Peanut the Pony was in the wood savouring the juicy grass when suddenly—completely out of the blue—a little girl called Emma landed right in front of his nose. “What are you doing here, you silly thing?” said Peanut in surprise. “I took too many balloons and the wind carried me away from Mummy and Daddy,” replied Emma sadly, a tear appearing in the corner of her eye.

What was poor Peanut to do? There was nothing for it but to load the little girl onto his back and set off in search of Mummy and Daddy. Emma had stopped crying. Now her little feet were kicking at the enormous bilberries in their path, whose sweet juice was squirting everywhere. “If you're not careful, you'll get so dirty that Mummy and Daddy won't recognize you, and then you'll have to stay with me.” Peanut was only pretending to be cross. Really he was glad that the little girl had stopped crying.

Peanut and Emma reached the end of the bilberry wood and came to a land where there was nothing but sand. The castles, animals, plants—everything was made of sand. “Don't puff and pant like that, Peanut,” the little girl told off the pony. “Or you'll blow everything away.” “I'm not puffing and panting,” Peanut snorted, and the top of a sandcastle tower nearby fell off.

It was not easy for Emma and Peanut to make their way through the sand, but in the water it was much worse. Peanut could hardly put one hoof in front of the other, and Emma clung to his neck for fear she'd be swept away by a whirlpool. To make matters worse, a great catfish was on guard, and he got very cross with them. “Hell's bells! You're supposed to wash before you come in here! A chap can hardly see his fin in front of his face! The nippers will swim away from me, just like last time!”

On the other side of the lake they came across a meadow with the softest, juiciest grass and the sweetest-smelling flowers in the world. Peanut longed to rest a while, to eat the green grass and breathe in the scents of the meadow flowers, but the little girl had no interest in this. “You can eat at the fair,” she said. “They've got sausages, and lollipops, and candyfloss, and chocolate, and ice cream. Everything you can think of.”

By now Peanut was terribly tired. But then they saw an ice-cream van broken down at the side of the road. And what kind of summer would it be without proper ice cream! Besides, by now the sun was beating down and there was a danger the ice cream would melt. So they had to pull the van to the nearest garage as quickly as they could. “When people think they're too tired to go on, it isn't true,” Emma com-forted Peanut. “It's only when they think it a third time that they really are too tired.”

Before they reached the town, Emma and Peanut happened upon a circus. All the circus performers waved to them—there were elephants, monkeys, fire eaters and jugglers, and some beautiful white ponies that invited Peanut to join them. Peanut moved his head to show them Emma on his back. “Certainly not! I have a child to look after.” A little further down the road, the pony let the girl in on a secret. “You know, I'm not very keen on those flashy circus girls...”

It is lovely at the fair, but Mummy and Daddy are terrified. They bought Emma as many balloons as she wanted, but suddenly the wind got up and their little girl flew away to goodness knows where. Nothing can make Mummy feel any better. She cries and cries. But then she looks up and sees Emma on the biggest ride at the fair, waving to her. “Mummy! Daddy!” Emma shouts, and her words go round with the swans and are carried up above the town, so that all mummies and daddies run to their boys and girls and kiss them.

Mummy and Daddy were very happy that Emma was back. They thanked the pony who had brought her to them and offered him a bed for the night and as much hay as he could eat. But Peanut said no—he wanted to see his friends at the circus and enjoy the meadow with the juiciest grass and the sweetest-smelling flowers in the world.

Written by Rudolf Král / Drawings by Jan Laštovièka / Published in 2012