Ginger had seen plenty of strange things wandering through the fields near her grandparents’ home in Texas. She had seen grasshoppers nearly as long as her fingers, lizards that disappeared beneath rocks before she could blink, and once, a snake stretched across the dusty road that convinced her to take the very long way home.

But she had never seen anything quite like the creature digging furiously beneath the old fence.

At first, Ginger thought it was a rock. A moving rock, which was troubling enough. Then the rock backed up, turned around, and looked directly at her.

Ginger stopped.

The creature stopped.

They stared at one another.

“Well,” Ginger finally said, “you are certainly an odd-looking thing.”

The creature seemed entirely unimpressed by her opinion. It lowered its pointed nose and went back to digging.

Ginger crept closer. Its back was covered in hard-looking bands, almost as though someone had dressed it in a tiny suit of armor. It had enormous claws, little ears, and a long tail that dragged behind it in the dirt.

Ginger knew what it was. Her grandfather had told her about armadillos, although until that moment she had secretly wondered whether he was making them up. Grandfathers sometimes told stories with just enough truth in them to make a person suspicious.

“So you’re an armadillo,” she said.

The armadillo continued digging.

“I’m Ginger.”

Digging.

“You aren't very friendly.”

More digging.

Ginger sat down a few feet away and watched. Dirt flew backward between the armadillo’s legs in little sprays. Whatever it was looking for, it was taking the job very seriously.

“What are you trying to find?”

The armadillo shoved its nose deeper into the hole.

“A treasure?”

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

“Buried gold?”

Scratch, scratch.

“Maybe somebody buried a whole jar of pennies.”

The armadillo suddenly plunged its nose into the earth and came up chewing something.

Ginger wrinkled her nose.

“A bug? All that work for a bug?”

The armadillo seemed to think a bug was a perfectly respectable treasure.

Ginger decided to follow it.

The armadillo wandered beneath the fence, snuffling along the ground, stopping every few feet to investigate something only an armadillo could smell. Ginger climbed carefully over the fence and followed at a distance. They crossed a dry patch of grass, passed beneath a mesquite tree, and wandered toward an old shed at the far edge of the property.

Every now and then, the armadillo suddenly jumped.

The first time it happened, Ginger jumped too.

“What did you do that for?”

The armadillo offered no explanation.

A few minutes later, it jumped again.

Ginger laughed. “You look like a little armored rabbit.”

By now she had decided she liked the armadillo. It wasn't beautiful in the way butterflies were beautiful, or soft like a rabbit, or graceful like the birds that sailed over the fields. It was lumpy and dusty and peculiar, and its ears seemed slightly too large for its head.

But Ginger had always had a soft spot for things that were a little peculiar.

Then she noticed something.

One of the armadillo’s back feet wasn't touching the ground properly. It would take several steps, lift the foot, and then continue. Ginger moved closer and saw a piece of old wire tangled around its leg.

“Oh,” she whispered. “You've gotten yourself into trouble.”

The armadillo shuffled away when she approached.

“I know. I wouldn't trust me either.”

Ginger sat down.

She didn't chase it. She didn't grab for it. She simply waited.

The afternoon grew warm. Cicadas buzzed from the trees, and somewhere beyond the field a screen door slammed. Ginger picked at the dry grass beside her and talked quietly about nothing in particular.

Eventually, the armadillo began digging again.

Little by little, Ginger moved closer.

When she was near enough to see the wire clearly, she realized she couldn't remove it with her fingers. She would need help.

“Stay here,” she told the armadillo.

It did not promise anything.

Ginger ran all the way back to the house.

Her grandfather returned with her carrying heavy gloves, a pair of cutters, and an old wooden crate. Ginger showed him where she had last seen the armadillo, but there was nothing there except freshly turned dirt.

“He's gone!”

Her grandfather pointed toward the shed.

A small armored backside was disappearing beneath it.

It took patience, a little coaxing, and considerably more crawling in the dirt than Ginger’s grandmother would later approve of, but eventually her grandfather managed to catch the armadillo safely. He held it carefully while Ginger watched him cut away the wire.

There was a sore place underneath, but the leg wasn't badly hurt.

“There you go, little fellow,” her grandfather said, setting it gently on the ground.

For one moment, the armadillo stood perfectly still.

Then it scurried away.

Ginger watched it disappear through the grass.

“That's it?” she asked. “He's just leaving?”

Her grandfather smiled. “What did you expect?”

“I don't know. Maybe he'd look back.”

They started walking toward the house.

Behind them came a rustling sound.

Ginger turned.

At the edge of the grass stood the armadillo.

It lifted its pointed nose.

Ginger smiled.

“I knew you weren't completely rude.”

The armadillo sniffed the air for another moment, then turned and vanished beneath the fence.

After that, Ginger looked for him whenever she wandered through the fields. Sometimes she found little holes in the earth and wondered if they were his. Once she saw an armadillo far down the road and was certain it was him, although there was really no way to know.

It didn't matter.

Ginger had learned something that afternoon.

Not every creature was meant to become your friend. Some wouldn't sit beside you or follow you home. Some wouldn't even stay long enough for you to give them a proper name.

Sometimes kindness meant helping a creature when it needed you and then letting it wander back into its own wild little life.

And somewhere beneath the wide Texas sky, Ginger liked to imagine a peculiar armored fellow was still snuffling through the dirt, searching for treasure.

Even if his idea of treasure was only a bug.