Ivy and the Longer Stair

"Did you hear that?" said Ivy. "Somebody is humming down there."

She put on her red trainers and picked up her torch. Ivy was an explorer, and she wanted one thing more than anything. She wanted to find the hummer and say hello.

The humming came from the old stair behind the market. Everybody in the village knew about that stair. It was longer going down than it was coming up. Nobody thought this was odd. They just packed a snack for the trip down.

Ivy went down. One step, two steps, ten steps, a hundred. The humming grew louder, but the bottom never came.

"Hello?" she called.

"Hello," said the stair, a little late.

Ivy's legs were tired, so she climbed back up to rest and try again. The stair was short going up, and she popped out at the top almost at once.

"Hmm," said Ivy.

She sat down and thought. Then she noticed a small pebble lit by her torch on the step beside her. She had an idea. She dropped the pebble, and it went plink, plink down the steps. She listened until it stopped. It took a very long time.

"The bottom is far away," she said. "So I will not walk. I will slide."

Ivy sat on her coat, like a sled, and pushed off. Whoosh! Down she went, past a hundred steps and a hundred more. Her hair flew out behind her.

At the bottom, her coat stopped with a bump. In front of her sat a round old mole in a knitted hat, humming over a pot of soup.

"Oh!" said the mole. "A visitor! I only hum so the soup will not get lonely."

"I heard you all the way up," said Ivy. "I came to say hello."

"Then you must have some," said the mole.

Ivy sat down on the bottom step. The soup was warm and tasted of carrots. The mole hummed, and this time Ivy hummed along, and the soft sound drifted up and up the long, long stair.