and as the waves crashed into the raft the mouse dreamt suddenly of a quiet stream, a picnic, whispers, and the sound of her laughter filling his ears. 
