One day, a fox and a cat were walking through a field. The cat seemed unusually distracted, however, despite the fox’s animated conversation. While the fox surely noticed, she did her best to try and draw the cat out through sheer ebullience. It had worked in the past, why not now?

“What’s bothering you?” the fox asked, relenting.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said the cat.

“Come on, if it was nothing, you wouldn’t be such a sourpuss, now, would you?” the fox joked.

The cat was unamused. “It’s…really nothing. I can’t say. It’s a secret.”

“That’s three things. Is it nothing, can you not say, or is it a secret?”

The cat blushed in his ears, “It’s a secret.”

“Can you tell me?” asked the fox.

“No, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore!” frumped the cat.

The fox and the cat walked on in silence for a bit. The secret was clearly bothering the cat, but the fox couldn’t think of how to help.

“I know,” said the fox, brightening up. “You can tell your secret to my tail. Not even I know what my tail thinks. You can get it off your chest, and no one need actually learn your secret.

The cat thought for a moment, and then nodded, “Okay, but put your paws over your ears!”

The fox put her paws over her ears and stood still, admiring the scenery, while the cat put his muzzle in the dense fur of the fox’s tail and whispered his secret, weaving it through the fur. The fox heard nothing but the rustle of pawpads in fur, the cat felt immensely better getting whatever it was off his chest that he needed to, and the tail, to this day, has never let slip the cat’s secret. That is why it is said that a good way to feel better is to weave your secrets through a fox’s tail: they will surely be kept safe with not even the fox knowing them.

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