Poppy and the Wind Bell

"I'm not tired," said Poppy, though her eyes were very tired indeed.

She was sitting on a strange bed in her gran's spare room. It was her first night away from home. Poppy wanted to sleep here, all by herself, like a big girl. But the pillow smelled wrong. The ceiling had a crack shaped like a rabbit. And her own bed was so far away.

"Goodnight, Poppy," said Gran, and she turned off the lamp.

Poppy lay still. She tried counting her toes. Ten. She tried hugging her elbows. That felt like nobody at all.

Outside, a bell went ding.

Poppy sat up. The bell hung by the garden door, and it rang all by itself whenever the wind changed its mind. Everyone in Gran's village knew that. Gran said it was just what bells did here.

Ding. Ding-a-ling.

Poppy tiptoed out in her socks. Something small and round was rolling across the kitchen floor. It was a ball of green wool! She reached for it, and it rolled away. She tiptoed after it, and it rolled under the table.

"Come back," whispered Poppy.

It would not. So Poppy tried something different. She sat down on the floor and stayed very, very still. Then the wool came rolling slowly back to her feet, and she scooped it up.

At the end of the wool dangled a needle, and at the end of the needle was Gran, in her dressing gown.

"I couldn't sleep either," said Gran. "I wasn't used to a visitor."

Poppy looked at the wool. She had an idea. She tied one end around her wrist and the other end around the leg of Gran's chair.

"Now it can't roll away," she said. "And I can't either."

"And I'll be right here," said Gran, "making you a sock."

Back in bed, Poppy held the green string in her hand. The bell went ding, then ding again, then slower. Then the wind settled, and the house grew quiet.