Percy the squirrel had won the forest's annual acorn hunt — and not by a little. He'd scurried faster, dug deeper, and grabbed every acorn he could reach, even a few that other animals were stretching for at the exact same moment.
By sundown, his hollow was stuffed floor to ceiling with acorns — more than he could possibly eat in three winters. Percy climbed to the top of his enormous pile and looked down at it all, waiting for the triumphant feeling to arrive.
It didn't. Something about sitting alone atop his mountain of acorns felt strangely hollow, though he couldn't say exactly why.
"I won," he muttered to himself, unconvinced. "I have more acorns than anyone in the whole forest. So why doesn't this feel as good as I thought it would?"
From outside, laughter drifted up through a gap in his den. Percy climbed down and peeked out to see the other animals gathered around a small, modest pile of acorns, roasting a few chestnuts, sharing stories, passing food back and forth.
"They barely have anything," Percy said to himself, confused. "So why do they look happier than me?"
He watched for a while, half-hidden, as a rabbit split her last acorn with a hungry mole, laughing about something Percy couldn't hear. The warmth of it seemed to reach him even from a distance.
Something tugged at him — not hunger, exactly, but something close to it. He glanced back at his towering, silent pile, then out at the small, noisy gathering.
Before he'd fully decided to, Percy found himself gathering an armful of acorns from his enormous stash and carrying them down toward the group.
"I have extra," he said, a little shyly, setting the acorns down among them. "More than I could ever eat. Would anyone... want some?"
The group looked up, surprised and delighted. "Percy! Join us!" called the rabbit, scooting over to make room.
Percy sat, awkward at first, passing acorns around, listening to jokes, adding a story of his own about a squirrel who nearly toppled off his own gigantic pile. The others laughed — really laughed — and something in Percy's chest loosened that had been tight all day.
By the time the fire burned low, Percy had given away more acorns than he'd kept, and he felt fuller than he had sitting alone atop his entire mountain.
"Huh," he said quietly to himself, watching the group laugh together in the firelight. "A full hollow can still feel empty. But this..."
He didn't quite have the words for it, but for the first time all day, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the others, Percy finally felt like he'd actually won something.
