Mimi is a young girl about seven. She lives in a wooded area without a lot of friends or close neighbors. The animals in the woods are her friends though and she is rarely lonely. She tells people that the animals can talk to her. She has been able to understand them and sometimes to speak to them since she was younger. In fact they can talk to her though many of her family members consider her odd for saying so.

Mimi is not allowed to go out into the forest alone. A large black wolf lives in the woods and she's been warned that wolves carry children away. She wanders out into the woodlands one day and finds herself lost. She's wandering around trying to make her way out of the woods when she hears a cracking noise in the woods behind her. The large black wolf emerges from the thicket before she has time to run or even try to climb a tree. She manages to scramble to a lower branch as the wolf ambles slowly toward her, not appearing to pay much attention to her.

She thinks that it's odd that he isn't running towards her if things are as she's been told and wolves like to carry away children. She watches him for a while until he goes away, scrambles down and makes her way , after a time, to home. The next day she goes back to where he was with a bit of meat for him, climbs the tree and waits.