The Blue Door in the Shed

Ivy was stacking flowerpots in the garden shed when she saw the door.

It was small and blue, and it sat behind the biggest pots at the very back. Ivy had lived in this house all her life. She had never seen it before.

"A door!" she said. "I want to see what's on the other side."

She pushed it. Nothing happened.

There was a round hole where the knob should be. The knob had broken off long ago. Ivy poked her finger in the hole and tried to pull. Her finger just slid about.

"Not yet," she said, and she tried something different. She tied a bit of string to a twig and pushed it in. She pulled. The string slipped out and she fell on her bottom, with a bump.

A hedgehog looked out from behind a pot. He was only there to hunt for slugs, and he did not care about doors. He sniffed at Ivy's shoe and went back to his hunting.

Ivy sat and looked around her. There were big pots and small pots and pots with chips in them. There was a little round pot with a lid, and on top of the lid was a knob. It was blue, just like the door.

Ivy looked at the knob. Then she looked at the hole.

"Oh," she said.

She twisted the knob off the lid. It fitted into the hole as if it had been waiting. She pulled.

Squeak, said the door.

Warm air came in, and it smelled of salt. Ivy saw yellow sand and a long, flat sea. A wave went hush, hush, hush.

She stepped through, and the sand was soft and warm under her toes. Behind her the door squeaked again. The hedgehog's nose poked out of the shed, then went back in.

Ivy wiggled her toes in the sand and listened to the sea go hush.