In which Sophie pins down Howl (inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones)

He was a slitherer-outer. They all knew it,

but one did not care and another stared off in the other direction.

That left only one more, and it was up to her to try and pin him down,

to stop him avoiding all that was his to do.

So she busied herself with listening and learning,

careful to sew it all into place

where once she might not have dared.

Did it work?

No, not the first time.

Or the second. Or the third. Or the many attempts that followed.

Yet one day, after her temper was expressed in the form

of a can of weedkiller thrown at his head

(from which he hastily ducked),

she grasped her patchwork of knowledge and held it where he

could slither away no more.

As he looked upon it,

they both saw that he’d slithered away so fully

that he’d gone full circle

and ended up being honest after all.