Toggle Takes Turns

Toggle is a young goat with little grey horns and a silver bell on her collar. Toggle lives near the top of Hollow Hill, next to the best swing in the whole meadow, a wooden seat hanging from a long rope under an old oak.

Everyone loves that swing. And that is exactly the problem.

One morning, Toggle and her friend Swapsy the magpie both reached the swing at the very same moment.

“I want it!” said Toggle.

“I want it!” said Swapsy.

They both grabbed the rope. They pulled. The swing twisted and spun, and nobody got to swing at all.

Toggle felt hot and fizzy and cross. Why does Swapsy always want what I want? she thought.

Then she remembered something her friend Dinah always said. How much, really? Swapsy didn’t always want what Toggle wanted. Just right now. Just this swing.

Toggle let go of the rope. She took a big breath through her nose.

“What if,” Toggle said, “you go first, then me?”

Swapsy blinked. “Really? You’d let me go first?”

“Ten big swings each,” said Toggle. “Then we switch. We’ll count them out loud together, so it’s fair.”

Swapsy hopped onto the seat. Toggle pushed. “One!” they both shouted. “Two! Three!”

It was hard for Toggle to wait. Her hooves wanted to dance. But counting out loud helped. It made the waiting feel like part of the game.

“Eight! Nine! TEN!”

Swapsy jumped off. “Your turn, Toggle!”

And Toggle swung, and Swapsy pushed, and they counted to ten together again. And then Swapsy went again, and then Toggle. Back and forth, back and forth, all morning long.

Somewhere around the sixth turn, Toggle noticed something. She was having more fun than if she’d had the swing all to herself. Because now she had someone to push her, and someone to count with, and someone to laugh with when the swing went extra high.

“You first, then me,” Toggle said, ringing her little bell. “It’s the best way to share a swing.”

That is Toggle’s kind of middle. When two people want the same thing at the same time, one way to make it fair is to take turns. You go first, then me. Then you, then me again. Nobody gets everything at once. But everybody gets a turn.