“Vampy?”
“Yes Sojourner?”
“We’ve been on lots of adventures, seen lots of plants, done lots of spinning, and met some of your friends, and it was great fun, but I’m a little lonely, I’d really like a friend of my own.”
“What do you mean? You’ve met loads of new people, we went to 4 guild meetings, did you not have fun?”
“Sure, it was fun, especially helping the first time spinner make wonderfully even yarn, but, yanno, it was work. I was hoping for some fun social time.”
“What about the espinner party we had last week?”
“Those guys are even worse! All they wanted to do was talk about work, no fun at all! And one of them was an Eel… eew! I was thinking maybe of something more… avian?”
“Oh! I know just the thing! hang on, let me put some shoes on and we’ll go visit Nina and Rowena”
“Thanks! That’s more what I was thinking, but, and I really don’t want to sound ungrateful here, but chickens are stupid. Really really stupid. We just don’t have a huge amount in common.”
“Hmm. I know! I have the perfect friend for you! Clive!”
“Clive?”
“Professor Clive Tawny, Guardian of the Craft Room. Let me take you to meet him. Don’t be scared, he’s a vegetarian!”
“Perfect! Thank you so much for introducing us, we had a wonderful evening together. Please pass on my email address to him, I’d really like to stay in touch.”
For those wondering about Clive, when you live in the countryside you meet all sorts of strange people in the pub, including your local taxidermist. My parents used to live in a converted barn and my Dad decided it would be nice to have an owl sitting on one of the beams in his library. He mentioned this to the taxidermist in my village and after a year or so one of his roadkill collectors found Clive for him, so my Dad got his wish. When my parents downsized to a smaller place, Dad offered him to me, and now he sits on a very high shelf in the craft room, away from cats.