The Bane of Mossflower - REDWALL!

[Falconer]

The fox gave sighed. "Very well, though I'm not exactly a showbeast, I do know a few.

Setting his tea back on the cart, he leaned back for a moment, deep in thought. Rising up again, he produced a small carving of a bird from some obscure pocket in his robe.
"Here. I used to tell this one to my cubs when they were your age." He handed the small carving to the molebabe.
"Cover that with your hands and hold it tight."

"There was once a sparrow by the name of Greytail. And Greytail achieved fame throughout these lands by being quite clever. Here is one instance of his cleverness. One day, a large badger came along, by the name of Two-Stripe. Two-Stripe was far from the brightest of all badgers, and he was something of a bully, too. And that particular day, he was extremely hungry. He leapt upon Greytail when he was asleep, and told him, 'I'm going to make you my dinner, sparrow! I am Two-Stripe the Mighty, and no one has ever escaped me!' As you can well imagine, Greytail was more than frightened. But he was still very clever, even when he was frightened. And so he told the stripedog: 'Very well. If you really are as strong as you say, than surely I am doomed! But really, you wouldn't want to eat me. There's a much bigger, fatter sparrow that lives in the cave out yonder.' The badger licked his chops and, letting Greytail go, ran over to the cave."

Roogle piped up. "Woot 'appened then, mizter?"

Vesper gave a dark grin. "Well, it just so happened that an adder lived in that cave..."

Roogle's eyes widened. "Yoo mean 'e...'e got eated, zur?"

Vesper stammered for a second. "Erm...no, of course not. What a...terrible ending that would be. What really happened is that Two-Stripe wrestled the adder, and escaped, but Greytail was nowhere to be found. Indeed, look in your hands now!"

Roogle saw that the small carving had, indeed, vanished. Vesper gave a clever smile, and held up the carving, now in his own two hands.

"See how clever he was?"