Sometimes friends look for each other, sometimes they find us. Sam is a baby mouse, and he finds Ugo – when he's not yet Ugo – in a damp basement. Together with his boisterous siblings, the mouse is suspicious of the arrival of Esther, a turtle alone in the world, were it not for a small egg that he protects with infinite love and care. But suspicion gives way first to curiosity and then to thoughtfulness. And it is there, among the mice, in the dark, sheltered by an old sewing machine, that Ugo Singer comes into the world. Sam becomes his brother in soul as much as he is not in body and motions: a mouse and a turtle have different times, and Sam knows this, we know it. Ugo, no. Sam will help his friend fulfill his greatest wish: to get out of the basement, see the world and savor winter, despite the snow, despite Esther's fears, despite hibernation. In spite of everything. In the tradition of the fairy tale, but without moralizing or emphatic messages, with the force of evidence, Elisa Ruotolo shapes her poetic word into a story for everyone, which goes to the heart of important things and does not explain them, she simply shows them.