In the quiet village of Fernwhistle, time had always moved a little slower than everywhere else. The townsfolk didn’t mind. Their crops grew just fine, and no one ever seemed to age too quickly. But one Tuesday morning, something peculiar happened: every clock in Fernwhistle stopped ticking at exactly 7:03 a.m.
People blamed power outages, the weather, even pranksters. But old Miss Alderberry, who ran the antique shop, had another idea. She claimed she saw a gray cat with a pocket watch around its neck leaping across rooftops just before the clocks died.
“Nonsense,” said the mayor.
Still, curiosity got the better of young Theo Brink. Theo had a habit of believing impossible things, like clouds being made of mashed potatoes or birds gossiping about humans. So when he heard Miss Alderberry’s story, he decided to follow the trail.
That night, he left a trail of sardines across the village square and climbed onto the bakery roof. Sure enough, at 7:03 a.m. the next morning, the gray cat appeared—flashing golden eyes and a suspiciously intelligent grin.
“Looking for time?” the cat said, startling Theo so hard he nearly fell off the roof.
“You can talk?” Theo asked.
“Of course I can. I stole time, not my vocabulary,” the cat said, tapping the pocket watch. “Time was moving too quickly for my taste. I simply… borrowed a little.”
Theo frowned. “But the whole town’s stuck!”
The cat looked genuinely thoughtful for a moment, then sighed. “Alright, fine. You can have your time back. But only if you beat me in a game of riddles.”
Three riddles later—and one particularly clever guess involving an onion wearing a hat—Theo won.
The cat handed him the pocket watch, stretched, and vanished into the morning mist. The moment Theo clicked the watch closed, the town’s clocks began ticking again.
No one believed Theo, of course. But Miss Alderberry winked at him when he passed her shop the next day. And sometimes, just before 7:03, Theo swore he still saw a flicker of gray on the rooftops.
