The Pebble Row

"My pebble broke!" called Pip, and Theo put down his fish and ran to the bedroom.

Theo was a big brother otter, and Pip was his small sister. Every night, the family put their pebbles on the shelf above the beds, in a row from big to small. Dad's was biggest. Mum's came next. Then Theo's. Pip's came last, tiny and round. Tonight it lay on the floor in two pieces.

"No pebble, no sleep," said Pip, with a wobbly lip.

"I'll find you a new one," said Theo. "Wait here."

He slid down the muddy bank to the river and dived. He came up with a pebble. It was far too big. "Not that one," he said. He dived again. This pebble was pointy and scratched his paw. "Not that one."

Theo sat on the bank and thought. Then he tried something different. He dived again and again, and he dropped every pebble he found into a heap. Plip, plop, plip. When the heap was big, he sorted it. Smallest, small, middle, big. He made a long line, just like the shelf at home.

At the end of the line there was a gap. Theo looked around for a stone to fill it. A round grey one sat on the bank, warm from the sun. He picked it up.

"Ribbit!" it said.

Theo jumped. It was a frog.

"Excuse me," said the frog. "I was sitting there. I like warm things."

"Sorry," said Theo, and he put the frog down very gently.

The frog hopped off. Where it had been sat a little stone, as smooth as an egg. Theo held it. It fitted his paw. It fitted the gap in the line, too.

"Not too big," he whispered. "Not too pointy. Just right."

He ran home and set the stone at the end of the shelf, after his own. Pip hugged it and shut her eyes. Outside, the river went hush, hush, hush.