The above painting is by my daughter Gina Kuest, Winter’s Mother, who specializes in animal paintings. Find her on her “paws to create” Facebook page.

This is another of the toy adventure series for those of you who like to read these to your own children. It was written for my Granddaughter Winter who lives in the USA. Snuggle Puppy is the favorite toy she sleeps with along with her toy Moose. Sam is the household pet dog and the cat’s name is Xerxes.

Eric was curious as to what kind of children’s stories I write, so this is for you Eric. Lol.

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Snuggle Puppy reached over the bed covers and poked Moosie awake. “Shush! We shouldn’t wake Winter as she’s fast asleep.”

Moosie rubbed his eyes; he’d been sound asleep and was a little cross with Snuggle Puppy for waking him up.

“What?” Moosie put his hoof over his mouth to stifle a yawn and peered through the darkness at Snuggle Puppy.

Snuggle Puppy jumped out of bed and stood at the foot of the bed pulling on Moosie’s tail. “Get up!” he commanded.

Moosie stumbled out of bed grumbling as he did. “What are we going to do?” he whispered.

“We agreed to go for our grand adventure this evening,” said Snuggle Puppy. “Don’t you remember? You promised me you’d come.”

Yes, Moosie did remember they’d been whispering together while Winter had her supper with Mommy and Daddy. They’d been planning a grand adventure and it all sounded exciting at the time, but now Moosie was feeling sleepy and wished he hadn’t promised to go with Snuggle Puppy.

“It’s cold,” grumbled Moosie. “Can we have our grand adventure another night?”

“No, we have to do it tonight,” said Snuggle Puppy. “You promised, so put on your warm coat and let’s sneak downstairs before Winter wakes up. Be careful you don’t trip over any toys, and walk slowly so no one hears us go downstairs.

“Yes, don’t walk on us or we’ll tell Winter you sneaked out of bed when she wakes up in the morning,” whispered the toys. The toys were always threatening to tell tales on Snuggle Puppy and Moosie. They were jealous because these two got to sleep in Winter’s bed of an evening.

Moosie patted all the toys and spoke to them kindly. “If you promise not to tell I’ll play with you in the morning,” he said.

Snuggle Puppy and Moosie sneaked slowly downstairs and headed for the laundry. Moosie climbed up on Snuggle Puppy’s back and tried to reach the key hole to let them outside. He felt something wet and cold on his back and shouted out in fright falling down from Snuggle Puppy’s back as he did so.

“What are you two trying to do?” said Sam the pet dog of the house. Sam had heard the two of them sneaking through the house and followed them at a distance in the darkness, treading softly so they couldn’t hear him following.

Snuggle Puppy was shaking with fright and Moosie hid behind him peering over his back to see what had frightened them in the dark. They recovered quickly when they saw the large shape of Sam the dog behind them. “Sam, you gave us an awful fright!”

“I said what are you guy’s up to?” Sam’s voice was very stern. It was her job to protect the house and that meant no one should be allowed to open the door during the night unless Mommy and Daddy said it was alright.

“Oh we were just going outside for some fresh air,” said Snuggle Puppy innocently.

“There’s lots of fresh air up in Winter’s room as the window’s open enough. You don’t need to go outside,” said Sam. “Now off to bed with you two.”

“OK Sam, we really wanted to go out and have some fun tonight. We’ve been planning this since yesterday.”

Sam looked at them closely.

“You should be up in Winter’s bed keeping her warm, and I’m not letting you out that door, so off you go!” Sam gave the two of them a nudge with her nose and sent them scurrying back into the kitchen.

“Smack them harder,” said the cat. “They’re disturbing everyone!”

Snuggle Puppy began to cry, but it was only a pretend cry to make Sam feel bad she’d pushed them out of the laundry.

Moosie laughed. “Snuggle Puppy; Sam’s too smart to be fooled by your crying so stop it at once!”

“Yes stop it,” laughed Sam. “I’m not letting you outside no matter how hard you cry, but I’ll let you play downstairs for a while if you promise to do it quietly and not disturb Mommy and Daddy. Anyway, what were you going to do outside?”

Snuggle Puppy looked guilty and didn’t say anything when Sam looked at him, so Sam turned and looked at Moosie.

“We were going to get into the garage and ride Winter’s tricycle,” said Moosie.

“And have you thought about how you’d get into the garage?”

Moosie looked at Snuggle Puppy in surprise. “I guess we didn’t think of that. It’s locked isn’t it?”

“Yes it is you silly toys,” said Sam. “You were not thinking clearly were you?”

Snuggle Puppy could see crying wasn’t going to change Sam’s mind so smiled and walked over to Sam rubbing her fur in a friendly way. “Sam, will you play with us?”

Sam liked having her hair rubbed and began to relax. “Let me see what time it is and then I’ll tell you.” She ran to the bedroom and looked at the clock. It was midnight, lots of time for a quick game and then she could go to sleep again. She ran back to the kitchen.

“OK, but the rule is no noisy games. We don’t want to disturb the cat again or she’ll start screaming and wake everyone up. What game did you want to play?”

“Can we play hide and seek?” said Moosie clapping hooves together.

The noise disturbed the cat and it came out to see what was happening, eyes glowing in the dark. The cat jumped up on Winter’s kitchen table to watch the fun. “Can I play too? said the cat. They all nodded their heads as they didn’t want the cat to become angry and start screaming.

“OK,” said Sam. “Moosie, you’re the first to hide. The rest of us will count to ten softly and we won’t say coming ready or not because that’ll wake people up. So you better hide quickly, and don’t go into the bedrooms!”

Moosie hid under Daddy’s desk, but the cat found him quickly and it was then Sam’s turn.

Sam was so big she didn’t know how to hide herself properly so went and hid under some pillows in the lounge. To everyone’s surprise it was a long time before Sam was found but eventually Moosie spotted Sam’s tail sticking out from under a cushion and quietly tagged her.

Then it was Snuggle Puppy’s turn. Snuggle puppy decided to jump up on the kitchen table as he knew they’d all be looking for him on the floor. They all looked and looked for Snuggle Puppy for a long time, then whispered “We give up Snuggle Puppy, come out from where you’re hiding!” They were so surprised when Snuggle Puppy jumped down from the table.

Then it was the cat’s turn. The cat decided to hide in the laundry up on the washing machine, and she chuckled as she heard them running from room to room trying to find her. Finally when they couldn’t find her they called, “we give up cat, come out from where you’re hiding!” But the cat waited and they looked again, eventually coming into the laundry. The cat jumped on Sam’s back hissing and Sam, Snuggle Puppy and Moosie howled with fright.

Daddy and Mommy jumped up in their bed. “What was that noise?” said Mommy. Daddy grabbed a flashlight and ran into the kitchen. He saw Sam looking guilty, but the cat was pretending to be asleep on the washing machine, and Snuggle Puppy and Moosie hid under the kitchen table still shaking with fright. They thought they’d be in big trouble now that they’d disturbed everyone, and were cross with the cat for frightening them.

Daddy scolded Sam for making a noise and ordered her back into the bedroom. Sam looked at the toys angrily, but put her head down and followed Daddy into the bedroom. The cat laughed at them all while Snuggle Puppy and Moosie crept back upstairs and slowly settled themselves back in Winter’s bed. They knew Sam would be very cross with them next day and were thinking of ways they could make Sam happy with them again. From that time on they were very careful with the cat.

In the morning Winter woke up and looked at Snuggle Puppy and Moosie. She shook them awake. “Wake up, its time for you to get out of bed!”

“Oh do we have to? We haven’t had enough sleep!”

“Yes get out of bed and play with us! You promised you would,” called all the toys.

Snuggle Puppy groaned. “I never want to have a grand adventure ever again.” He said sleepily.

“Me either!” said Moosie.

“© Copyright Ian Grice 2013, all rights reserved”