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The
Itchy Little Musk Ox
Tricia Brown
Illustrated by Debra Dubac
CONTENTS
Once there was a little musk ox with an itch he couldn’t scratch. It had been a long winter, and he felt like he’d been in the same clothes for nine months. His sloping horns were too short and too low on his head to reach his itchy back.
“Good-for-nothing horns!” he grumbled. The itch had put him in a very bad mood.
The little musk ox tried not to think about the itch. He tried humming. He tried running in circles. The itch only spread. To his neck, to his belly, to a spot right above his nose.
The woolly-scratchy-itchiness was driving him wild!
The little musk ox knew others in the herd must be just as itchy, but they grazed and stared off across the tundra at nothing in particular.
“Patience,” said his mother. “Wait like the others and it will pass.”
“Good-for-nothing patience,” cried the little musk ox. “I wish I was anything but a dumb ol’ musk ox!”
The itchy little musk ox gazed at the tundra. There wasn’t a tree or a rock pile or anything to rub against. So the little musk ox went looking.
He wandered far. And there, at last, was a tree! And another, and another.
He rubbed his back, his sides, his cheeks, his chin, and even that spot right above his nose. It was heavenly.
The little musk ox rubbed against this tree and that, leaving tufts of fluffy underwool called qiviut (KIV-ee-yute) hanging everywhere, like woolly tinsel. But now he had a new problem.
“Which way leads back to the herd?” he wondered.
He tried following the trail of qiviut, but the breeze mixed it all up. The little musk ox was afraid to go too far, scared that he’d get even more lost.
“Good-for-nothing woolly coat!” he whispered. He wished he were back with his herd, huddled in the middle of all of those soft, woolly bodies instead of lost and alone in these tall, scary trees.
He wasn’t alone for long. Along came a buffalo with big muscles and curly hair. He was so vain that he couldn’t pass by a pond without staring at his reflection. The buffalo snorted with laughter when he saw the messy-looking musk ox.
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