Gorse Asks What Each One Needs

Gorse is an old badger with a black-and-white striped face, round spectacles, and a cosy green cardigan with a hole in one elbow. Gorse lives deep inside Hollow Hill, in a burrow full of books. He is the one everybody comes to when a problem is too tangled to untangle alone.

One afternoon, Toggle the goat and Swapsy the magpie came stomping into his burrow.

“We both want the big blanket for our fort!” said Toggle.

“And there’s only one big blanket!” said Swapsy.

Gorse took off his spectacles, cleaned them slowly on his cardigan, and put them back on. He did not tell them what to do. Instead, he asked a question.

“Toggle,” he said, “what do you really need the blanket for?”

Toggle thought. “For the roof. I want my fort to have a roof so it’s dark inside, like a cave.”

“I see,” said Gorse. “And Swapsy, what do you really need it for?”

Swapsy fluffed up. “To sit on! The ground is all lumpy, and I want my fort to have a soft floor.”

Gorse smiled a slow, wise smile. “So. Toggle needs a roof. Swapsy needs a floor. Do you both need the same thing?”

Toggle and Swapsy looked at each other. “Well… no,” said Toggle. “Not exactly.”

“Then let’s look,” said Gorse. He opened a chest by the wall. Inside was the big blanket, and also a pile of old cushions, and a sheet that was thin, but very wide.

“The thin sheet would make a fine roof,” said Gorse. “It’s wide enough to cover the whole fort, and it’ll make it shady inside. And the cushions would make a soft floor.”

Toggle’s eyes lit up. “And we could put the big blanket on top of the cushions, for an EXTRA soft floor!”

“And then it’s a cave AND it’s soft!” said Swapsy.

They ran out of the burrow carrying cushions and sheets and the big blanket, chattering about their fort. They didn’t even remember they had been arguing.

Gorse settled back into his chair with a warm, quiet feeling of contentment. That was his favourite kind of afternoon.

That is Gorse’s wisdom. Before you choose a middle, ask: what does each person really need? When you listen carefully, you often find out that two people want different things. And then there might be a way for both of them to get exactly what they need.