It was dark when I woke up this morning. Dark yesterday, and it will be dark tomorrow. It’s dark for months. That is because of where I live: we live in the far North. Some of you people took us to the far South, – there are quite a few of us now – but I come from the far North. ‘Course some of us move around. We reindeer have got to use our legs, just as you bipeds do. But we have 4 legs, and we need them to run with.
Some nasty animals like to eat us. Wolves certainly do. Yesterday, was bad. I mean what happened, was bad. Thank goodness, I was with my herd. There’s safety in numbers. I love my herd, though it does get big in the spring-time! And the clickety-click of our hooves as we go across the land -it’s such a comforting sound, and even in bad weather, it helps me hear my neighbours: I know they’re there! I travel with my herd, – we are reindeer that travel a long, long, way, – I eat with my herd and sleep with my herd. I’m a girl, so I will stay with my herd all my life, though my brothers may leave. I’m glad I’m a girl!
Anyway, we were all trekking along to get some food, – the wind was quite strong and blew that lovely smell of lichen and mushrooms towards us – when all of a sudden, we saw some wolves. You see our eyes are not like yours, and we can see ultraviolet light; the snow reflects this, and the wolves do not, so we know they’re there! I was so frightened. Wolves! They are so vicious, and work in packs to kill us.
I am young so I get to go in the middle of our herd, thank goodness! (It’s safer there!) One wolf jumped at the nose of a lovely reindeer and other wolves attacked from the back. Terrible, that’s how it was. Then those nasty wolves tore the flesh off the poor reindeer…. That was not the end of it, some strong reindeer attacked the wolves with their antlers. Their antlers were very large, the reindeer were senior reindeer, leaders of our herd. The antlers are bones really, and they used them to fight the wolves. They killed some! Serve them right! And some of us kicked out at the wolves with our hooves….
All the same, that poor reindeer died. A lot of us young ones do die, unfortunately. But I don’t think I’m going to! I am strong and a good runner, – and see my legs and hooves? You better keep out of their way!
But I never leave my herd. That would be silly. That would just set me up for someone’s dinner! I shiver to think of it! No, there’s safety in numbers…. You better be getting back, hadn’t you?
If you want to listen to the audio version of the story, here it is:
https://charlotteswonderfulstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/dec-a-day-in-my-life-im-a-reindeer.mp3
Both the text and audio versions of A Day in My Life: I’m a Reindeer are copyright to me. So here we go. Enjoy and I hope you’ll be here next month.
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