The Kettle That Sang Hello

Amelia found a trail of tiny blue crumbs on the park path. She wanted to know who had dropped them, so she followed. Crumb, crumb, crumb, all the way past the pond.

The trail ended at the water tap. A tall man in a grey coat stood there, filling a kettle. A tin with a hole in the bottom hung from his hand.

He looked all around the park, like someone who had just moved to town and did not know a single soul.

Amelia held her backpack straps tight. Mama always said a new face needs a nice word. Amelia wanted to say one. She really did.

"Hello," she whispered.

The tap went splash-splash-splash. The man did not hear.

She waved. He was watching the water, and he did not see.

She tried holding up her cookie, but a duck waddled up and honked at it. "Honk!" The man laughed at the duck, not at her. Amelia's cheeks went hot.

Then the kettle began to whistle, loud and wobbly, a tune like a hiccup with a skip in it. Toot-a-loo, toot-a-loo.

Nobody in the park looked up. Every kettle there sang a different song for whoever filled it. But Amelia listened hard, and she noticed the song sounded happy, even though the man did not.

"Your kettle sings a nice song," she said, much louder this time.

The man turned around. "Does it?" he said. "I never listened before."

"It sounds like good morning," said Amelia.

The man smiled a slow smile. The kettle gave one more toot-a-loo, then puffed steam right onto the duck. The duck honked and flapped away.

The man laughed, and the kettle kept singing, and blue crumbs dropped from the tin, one, two, three, onto Amelia's sneakers.