In tonight’s bedtime story for kids, imaginative twins Beth and Theo are building a whole village in their garage with everyday items. Around their made-up village whizzes a gleaming toy train, driven by a badger with a shiny hat. One night, the twins decide to peek at the town after dark, and they are astounded by what they find. So relax, get sleepy, and let's begin!
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Narrator 🎙 Abbe Opher
Author ✍️ Jane Thomas
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hey, parents of little ones. Exciting news introducing Koala Tots,
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Speaker 1: my new sleep show for babies and toddlers designed to
00:00:10
Speaker 1: help them drift off faster and stay asleep longer. It
00:00:14
Speaker 1: features calming rhymes, original bedtime stories and soothing sleep sounds.
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Speaker 1: It'll not only soothe them, but also contribute to their
00:00:24
Speaker 1: cognitive development as they sleep. Find Koala Tots on your
00:00:28
Speaker 1: favorite podcast platform, hit follow and make the next naptime
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Speaker 1: a breeze. I'll see you there. Hello, and welcome back
00:00:47
Speaker 1: to Kohala Moon, a podcast of original children's bedtime stories
00:00:52
Speaker 1: and meditations designed to make bedtime a dream. Coco has
00:00:58
Speaker 1: got his drums out wants to give a rousing warm
00:01:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Emmy Probot. Thank you for choosing us over
00:01:07
Speaker 1: your audio books. Immy Ellie in County Meath and Elliott
00:01:11
Speaker 1: Higgins in Dublin, Brother and Sister May and Emmett Ada
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Speaker 1: s Linneia Brooklyn Marie from Australia and Fion in West Yorkshire.
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Speaker 1: Welcome from me too, and thank you for deciding to
00:01:25
Speaker 1: join the club and support the show. We love hearing
00:01:28
Speaker 1: from you and knowing that you're enjoying bedtimes. Enjoy all
00:01:31
Speaker 1: of the extra episodes and let us know what you'd
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Speaker 1: like to hear more of. We're all ears. Wow. That's
00:01:37
Speaker 1: a funny phrase, isn't it. But you know what I
00:01:40
Speaker 1: mean talking of ears. Tonight, we're going to try something.
00:01:45
Speaker 1: I'd like you to get into bed, get comfy, breathe out,
00:01:50
Speaker 1: and try to relax everything I mean everything except your ears.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: So breathe in and out. Relax your body, your arms,
00:02:07
Speaker 1: Relax your legs and your feet especially now breathe and
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Speaker 1: relax your shoulders, drop them right back down into the mattress,
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Speaker 1: and relax your head to try to just breathe in
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Speaker 1: through your nose, and as you breathe out through your mouth,
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Speaker 1: relax your forehead and your cheeks and mouth and tongue
00:02:38
Speaker 1: so it's just resting in your mouth, just down behind
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Speaker 1: your teeth. Lovely, poor relax now you only need your
00:02:48
Speaker 1: ears for this. And if you drift off soon, that's
00:02:52
Speaker 1: totally fine. You can listen again anytime. As you relax,
00:02:58
Speaker 1: imagine in your mind some kitchen foil, cotton, wool and paper.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: In tonight's story, imaginative twins Beth and Theo are building
00:03:10
Speaker 1: a whole village in their garage with everyday items around
00:03:15
Speaker 1: their made up village whizzes a gleaming toy train driven
00:03:20
Speaker 1: by a badger with a shiny hat. Tonight, the twins
00:03:24
Speaker 1: decide to peek at the town after dark, and they
00:03:27
Speaker 1: are astounded by what they find. Now it's time to
00:03:32
Speaker 1: start the teeny Tiny Toy Town by Jane Thomas. Beth
00:03:46
Speaker 1: and THEO step back and admired their work. It had
00:03:50
Speaker 1: taken all their spare time for a whole week to
00:03:53
Speaker 1: put everything together. The twins had stolen moments before breakfast
00:03:58
Speaker 1: stand when they'd come home from school and turned down
00:04:01
Speaker 1: invitations to the park and the swimming pool in order
00:04:04
Speaker 1: to work on their masterpiece. With the final duck in
00:04:08
Speaker 1: place on the pond, their village was complete. It all
00:04:13
Speaker 1: started when Beth was given a little family of woodland
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Speaker 1: creatures a few years before. Not real ones, you understand,
00:04:20
Speaker 1: but tiny little toys that came with jackets and trousers
00:04:24
Speaker 1: and hats and dresses. At the same time, THEO had
00:04:29
Speaker 1: been given a pile of wooden building blocks in every
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Speaker 1: color of the rainbow. They were twins who shared everything together,
00:04:38
Speaker 1: and the woodland creatures and the building blocks were no exception.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Dio spent hours creating miniature schools for the creatures to attend,
00:04:48
Speaker 1: and Beth spent hours arranging her creatures in the houses
00:04:52
Speaker 1: and bakeries and libraries that were assembled in the room
00:04:55
Speaker 1: above the garage. Together, they made beds and sofas from
00:05:00
Speaker 1: cardboard boxes, adding softness with mounds of cotton wool and
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Speaker 1: tiny cutoffs of material from their mother's sewing shop. Their
00:05:09
Speaker 1: mother saved the scraps every day and solemnly handed them
00:05:14
Speaker 1: over at the end of each week, watching as Beth
00:05:17
Speaker 1: and Theo transformed remnants from skirts and shirts into carpets
00:05:23
Speaker 1: and curtains. But the crowning glory, the thing that had
00:05:28
Speaker 1: taken them a week to add to their scene, was
00:05:31
Speaker 1: a miniature train set. The twins had been eyeing one
00:05:36
Speaker 1: up for months. Every time they went to town, they
00:05:40
Speaker 1: would drag their parents along to the toy store window
00:05:43
Speaker 1: and make them watch a train set. There were three
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Speaker 1: smartly painted carriages, all blue with a white stripe along
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Speaker 1: the middle, and inside there were rows of seats just
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Speaker 1: waiting to be sat on by the army of woodland
00:05:59
Speaker 1: creatures had gathered. At the front was a glorious, shining,
00:06:05
Speaker 1: bright red steam engine. If you pulled a handle on
00:06:09
Speaker 1: the side, the engine whistled and smoke came out of
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Speaker 1: the chimney. The three carriages were pulled by the engine
00:06:18
Speaker 1: around meta after meta of track. Anyone buying the train
00:06:24
Speaker 1: set in all its glory, would be lucky enough to
00:06:28
Speaker 1: have two bridges included, one of which was an adorable
00:06:32
Speaker 1: little arched stone bridge and the other being a modern
00:06:36
Speaker 1: suspension bridge that reached up as high as the crossing
00:06:39
Speaker 1: its banned. There was also everything there for the owners
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Speaker 1: of the track to create, a tunnel, and sets of
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Speaker 1: signals to put at important road crossings, and train station
00:06:53
Speaker 1: with a tiny ticket office in a separate waiting room.
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Speaker 1: Beth and Theo really believe their parents would ever get
00:07:02
Speaker 1: them the train set, but they dreamed of owning it
00:07:05
Speaker 1: and including it in their village above the garage, and
00:07:10
Speaker 1: actually they were right. The twins' parents worked hard, but
00:07:15
Speaker 1: the train set was terribly expensive, and it broke their
00:07:19
Speaker 1: hearts to know it would never be a part of
00:07:21
Speaker 1: the village their children had so lovingly created. So it
00:07:27
Speaker 1: gave Beth and Theo's father quite a turn when somebody
00:07:32
Speaker 1: offered him an old train set in exchange for help
00:07:36
Speaker 1: fixing his car. Never had he peddled his little bike
00:07:41
Speaker 1: faster to a job. Never had he so willingly thrown
00:07:45
Speaker 1: down his pile of spanners and wrenches and lifted the
00:07:48
Speaker 1: hood of a car. His hands positively flew about the engine,
00:07:54
Speaker 1: tweaking this pipe and tightening that screw, pouring in exactly
00:07:59
Speaker 1: the right amount of oil into this cylinder, and exactly
00:08:04
Speaker 1: the right amount of water into that. So when the
00:08:08
Speaker 1: man went to start his car, it almost sounded as
00:08:12
Speaker 1: if the engine was singing. It took their father five
00:08:18
Speaker 1: trips on his bicycle to bring the train set back
00:08:21
Speaker 1: home in bags he swung from the handlebars, and a
00:08:25
Speaker 1: box he strapped to the rack on the back. For
00:08:28
Speaker 1: night after night, he and the twins' mother sat up
00:08:32
Speaker 1: and carefully repainted the battered old trainset, painting all four
00:08:38
Speaker 1: carriages a cheerful blue and giving them a silver line
00:08:43
Speaker 1: right along the middle. The engine became a glorious red
00:08:49
Speaker 1: with a golden chimney, and the V shaped grate on
00:08:52
Speaker 1: the front also shone with the shimmering golden paint. The
00:08:57
Speaker 1: tired and worn seats were therefully removed and covered with
00:09:02
Speaker 1: new material. Each piece of track was polished until it gleamed,
00:09:08
Speaker 1: and they added taut wires to the suspension bridge to
00:09:11
Speaker 1: replace the ones that had rusted, and made sure all
00:09:15
Speaker 1: the signals were a bright red and white. There was
00:09:20
Speaker 1: no way for them to make the engine whistle and
00:09:23
Speaker 1: produce smoke in the way the one in the shop
00:09:25
Speaker 1: window did so. Instead, they added a teeny tiny bell
00:09:30
Speaker 1: they borrowed from a toy ship that was broken beyond
00:09:33
Speaker 1: repair after THEO had accidentally sat on it one day.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: Beth and THEO knew something was up, but they weren't
00:09:44
Speaker 1: sure what because their parents kept smiling and giggling to themselves.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Beth spent hours secretly hoping they were getting a puppy,
00:09:54
Speaker 1: and THEO spent hours secretly hoping they were getting a kitten,
00:10:00
Speaker 1: but neither of them could have guessed what was in
00:10:03
Speaker 1: the enormous box on the kitchen table when they came
00:10:07
Speaker 1: home from school last week. The arrival of the train
00:10:12
Speaker 1: set meant re arranging some elements of the village, and
00:10:16
Speaker 1: because the train came with a tunnel, they needed to
00:10:19
Speaker 1: build a hill for the tunnel to run beneath. By
00:10:23
Speaker 1: the time they had finished, they had a complete village
00:10:27
Speaker 1: set around a lake made of blue crape paper and
00:10:31
Speaker 1: dotted with tiny rubber ducks and boats made from folded
00:10:36
Speaker 1: white paper. It was surrounded by green hills made from papiamache,
00:10:43
Speaker 1: painted green and dotted with tiny white flowers. Some cows
00:10:49
Speaker 1: grazed on one slope and on another. Because THEO wanted
00:10:54
Speaker 1: to incorporate absolutely everything he could, a clutch of dinosaurs
00:10:59
Speaker 1: money the grass, of course, explained THEO importantly when he
00:11:06
Speaker 1: showed the completed display to his parents. The Tyrannosaurus wrecks
00:11:12
Speaker 1: wouldn't really have eaten grass, but Beth kicked up a
00:11:16
Speaker 1: right fust when I put a sheep in his mouth,
00:11:19
Speaker 1: so we decided to make this one vegetarian. The arched
00:11:25
Speaker 1: stone bridge guided the train across a silver stream made
00:11:29
Speaker 1: of crumpled up kitchen foil, and the suspension bridge helped
00:11:33
Speaker 1: it cross a huge canyon created by moving two tables
00:11:37
Speaker 1: three feet apart. In the town itself was everything a
00:11:44
Speaker 1: village could need. There was a bakery called Roller, with
00:11:49
Speaker 1: rows of bagels and buns made from salt dough lined
00:11:53
Speaker 1: up in the window. There was a little pharmacy with
00:11:57
Speaker 1: a smart red cross outside to let the residents know
00:12:01
Speaker 1: what was inside. There was a bookshop called Peek, a
00:12:05
Speaker 1: book filled with hundreds of books Beth and THEO had
00:12:09
Speaker 1: made from scraps of paper. A newsagent had shelves piled
00:12:15
Speaker 1: with all those useful things you find in newsagents, like
00:12:19
Speaker 1: pens and pencils, chocolate bars and bottles of fizzy drinks,
00:12:24
Speaker 1: and of course set up outside into piles tied with
00:12:28
Speaker 1: string rows of newspapers. I came up with a name
00:12:34
Speaker 1: for the newspaper, said Beth, proudly, showing off the latest
00:12:39
Speaker 1: copy of the Village Voice Local News and Views. The
00:12:44
Speaker 1: headline declared, of course, the arrival of the railway, and
00:12:51
Speaker 1: so over garage Village was complete. Beth and THEO made
00:12:58
Speaker 1: sure to put all the creatures into the right houses
00:13:01
Speaker 1: that night, nestling them under the sheets and turning their
00:13:06
Speaker 1: heads on the cottonwall pillows so they looked as comfortable
00:13:09
Speaker 1: as possible. All the cars were parked up on driveways,
00:13:15
Speaker 1: the train was snoozing in the station, and the cows
00:13:20
Speaker 1: were taken in for the night. Just before they turned
00:13:24
Speaker 1: the lights off and said good night to their masterpiece,
00:13:27
Speaker 1: their father remembered one last thing. He disappeared for a
00:13:32
Speaker 1: moment before returning with a tiny box Beth opened it
00:13:38
Speaker 1: to see the smallest, shiniest, smartest black cap she'd ever seen.
00:13:46
Speaker 1: It's important for the creature who drives the train to
00:13:50
Speaker 1: know it's their job, explained their father, So Theo and
00:13:56
Speaker 1: Beth thought carefully before selecting a wise old bag to
00:14:00
Speaker 1: be the train driver. They placed the cap on his
00:14:06
Speaker 1: kitchen table, just where he might have left it after
00:14:09
Speaker 1: taking it off after a long day's work, and said
00:14:12
Speaker 1: a final good night to over garage village. Beth and
00:14:19
Speaker 1: Theo soon found the problem with creating something as wonderful
00:14:24
Speaker 1: as their little village. Even though they'd had their bath
00:14:29
Speaker 1: and cleaned their teeth and brushed their hair and climbed
00:14:33
Speaker 1: into soft, clean pajamas and buried themselves deep in their beds,
00:14:39
Speaker 1: they just couldn't sleep. The full moon shone through their
00:14:45
Speaker 1: thin curtains, and they both tossed and turned this way
00:14:49
Speaker 1: and that, unable to stop thinking about the ducks on
00:14:53
Speaker 1: the pond and the dinosaurs in the field. As soon
00:14:59
Speaker 1: as their far snores started to drift through the door,
00:15:03
Speaker 1: Beth turned to Theo and whispered, let's go and have
00:15:08
Speaker 1: another look. Theo didn't need to be asked twice as
00:15:15
Speaker 1: quietly as they could, holding their breath for good measure.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: They turned the handle of their bedroom door and willed
00:15:23
Speaker 1: it not to squeak as they pulled it open. They
00:15:28
Speaker 1: tiptoed down the stairs, making sure to miss out the
00:15:32
Speaker 1: one that creaked and padded softly through the kitchen and
00:15:37
Speaker 1: into their garage. Beth led the way up the ladder,
00:15:42
Speaker 1: feeling her way in the dark, and carefully pushing open
00:15:46
Speaker 1: the hatch. The full moon was so bright it was
00:15:53
Speaker 1: as if a lamp had been lit in the room
00:15:56
Speaker 1: above the garage. It shone through the huge windows and
00:16:02
Speaker 1: poured onto the village, and Beth looked across from her
00:16:07
Speaker 1: perch on top of the ladder. The village was alive.
00:16:14
Speaker 1: The train was chugging slowly around the track. The cows
00:16:20
Speaker 1: were back in the field and eating the grass, and
00:16:25
Speaker 1: the ducks swam and dived in the duck pond. Beth
00:16:32
Speaker 1: whispered the o from the bottom of the ladder, get
00:16:36
Speaker 1: a move on. What's happening up there? Why aren't you
00:16:41
Speaker 1: letting me come up? Beth didn't know what to say.
00:16:48
Speaker 1: She turned and opened her mouth, but no words came out.
00:16:54
Speaker 1: Looking a little like a goldfish, she stood there for
00:16:58
Speaker 1: a while, opening and closing her mouth and hoping something, anything,
00:17:05
Speaker 1: would emerge. In the end, she just beckoned for him
00:17:11
Speaker 1: to follow her and climbed the last step, so she
00:17:15
Speaker 1: was standing alongside over garage village. Theo clambered up next
00:17:24
Speaker 1: to her and clapped his hands over his mouth. The
00:17:29
Speaker 1: twins exchanged wide eyed looks, and then turned back to
00:17:34
Speaker 1: the tables. Sure enough, the badger was wearing his cap
00:17:41
Speaker 1: and driving the train. In fact, he was just pulling
00:17:46
Speaker 1: into the station, and as he did, he leaned out
00:17:50
Speaker 1: of the window and rang the little bell that the
00:17:53
Speaker 1: twins father had borrowed from the broken boat. The platform
00:17:59
Speaker 1: was filled with all all manner of creatures dressed in
00:18:02
Speaker 1: the outfits the twins had lovingly made all aboard called
00:18:09
Speaker 1: a raccoon, pointing with a flag to the open train doors.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: Moles and foxes and stoats climbed down from the blue
00:18:20
Speaker 1: and silver carriages, and mice and squirrels and owls hopped
00:18:26
Speaker 1: on to take their place. A whole line of miniature
00:18:32
Speaker 1: creatures dressed in uniforms were being ushered aboard by a
00:18:37
Speaker 1: couple of bears. Look said Beth, pointing at the neat
00:18:43
Speaker 1: row of chattering creatures, the school children having an outing.
00:18:50
Speaker 1: The raccoon walked along the platform, making sure the carriage
00:18:54
Speaker 1: doors were properly shut, and waved his flag at the
00:18:57
Speaker 1: badger and blew a whistle. The train pulled smartly away,
00:19:02
Speaker 1: bell ringing, and a few of the school children's mothers
00:19:05
Speaker 1: waved from the platform before heading off towards the shops
00:19:09
Speaker 1: with their bags and baskets. Theo and Beth watched as
00:19:15
Speaker 1: the train chugged its way across the arched stone bridge
00:19:20
Speaker 1: and headed off into the countryside they'd created. The passengers
00:19:26
Speaker 1: looked out of the windows, pointing at flowers and fences
00:19:31
Speaker 1: and sheep and cows. When the train disappeared into the tunnel,
00:19:37
Speaker 1: the twins heard laughter and giggles and ghost noises, and
00:19:43
Speaker 1: then one of the bears called out for everyone to
00:19:46
Speaker 1: be quiet, and the words echoed around inside the carriage
00:19:51
Speaker 1: as it traveled under the hill just on the other side.
00:19:57
Speaker 1: The train slowly stopped again along side a platform the
00:20:01
Speaker 1: twins had quickly put together, and the badger once more
00:20:06
Speaker 1: rang his bell, and another raccoon appeared, calling out, everyone
00:20:12
Speaker 1: for the hill, Everyone for the hill. All the school
00:20:18
Speaker 1: children filed out, lining up in some sort of order
00:20:22
Speaker 1: on the platform before being ushered away by the two bears.
00:20:28
Speaker 1: They started walking up the path of pebbles the oh
00:20:31
Speaker 1: had put in place, winding around and around the hill
00:20:36
Speaker 1: until they reached the part where the dinosaurs grazed. Here
00:20:42
Speaker 1: all the children sat down and pulled out pencils and
00:20:45
Speaker 1: notepads and started drawing what they saw. While one of
00:20:49
Speaker 1: the bears, the one in the yellow waistcoat and blue
00:20:53
Speaker 1: bow tie, talked through the different types of dinosaurs they
00:20:57
Speaker 1: were seeing. He seemed to interrup upped his own talk. Funny,
00:21:04
Speaker 1: the bear said, taking a pair of glasses from his
00:21:07
Speaker 1: waistcoat pocket and peering more closely. That's a tea rex
00:21:16
Speaker 1: and he's eating grass. Gosh, children, this is changing history
00:21:24
Speaker 1: as we know it. Make sure you draw him as
00:21:27
Speaker 1: beautifully as you can so you never forget this moment.
00:21:34
Speaker 1: The tea rex has always been known as a meat eater,
00:21:38
Speaker 1: but here we see him bold as brass, eating grass.
00:21:46
Speaker 1: The children dutifully oowed and looked impressed, and started fresh
00:21:51
Speaker 1: pages of drawings. The twins left the group on the
00:21:56
Speaker 1: hillside drawing their dinosaurs, and walked back around the table
00:22:00
Speaker 1: to be able to see the heart of the village.
00:22:05
Speaker 1: They watched as a giraffe and a lion, and unlikely
00:22:09
Speaker 1: pairing if ever, there was sat down at a table
00:22:12
Speaker 1: outside the Copper Kettle cafe. A beaver bustled out and
00:22:17
Speaker 1: took their order, returning a few moments later with buns
00:22:22
Speaker 1: that Beth recognized as hers she had made just a
00:22:26
Speaker 1: few days earlier for the bakery. Two steaming cups of
00:22:30
Speaker 1: coffee were set alongside the buns, and the beaver disappeared
00:22:35
Speaker 1: back inside. The giraffe, dressed in a bright pink tutu,
00:22:41
Speaker 1: leaned her long neck down so she could hear what
00:22:45
Speaker 1: the lion was saying. It's a miracle, whispered Beth. All
00:22:52
Speaker 1: the animals are getting along. The oh looked at her
00:22:58
Speaker 1: and raised an eyebrow. That's what you get from this,
00:23:04
Speaker 1: he said, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
00:23:08
Speaker 1: You don't think, oh my word, an entire model village
00:23:13
Speaker 1: has come to life. Beth shifted about on her bare feet. Well,
00:23:20
Speaker 1: she said, defensively, you're the one who is apparently just
00:23:25
Speaker 1: fine with the dinosaurs coming to life. They looked at
00:23:30
Speaker 1: each other and laughed, stifling the sound as much as
00:23:34
Speaker 1: they could. The giraffe swung her head upwards and looked around, blinking.
00:23:42
Speaker 1: What's that the twins heard her say to the lion. Oh,
00:23:48
Speaker 1: the paper said there would be thunder to day. It's
00:23:51
Speaker 1: probably just that, the lion replied, soothingly. The giraffe seemed
00:23:58
Speaker 1: to shrug as much as a creature without any discernible
00:24:02
Speaker 1: shoulders can shrug, and lean down again to get on
00:24:06
Speaker 1: with the gossip. The Oh and Beth watched as the
00:24:11
Speaker 1: whole village carried on exactly as they had always imagined
00:24:15
Speaker 1: it might. The ducks paddled their way around the pond.
00:24:21
Speaker 1: A squirrel was working in the bakery, handing over salt
00:24:24
Speaker 1: dough rolls in exchange for plastic coins in Peek a book.
00:24:30
Speaker 1: An owl wandered around the shelves, putting books back in
00:24:34
Speaker 1: their rightful places, and scurrying across to the counter to
00:24:39
Speaker 1: help a mouse buy a copy of Wind in the Willows.
00:24:43
Speaker 1: A very serious looking sloth in a long white coat
00:24:48
Speaker 1: stood at the back of the pharmacy, reading through notes
00:24:53
Speaker 1: and adding bottles and boxes to small paper bags ready
00:24:57
Speaker 1: to be picked up by the day's customers. Beth giggled
00:25:03
Speaker 1: as she saw two beavers walk through the town with
00:25:06
Speaker 1: fishing rods over their shoulders, heading for the pond and
00:25:11
Speaker 1: casting their lines. They sat down in silence on their
00:25:16
Speaker 1: wicker baskets and settled back for a snooze, just the
00:25:22
Speaker 1: way her father and grandfather did when they went fishing together.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: They weren't sure how long they watched, but as the
00:25:33
Speaker 1: moonlight started to shift and move away from the windows,
00:25:38
Speaker 1: it was clear that evening was settling into the town.
00:25:44
Speaker 1: The train picked up the school children and their teachers
00:25:48
Speaker 1: on its final round, returning them to waiting parents at
00:25:53
Speaker 1: the station, who clutched tiny claws and paws and guided
00:25:58
Speaker 1: them home. The twins stood and looked as the village
00:26:05
Speaker 1: closed down for the day. The shops were tidied up,
00:26:10
Speaker 1: the doors were firmly closed, and everybody headed home. The
00:26:17
Speaker 1: old Badger climbed down from the steam engine and set
00:26:22
Speaker 1: off towards the tree house that theo had built for
00:26:25
Speaker 1: the Badger family, and they watched as he went through
00:26:29
Speaker 1: the door and into the kitchen, placing his cap on
00:26:33
Speaker 1: the table there. The cows were led back to their
00:26:38
Speaker 1: shelter for the night, and the dinosaurs lay down beneath
00:26:43
Speaker 1: the trees. The Mamenchisaurus turned and turned on his spot,
00:26:50
Speaker 1: just the way a dog will check every angle for
00:26:53
Speaker 1: the most comfortable position before flopping down and wrapping his
00:26:58
Speaker 1: long neck about himself as if to be tightly hugged
00:27:03
Speaker 1: and held as he fell asleep. Beth smiled as she
00:27:09
Speaker 1: watched the smallest creatures head upstairs to bed, each holding
00:27:15
Speaker 1: the poor of a teddy bear in their hand. Beth
00:27:19
Speaker 1: had spent hours making those tiny teddy bears from corners
00:27:25
Speaker 1: of cotton wall balls, dotting on eyes with a dark
00:27:29
Speaker 1: brown pen. I suppose we should go back to bed, too,
00:27:36
Speaker 1: said theo, reluctant to drag himself away from over garage village,
00:27:43
Speaker 1: but at the same time unable to cover his huge,
00:27:49
Speaker 1: dinosaur sized yawn. I suppose we should, agreed Beth, feeling
00:27:58
Speaker 1: her eyes drooped and closing. Her limbs suddenly felt terribly heavy,
00:28:07
Speaker 1: and all she wanted was to be curled up in bed.
00:28:13
Speaker 1: They climbed softly back down the ladder, tiptoed through the
00:28:20
Speaker 1: kitchen and then up the stairs, careful to avoid the
00:28:26
Speaker 1: step that creaked, and moved silently towards their bedroom. Their
00:28:34
Speaker 1: father's snores still drifted out from behind their parents' bedroom door.
00:28:40
Speaker 1: And the twins slipped back into their beds and pulled
00:28:46
Speaker 1: the covers right up to their noses and snuggled down
00:28:50
Speaker 1: as far as they could. Good Night, the oh, said Beth.
00:28:58
Speaker 1: Good night, Beth said THEO. I wonder what the headline
00:29:05
Speaker 1: will be on the Village voice tomorrow, mumbled Beth as
00:29:10
Speaker 1: she fell asleep. Perhaps it would talk about the thunder,
00:29:17
Speaker 1: or perhaps it would mention the vegetarian tea Rex, or
00:29:23
Speaker 1: the success of the train line's first day in the village.
00:29:29
Speaker 1: Or maybe the beaver would catch a prize winning fish.
00:29:36
Speaker 1: She smiled to herself as she disappeared into her dreams,
00:29:42
Speaker 1: thinking of all the way she could make the lives
00:29:46
Speaker 1: of the little creatures who lived in over Garage Village
00:29:52
Speaker 1: even more wonderful. She would have to make scarves for
00:29:58
Speaker 1: the winter, she thought, And were the hats with bubbles
00:30:03
Speaker 1: to keep their ears warm? And maybe she could add
00:30:09
Speaker 1: cookies to the windows of Roll Up, Roll Up, And
00:30:14
Speaker 1: perhaps there should be more flowers in the fields, and
00:30:19
Speaker 1: even fluffier white sheep by the stream. So the twins slept,
00:30:28
Speaker 1: and their parents slept, and the residents of over Garage
00:30:36
Speaker 1: Village slept, and their dreams were the impossible, wonderful, unforgettable
00:30:46
Speaker 1: dreams of those who believe in magic, nu