It's Fern's last morning at the creek — she's grown brave enough to go explore the wide water downstream, and she's happy to go. But the friends droop into a grey, no-one-wants-to-play gloom. Then a brand-new otter named Rex slides in, joyful and certain he can fix sad with backflips — and learns, the hard way, that you can't cheer a sadness away. A goodbye-and-hello story about choosing a cheerful heart that doesn't pretend the hard away: being glad FOR a friend and sad to see them go, both at once, out loud, together. Anchored in a line the wise King Solomon wrote down in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs — a cheerful heart makes good medicine. With Professor Hoot's Totally True Facts on why river otters slide for the pure joy of it, and a Mudpuppy Minutes that explains, confidently and gloriously wrong, where a creek goes. For kids ages 4-12. Stories of kindness and courage from Old Timber and the friends at Shiloh Creek.