**Sunday, 12th March**

Victoria dropped her heavy suitcases onto the hallway floor.
—”Mum’s home!”— the girls shrieked in delight, rushing out of the nursery.

Vicky smiled. Finally, she was back. Four months of training courses behind her—dingy halls, exams—all over at last. She hugged and kissed her daughters, who clung to her. And of course, there were gifts.

—”Emily, this is for you!”— Mum handed her eldest a gorgeous, fluffy jumper. With a squeal, fashion-obsessed Em dashed off to the nursery—only to return moments later and throw her arms around her mum, cheeks flushed.

—”Thank you! I’ve wanted one just like this!”— Then she vanished again.

—”Katie, love, this is yours.”— From the suitcase, Victoria pulled something soft and blue-and-white.

Granny Rose arched a brow. What on earth was that peculiar thing now clutched in her youngest granddaughter’s tiny hands? A toy?

The hare stared back at Katie with wonky eyes. His head was solid papier-mâché, his body and limbs stuffed with wood shavings. White synthetic fur, a faded blue smock—nothing too unusual. Except…

Uglier toy you’d struggle to find. His lopsided eyes were mismatched in size, one higher than the other. A hooked nose, twisted awkwardly to the side, and thin lips frozen in a guilty, crooked grin—as if apologising for his own hideousness.

—”Blimey!”— Emily, now wrapped in her new jumper, gasped. —”Mum, what *is* that monstrosity?”—

—”Darling…”— Granny Rose sighed. —”Couldn’t you find a single decent toy in all of London? This thing’s fit for scaring crows off a field!”—

At that, little Katie flinched, hugged the hare tighter, and fled to the nursery.

—”Mum, I get it,”— Victoria said softly. —”But… Hamleys was packed to the rafters, shelves overflowing—yet he was sat all alone on the very bottom. I felt sorry for him. And… I swear, when I picked him up, he looked grateful.”—

Granny shook her head, waving a dismissive hand. Her daughter—a consultant surgeon, no less—hadn’t quite outgrown childhood fancies. Post-war austerity hadn’t spoiled them with toys.

That ugly hare, made in some long-shuttered factory, became Katie’s treasure. Christened “Percival” (the double ‘r’ in her lisp made it all the funnier), he waited patiently for her return from school each day. At night, he listened—equally patient—to her bedtime rambles. She’d fall asleep, his mangled face pressed to her cheek.

Years rolled by.

Regular washes turned Percival’s fur yellow—wood stain seeping through—and his blue smock faded to pale grey. By now, he was truly ghastly. Yet Katie adored him all the more, fussing over him like a wounded soldier.

At seventeen, when Emily had her first boy—Oliver—Percival found new purpose. The moment the baby could grasp, the hare became his idol. Oliver whispered secrets to him at bedtime, just as Katie once had.

Years later, Oliver, though reluctant, handed Percival to his wailing little cousin, Charlie. The boy’s tears dried the second his hands closed around the hare. And so, Percival gained another devoted companion.

No one batted an eye when Charlie, without hesitation, gave him to a sobbing girl in the park—muttering something in Percival’s ear first. She’d gawped, but took him.

That should’ve been the end. But…

Decades slipped past.

Last week, grey-haired Victoria visited her oldest friend, Lydia. Over tea, chatting about their youth, she—quite unprompted—told the tale of the hideous hare.

—”You don’t mean *this* horror, do you?”— Lydia produced a shapeless, threadbare thing from behind a cushion.

—”Percival!”— Victoria gasped.

—”Call him what you like, I’ve been trying to bin this eyesore for years! Great-granddaughter Lily won’t let me. Some girl gave it to her in the park when she scraped her knee…”—

Victoria cradled him. Remembered a summer’s day long gone, Katie’s thin arms squeezing the hare tight. And smiled.

**Lesson today:** Beauty’s never in the stitching—it’s in the hands that hold it.