It was the seventh day before Midwinter, and Raccoon was gathering supplies for her annual Midwinter-party cake.

Last year’s towering success was a multi-layered chocolate cake with raspberry jam between the layers. But as delicious as everyone had declared last year’s cake to be, Raccoon wanted to make something ever-so-slightly different this year.

For this year’s party, the cake would be layered with frosting instead of jam. But she couldn’t decide which would be best with the dark-chocolate cake — orange, lemon, or mint. And so she invited several of the chipmunk and squirrel children for afternoon tea, where they snacked on crispy saltine crackers, each spread with a different flavor of frosting, and then voted for their favorite.

(Mid-December 2023)

Story © Jennifer Singleton / Read+Purr

This is another vignette in my ongoing series of Tiny Garden Stories: peaceful 1-minute tales that let you read like a kid again. Click one of the first two buttons below to go to (or back to, if that’s where you fell down the rabbit hole) either the “Public Garden” archive page or (if you’re a Story Club member) to the members-only “Private Garden” page. Or click the third button to learn more about my Tiny Garden Stories. If you’re new to Tiny Garden Story-land and would like 10 days’ worth of stories from our first year, visit ReadPurrNewsletter.com.