The Bell Above Quilt Hill

"Bedtime bell, bedtime bell, who will ring the bedtime bell?" Isla heard the whole kingdom singing it, and she pulled on her sock-boots and shouted, "Me! It's my turn tonight!"

Isla lived in the Kingdom of Blankets. The hills were folded wool, the rivers were blue stripes, and the bell hung in a tower at the very top of Quilt Hill. Every night someone climbed up and rang it, and then the whole kingdom went to sleep. Tonight Isla wanted to be the one.

She climbed and climbed. The hill was soft and slow, and her boots sank in at every step. Halfway up, she stopped. An eiderdown lay across the path, fat as a sleeping cow.

"Push," said Isla, and she pushed. Nothing moved.

"Pull," said Isla, and she pulled. The eiderdown only sighed, "Fffffoomph."

A stripy cat called Biscuit was curled on top of it, warming her toes. She had come for the sunny patch, and she was not moving either. "I'm busy," she yawned.

Isla sat down. The eiderdown was too heavy to push and too heavy to pull. She looked at the seam along its edge. It had a gap in it, as small and dark as a doorway.

"Maybe I don't have to move it," she said slowly. "Maybe I can go through it."

She crawled in. Inside, it was warm and dim, and a voice said, "Goodnight, Isla!" It was Granny's voice, from an hour ago. Everything echoed in the eiderdown tunnel, an hour late.

Then she heard her own voice, a little squeaky: "I'll ring it tonight!"

"Yes, I will," whispered Isla, and she crawled faster.

She popped out the other side, ran up the last fold, and grabbed the rope. Ding-dong-flumph! The flumph was the bell landing in a pillow.

Down in the kingdom, lamps went out one by one. Biscuit climbed up beside her and began to purr, and the wool hills hummed softly in the dark.