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Far, far away, in the little town of Matsubara, there lived a tiny little kitty named Purr. One day, she woke up eeeeaaarly in the morning, because she heard a funny noise outside. She looked out the window, and what do you suppose she saw? 
Here’s what she saw. At first, she didn’t see anything funny at all. So she looked, and looked, and looked. She thought she saw something over by the rocks. 
She walked over, and sure enough, there was a bushy tail sticking out of the rocks. And there was a brown furry something on the snow, too. 
They looked so cold, and so hungry, that Purr begged them to come home with her. But the fox (it really was a fox, with that big furry tail), was really shy. He kept over by the green fence. 
The little bitty brown animal was friendlier. With just a little coaxing, he came over. He stayed by the snow, but he kept coming closer. 
And he let Purr get closer to him, too. 
Purr opened the door to her house, and begged her new friends to come in. 
The little brown tanuki came running in. He was sooooo cold and hungry. 
Finally, after lots and lots of coaxing, the fox came in too. But his tail was so long that he couldn’t always even remember where his tail was. 
By the time they came in, Mr Snakey had heated up a saucer of milk. The new fox friend and the new tanuki friend ran over to the saucer, and gulped, and gulped and gulped.
The tanuki worried about standing on the book, but that was the only way he could reach the warm milk. Purr and Mr Snakey assured him that no one would mind if he stood on the book.
Sophie Wore Blue 