"'Please- tame me!' he said.
'I want to, very much,' the little prince replied. 'But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.'
'One only understands the things that one tames,' said the fox."
From The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Chapter 12: Charlie
Charlie awoke with the sun and got dressed. He grabbed a ball of Stooge's Sure Cinching String on his way out of his room. He tip-toed past his parents' bedroom. His mother was asleep with the twins. She had had a rough night with the eighteen-month old babies. Percy toddled out of his room rubbing his eyes. "Madeline?" he asked bleary-eyed.
"No, Perce, she's still at her brother's," Charlie whispered, picking up the three-year-old. He carried Percy to the kitchen and set him on a chair.
"Hold this for me, Perce." Charlie handed him the ball of string. He laid his head on the table and rolled the ball around in a sleepy way. Charlie opened the cupboard. "Let's see what he have: Clabbert Munchies or Pumpkin O's. No, wait, it's empty. We'll have the Munchies".
He filled two bowls with cereal and milk and brought them to the table. "Percy, get up. Here's your breakfast."
"No." The toddler lifted his head. "Madeline makes it better," he whined.
"Come off it, it's just like she does it. Look, I'm eating mine. Yummm!" said Charlie in exaggerated enthusiasm. Percy just toyed with his spoon, so it was time for Charlie to bright out stronger ammo. "I'll give you a cookie if you eat it all." That did the trick. The boy started to eat.
Presently, Bill came in and yawned, "Where's mum?"
"Sleeping," answered Charlie with his mouth full and milk on his chin. He was eating furiously, like a half-starved elephant in a peanut factory.
Bill opened the cupboard and grabbed the Pumpkin O's box. He shook it, looked inside, gave a disappointed frown, and put it back into the cupboard. He poured a bowl of Munchies instead.
Charlie got up and grabbed the string, leaving his dirty bowl on the table. "There's no more milk."
"Yeah," said Bill holding the empty bottle. "You might have told me."
"I just did," said Charlie, stuffing an apple and a hunk of cheddar cheese into the pocket of his trousers. Before Bill could argue, Charlie was out of the back door with a bound.
The cool morning air invigorated Charlie and he became even more eager to get to work. While Madeline was staying with her brother, while he recovered from his wounds, Charlie decided to build the fort they had been planning to make. As Charlie jogged out to the big tree, he thought about how best to build it. The first order of business was to gather the branches and old boards they had found by the river several weeks ago.
Charlie found he quite enjoyed working alone. Madeline could be, well, a bit talkative and somewhat bossy even when she didn't know what she was doing - especially when she didn't. He felt sure she'd like it once it was finished, though. She'd be back in a couple of weeks, so he would have plenty of time to complete the project.
During the course of the morning, Charlie was aware that he was being watched by a furry little visitor -a small red fox. It kept peeking out from the shrubs. It was shy, but not completely reclusive, so he decided to befriend it. He squatted down and held out a bit of cheese and waited patiently. Two little black eyes just stared out quizzically. Charlie tossed the cheese to the fox. It retreated at first, then shot out like a fanged frisbee, snatched the morsel and zipped back into its hideaway. This sort of thing went on every morning for several days while Charlie worked on the fort. Each time he'd throw the cheese a shorter distance so that the fox had to come nearer and nearer to him each time. By the sixth day, he didn't throw it. Charlie held it out and the fox inched slowly closer, licking its chops, and craning its neck out as far as it would go. It wished its neck could lengthen out like a telescope, or would have, if it had known what a telescope was. Charlie sat extremely still, his arm as steady as a stone. He appeared the picture of serenity, but inside, his heart beat wildly. When the fox finally got close enough, it snatched the cheese and scurried back. Charlie beamed with delight, as happy as a fan-girl with a fresh Daniel Radcliffe autograph.