In tonight's bedtime story, we're meeting a girl named Imogen who moves into an a block of flats that reaches towards the clouds. Imogen isn’t sure she wants to move - until she meets her neighbour, and realises that each apartment in this building is its own wonderful world, filled with marvellous colours, and smells, and people, all waiting to be discovered. Relax, get sleepy, and let’s begin!
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The No1 kids bedtime stories & sleep meditations podcast that helps children sleep like a dream. Hosted by the world's biggest fan of bedtime stories, Abbe Opher! All episodes are safe for babies, children and really big kids 0 to 100, so settle down tonight and get sleepy with the world's greatest bedtime stories & sleep meditations for kids.
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Narrator 🎙 Abbe Opher
Author ✍️ Jane Thomas
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Kuala Moon, a podcast of
00:00:14
Speaker 1: original children's bedtime stories and meditations designed to make bedtime
00:00:20
Speaker 1: a dream. Thanks to all of you, lovely lot to
00:00:24
Speaker 1: keep writing in with your compliments about the show and
00:00:27
Speaker 1: the stories. The listener recently wrote to say that they
00:00:31
Speaker 1: regularly listened to three stories per night. Amazing to hear
00:00:35
Speaker 1: and it made me wonder what the record is if
00:00:38
Speaker 1: you've listened to more than three a night. Please let
00:00:41
Speaker 1: me know. Tonight, I'm thrilled to welcome into the Coco
00:00:45
Speaker 1: Club Buttercup from Nova Scotia, Apollo, Nadia, and Mackenzie. We're
00:00:51
Speaker 1: saying a few happy birthdays too to Mackenzie for September twelfth,
00:00:54
Speaker 1: Tamira Ashley from Yukon, Canada, and a belated happy birthday
00:00:59
Speaker 1: to Finn too. It's a happy birthday in a big
00:01:02
Speaker 1: way to all of you. I'm excited to tell you
00:01:05
Speaker 1: about tonight's story. It's all about something that seems as
00:01:09
Speaker 1: if it's going to be very scary, in this case,
00:01:12
Speaker 1: moving home, but which turns out to be just a
00:01:16
Speaker 1: brand new adventure waiting to happen. We're soon going to
00:01:20
Speaker 1: join a girl named Imogen who moves into a new
00:01:23
Speaker 1: house in a block of flats that reaches towards the clouds.
00:01:28
Speaker 1: Imogen isn't sure she wants to move until she meets
00:01:32
Speaker 1: her neighbor and realizes that each apartment in this building
00:01:37
Speaker 1: is its own wonderful world, filled with marvelous colors and
00:01:42
Speaker 1: smells and people all waiting to be discovered. So jump
00:01:46
Speaker 1: into bed and close your eyes as you lie down,
00:01:50
Speaker 1: take some nice deep breaths, counting to one, two, three four,
00:01:58
Speaker 1: and then letting go for one, two, three four. Relax
00:02:07
Speaker 1: a little more, and snuggle down under your covers as
00:02:11
Speaker 1: I begin The tower in a Tower Block by Jane Thomas.
00:02:23
Speaker 1: Imogen had known this day was coming for weeks now,
00:02:28
Speaker 1: but it still didn't make it any easier. Have you
00:02:31
Speaker 1: ever had one of those days on the horizon when
00:02:34
Speaker 1: you know something big is going to happen, and however
00:02:38
Speaker 1: slowly you try and do everything, he still ends up
00:02:42
Speaker 1: coming round. Imogen had been eating her breakfast more and
00:02:47
Speaker 1: more slowly every day for the last week, nibbling around
00:02:51
Speaker 1: the edges of her toast in bites so small they
00:02:55
Speaker 1: would have impressed a mouse. She had dragged her heels
00:03:00
Speaker 1: walking home from school and tried to stay awake as
00:03:04
Speaker 1: long as she could, pushing back the yawns and telling
00:03:08
Speaker 1: herself that, nope, her cozy bed wasn't cozy at all,
00:03:12
Speaker 1: and she didn't want to sleep, not really. But the
00:03:17
Speaker 1: day had finally arrived, as these days tend to do,
00:03:22
Speaker 1: Imogen looked around her bedroom one last time. She went
00:03:28
Speaker 1: into all the rooms of the house and pressed her
00:03:31
Speaker 1: hand against each and every door. Goodbye, kitchen, she said, solemnly. Goodbye,
00:03:40
Speaker 1: dining room, she said in a whisper. She even took
00:03:46
Speaker 1: one long look at the bath and said goodbye to that.
00:03:51
Speaker 1: It looked all wrong without the yellow ducks lined up
00:03:54
Speaker 1: along the edge waiting to dive in with her, but
00:03:58
Speaker 1: they were packed away in a box somewhere and had
00:04:01
Speaker 1: been taken off in a van a few hours ago.
00:04:06
Speaker 1: Imogen walked around the garden and said goodbye to each
00:04:10
Speaker 1: and every flower. It felt as though the whole world
00:04:15
Speaker 1: was ending. If only she had known that, in fact,
00:04:20
Speaker 1: life was taking a wonderful new turn, then maybe she
00:04:25
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been so sad about it all. But she
00:04:28
Speaker 1: didn't know that, not yet, so she took her task
00:04:32
Speaker 1: of saying farewell to everything very seriously. Indeed, Imogen and
00:04:40
Speaker 1: her family were moving house. You see. They weren't going
00:04:44
Speaker 1: very far away, not so far that she would have
00:04:47
Speaker 1: to change schools or anything like that. But they were
00:04:51
Speaker 1: leaving twenty three Buttercup Drive forever, and right now that
00:04:57
Speaker 1: felt like a very big deal. In she sat in
00:05:02
Speaker 1: the back of the car and looked out of the
00:05:05
Speaker 1: rear window as they drove away, waiting until they had
00:05:09
Speaker 1: turned the final corner and the front gate had finally
00:05:14
Speaker 1: disappeared from view. Then she looked straight ahead, folded her
00:05:20
Speaker 1: arms and sighed, it's not so bad, dear, said her mother,
00:05:27
Speaker 1: turning round in the front seat to face her. We're
00:05:32
Speaker 1: moving to a lovely sounding place. It's called the White House.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: We'll be forty six be the White House. That sounds
00:05:45
Speaker 1: like quite a grand address, don't you think. Imogen tried
00:05:50
Speaker 1: her hardest not to be interested, but she did spend
00:05:55
Speaker 1: the whole drive imagining that maybe a miracle was about
00:05:59
Speaker 1: to happened, and somehow, without her knowing, her father had
00:06:05
Speaker 1: been elected President of the United States, all the way
00:06:10
Speaker 1: on the other side of the world, and they were
00:06:13
Speaker 1: about to move into that White House. It really didn't
00:06:19
Speaker 1: take long to reach the White House and it wasn't
00:06:23
Speaker 1: a house at all. It wasn't really that white either.
00:06:27
Speaker 1: Come to that. It was a tall block of apartments,
00:06:32
Speaker 1: maybe fifty stories high, and next to it was an
00:06:36
Speaker 1: identical block of apartments, but painted pink, which had a
00:06:41
Speaker 1: sign over the entrance saying the Pink House. It didn't
00:06:47
Speaker 1: take much imagination to guess the blue apartment block was
00:06:51
Speaker 1: called the Blue House, and the last one in the
00:06:54
Speaker 1: row was the green House. Imogen thought it a shame
00:06:59
Speaker 1: that the Greenhouse wasn't made entirely of glass, and the
00:07:04
Speaker 1: whole fifty stories filled with tomato plants and cucumbers and
00:07:08
Speaker 1: tiny red peppers, just like they'd had at home. Well
00:07:12
Speaker 1: at twenty three Buttercup Drive at least, Imogen looked up
00:07:18
Speaker 1: at the huge building in front of her. A line
00:07:22
Speaker 1: of men were going in and out, carrying boxes of
00:07:25
Speaker 1: their stuff and pieces of furniture. She wondered how all
00:07:31
Speaker 1: of it was going to fit into an apartment. They
00:07:36
Speaker 1: took the lift up to the forty sixth floor, and
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Imogen felt as though they must be nearing the top
00:07:41
Speaker 1: of the sky by the time they arrived. There were
00:07:45
Speaker 1: four identical doors leading away from the lift, marked with
00:07:50
Speaker 1: A and B and C, and d well they were
00:07:58
Speaker 1: almost identical. Imagen looked at door A and saw how
00:08:03
Speaker 1: it was decorated with strips of red and gold. There
00:08:08
Speaker 1: was a little shelf next to the door, on which
00:08:11
Speaker 1: sat a red cat with a golden paw that waved
00:08:15
Speaker 1: back and forth, slowly but continuously. She had been determined
00:08:22
Speaker 1: to be miserable, but she couldn't help smile at the door.
00:08:26
Speaker 1: It looked so beautiful. She loved the red paper lantern
00:08:31
Speaker 1: hanging down with a long gold tassel swinging gently beneath
00:08:38
Speaker 1: on door sea there were long lines of orange flowers
00:08:42
Speaker 1: that she thought were marigolds, all carefully threaded together. Across
00:08:49
Speaker 1: the top of the door were delicate arrangements of beads
00:08:54
Speaker 1: and bobbles, colorful swirls that swooped and danced. On the
00:09:01
Speaker 1: shelf by the door stood an elephant carved from some
00:09:05
Speaker 1: sort of green stone, its trunk waving high in the
00:09:10
Speaker 1: air as if to welcome all visitors. And on the
00:09:15
Speaker 1: last door door D hung a long pendant made of metal.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: There were three butterflies, each larger than the next, made
00:09:27
Speaker 1: of silver with blue sparkles pressed into their wings, Hanging
00:09:34
Speaker 1: beneath them was a large, round blue disk which had
00:09:39
Speaker 1: a white disk inside and a pale blue disk inside that,
00:09:44
Speaker 1: and a black dot right in the middle. So it
00:09:48
Speaker 1: made Image and giggle and feel as if she was
00:09:51
Speaker 1: looking at a soft blue eye that was quietly watching
00:09:56
Speaker 1: the world. This person had put color tiles all around
00:10:01
Speaker 1: the outside of the doorframe, and Imagen longed to walk
00:10:06
Speaker 1: over and look at them all more closely. There were
00:10:11
Speaker 1: flowers in beautiful patterns, all blues and reds and whites,
00:10:18
Speaker 1: with dashes of sea green here and there. The only
00:10:23
Speaker 1: door that looked unexciting was door B, her new front door,
00:10:30
Speaker 1: and she wondered what she could put on it to
00:10:33
Speaker 1: make it as wonderful as the other doors here. For
00:10:38
Speaker 1: the first time, Imaging walked into her new home. Her
00:10:44
Speaker 1: parents stood to one side and watched as she came in,
00:10:48
Speaker 1: looking at her to see how she reacted to it. All.
00:10:54
Speaker 1: The paint was all shiny and bright, as if it
00:10:57
Speaker 1: had been freshly done. There were boxes piled up here
00:11:01
Speaker 1: and there, and furniture in odd places. For a start,
00:11:07
Speaker 1: there was a bed right here in what must be
00:11:10
Speaker 1: the sitting room. Imogen walked over and opened a door,
00:11:16
Speaker 1: peering inside. That's your new room, her mother called out,
00:11:23
Speaker 1: and Imogen looked at each of the four walls, also
00:11:27
Speaker 1: shiny and bright with their fresh coat of paint, and
00:11:32
Speaker 1: the windows that looked sort of sad without any curtains
00:11:36
Speaker 1: hanging there. It didn't feel like her room. She thought
00:11:42
Speaker 1: back to the four identical doors in the corridor outside
00:11:47
Speaker 1: and how the others had made them their own, and
00:11:50
Speaker 1: wondered how she could start to make this room here
00:11:55
Speaker 1: hers too. There were big glass doors in the sitting
00:12:00
Speaker 1: room that led to a balcony, and Imogen went outside,
00:12:05
Speaker 1: standing on her tiptoes to peer over the edge of
00:12:09
Speaker 1: the wall and railing that kept them safe. She gasped.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: She could see forever. She could see things she had
00:12:20
Speaker 1: never seen before. The four houses, the white house, the
00:12:26
Speaker 1: Pink House, the Blue House, and the not made of
00:12:29
Speaker 1: glass green house were built alongside a park. An Imogen
00:12:35
Speaker 1: looked down to see people jogging along a track and
00:12:40
Speaker 1: children pushing themselves high, high, high up on the swings.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: A boy was throwing a ball for a dog that
00:12:50
Speaker 1: ran and barked and bounced with excitement. And beyond the
00:12:55
Speaker 1: park there were fields, a patchwork of lands escape laid
00:13:01
Speaker 1: out for her to look at Some were yellow and
00:13:06
Speaker 1: others were green, And there was one that had so
00:13:11
Speaker 1: many corn flowers in it that it almost seemed to
00:13:14
Speaker 1: be blue, and another with so many poppies that it
00:13:20
Speaker 1: almost seemed to be red. If she screwed up her eyes,
00:13:25
Speaker 1: she could see tiny white dots in one field, and
00:13:29
Speaker 1: they must be sheep, she told herself. And in another
00:13:34
Speaker 1: there were black and white blots, and they must be cows.
00:13:40
Speaker 1: A blue tractor trundled its way up and down a field,
00:13:46
Speaker 1: cutting into the long, dry grass and leaving it behind
00:13:51
Speaker 1: as huge round bundles. Imogen looked to her left, across
00:13:58
Speaker 1: at the balconies of the pink house next door, and
00:14:02
Speaker 1: a little boy waved to her from the very far side.
00:14:07
Speaker 1: Howdy neighbor, he called out, and then someone inside said
00:14:12
Speaker 1: something to him, and he turned and said what now ooh.
00:14:20
Speaker 1: In response, he turned back to Imogen, shrugged and smiled,
00:14:27
Speaker 1: waved again, and disappeared within. Imogen had never had a
00:14:33
Speaker 1: neighbor before. At least they'd had neighbors, but they'd also
00:14:38
Speaker 1: had high hedges, and nobody had ever spoken to her.
00:14:43
Speaker 1: She knew they existed because she heard them cutting their
00:14:46
Speaker 1: lawns or talking and laughing outside on warm summer evenings,
00:14:52
Speaker 1: but she'd never seen them. Maybe the White House wouldn't
00:14:57
Speaker 1: be so bad after all, she said to herself. She
00:15:03
Speaker 1: looked down at the other balconies and saw that they
00:15:06
Speaker 1: were entire worlds packed away into the little spaces. One
00:15:12
Speaker 1: balcony was overflowing with bright red geraniums that took up
00:15:18
Speaker 1: every spare space, just leaving room enough for a tiny
00:15:23
Speaker 1: folding chair on which lay curled up fast asleep a
00:15:28
Speaker 1: black and white cat. Another looked like a jungle, with
00:15:33
Speaker 1: plants that had tropical leaves and complicated looking flowers bursting
00:15:38
Speaker 1: out of pots. Imagin almost expected to see a monkey
00:15:44
Speaker 1: just hanging out there with a banana in hand. She
00:15:49
Speaker 1: craned her neck as far as she dared to see
00:15:52
Speaker 1: more balconies. People had bikes stored on them, and skateboards,
00:15:59
Speaker 1: and some had shoe rax lined up neatly against the wall.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: It was, as she leaned out and closed her eyes
00:16:09
Speaker 1: and breathed in the new air, very different when your
00:16:13
Speaker 1: forty six stories high. As she smelled the smell for
00:16:17
Speaker 1: the first time, she opened her eyes and almost expected
00:16:23
Speaker 1: to see colors drifting towards her from what must be
00:16:28
Speaker 1: Apartment forty six Sea right next door the balcony lined
00:16:34
Speaker 1: up alongside hers. The doors were open, and the smells
00:16:39
Speaker 1: of cooking were drifting out, spices, filling her lungs and
00:16:45
Speaker 1: making her stomach start grumbling for food. She had no
00:16:50
Speaker 1: idea what those smells were, but she wanted to know
00:16:54
Speaker 1: more about it, that was for sure. Anything that smelled
00:16:59
Speaker 1: like a red rainbow and lit up her insides just
00:17:03
Speaker 1: with its scent would be incredible to eat. She must
00:17:08
Speaker 1: have been on the balcony longer than she thawed, because
00:17:12
Speaker 1: when she went back in, half the boxes had been moved,
00:17:16
Speaker 1: and the bed was no longer in the sitting room,
00:17:20
Speaker 1: but right where it should be in her parents' new bedroom.
00:17:26
Speaker 1: Imogen went into her new room and watched as her
00:17:30
Speaker 1: mother hung white curtains with blue Forget Me Not flowers
00:17:34
Speaker 1: on them, and saw that they matched the bed cover
00:17:38
Speaker 1: that now lay on the newly rebuilt bed. It's a
00:17:44
Speaker 1: special day, explained her mother, a new start, a new beginning.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: I thought you'd like these, Imogen nodded, touching the flowers
00:17:58
Speaker 1: on the bedspread. They were so bright and so delicate,
00:18:03
Speaker 1: they almost seemed real. And because you're getting bigger, and
00:18:10
Speaker 1: we'll have more homework soon. We thought you'd like the
00:18:13
Speaker 1: desk in here too, Her mother pointed towards the big
00:18:19
Speaker 1: writing desk that had always sat in the living room
00:18:23
Speaker 1: at twenty three Buttercup Drive. It was a heavy wooden
00:18:28
Speaker 1: table and took up half the space. It was too
00:18:32
Speaker 1: big for the room, but Imogen loved it. It was
00:18:36
Speaker 1: important looking, and it came with a special important looking chair,
00:18:43
Speaker 1: and she set about finding the box that said stationery
00:18:47
Speaker 1: on it. Then carefully unpacked her pens and pencils and
00:18:53
Speaker 1: erasers and rulers and placed them on the desk, went
00:19:00
Speaker 1: out and rummaged around in a box, then came back
00:19:05
Speaker 1: with a bright blue mug that she put on the
00:19:07
Speaker 1: desk and then popped the pens and pencils in. It
00:19:13
Speaker 1: all felt awfully grown up to Imagen. Maybe, just maybe
00:19:21
Speaker 1: this big, terrible day she'd been imagining wasn't so terrible
00:19:27
Speaker 1: after all. Do you know who lives next door? She
00:19:33
Speaker 1: asked her mother, who raised an eyebrow and gestured in
00:19:38
Speaker 1: three different directions as if to ask, which next door?
00:19:43
Speaker 1: I mean, the one right next to us. If I
00:19:47
Speaker 1: stand on the balcony, I can smell the cooking. It's amazing,
00:19:53
Speaker 1: explained Imogen in forty six c. I've no idea, I'm afraid,
00:20:01
Speaker 1: said her mother. You could go and ask. I'm sure
00:20:05
Speaker 1: they'd love to meet you. Imogen wasn't so sure. She'd
00:20:12
Speaker 1: never knocked on the door of either twenty one or
00:20:15
Speaker 1: twenty five Buttercup drive to the left and to the
00:20:19
Speaker 1: right of them, she hesitated. All right, I'll come with you,
00:20:26
Speaker 1: said her mother, hands on Imogen's shoulders and guiding her
00:20:31
Speaker 1: out of their very boring door towards the colorful one
00:20:35
Speaker 1: with the green elephant on the shelf. We need to
00:20:40
Speaker 1: do something about our door, whispered Imogen urgently. Her mother
00:20:46
Speaker 1: nodded and reached up to knock. In the space between
00:20:50
Speaker 1: the long strings of marigolds. A tiny lady answered the door.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: She was barely taller than Imogen, but she looked to
00:21:01
Speaker 1: be at least a hundred years old. She wore long
00:21:06
Speaker 1: reams of pink and green cotton that seemed to be
00:21:11
Speaker 1: wrapped around her a dozen times over, ending with a
00:21:16
Speaker 1: sweet and a swoop over the shoulder. Her arms glittered
00:21:22
Speaker 1: with scores of golden bracelets, and her fingers flashed with
00:21:28
Speaker 1: gold and gemstones. In the sunlight that reached out from
00:21:32
Speaker 1: her apartment into the dark of the hallway. The lady
00:21:39
Speaker 1: pressed her palms together and bowed her head a little,
00:21:44
Speaker 1: and Imagin, feeling confused, did the same in return. The
00:21:50
Speaker 1: lady smiled at her, two gold teeth flashing at the
00:21:56
Speaker 1: front of her mouth. You must be the new neighbors,
00:22:02
Speaker 1: she said, with a twinkle and a smile. Welcome, Welcome
00:22:08
Speaker 1: to the White House. She spread her arms wide, as
00:22:13
Speaker 1: if she was indicating she owned the entire place. I'm
00:22:18
Speaker 1: afraid my daughter smelled your cooking, explained Imogen's mother. She
00:22:24
Speaker 1: wanted to see who lived here, who could create what
00:22:29
Speaker 1: was it, Imogen, a rainbow of scents that seemed to
00:22:34
Speaker 1: color the air. Imogen blushed. Naya said the lady. I'm Naya.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: Would you like to come in, she said, looking directly
00:22:49
Speaker 1: at Imogen, who nodded, eyes wide. Imogen's mother slipped away
00:22:56
Speaker 1: into forty six b back to the unboxing of things
00:23:01
Speaker 1: and stuff and odds and ends, finding new homes for
00:23:07
Speaker 1: beds and books and pictures and pot plants, and Imogen
00:23:13
Speaker 1: followed Nia into an aladdin's cave of an apartment. The
00:23:18
Speaker 1: walls were painted the color of the sea and sky,
00:23:23
Speaker 1: and every color Imagen had ever known was poured into
00:23:28
Speaker 1: the room. Fuchia pink cushions decorated with delicate gold threadwork
00:23:36
Speaker 1: were piled onto a sunshine yellow sofa. More and more
00:23:42
Speaker 1: strings of marigolds hung from every hook, and there were
00:23:47
Speaker 1: mirrors almost everywhere you looked, bouncing the colors back and
00:23:53
Speaker 1: forth in the room, so it looked as if it
00:23:57
Speaker 1: were ten times larger than it really was. Imogen's mother
00:24:04
Speaker 1: had a small drawer in the kitchen where she had
00:24:07
Speaker 1: three jars of dried green herbs. But here Nia had
00:24:14
Speaker 1: almost an entire wall of her kitchen covered in rows
00:24:20
Speaker 1: and rows of jars filled with red and orange and
00:24:25
Speaker 1: yellow powders, each of them carefully labeled in neat, looping handwriting.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: On the stove, a huge pot bubbled and hissed and
00:24:39
Speaker 1: threw out the sense that Nia had smelled from her balcony.
00:24:45
Speaker 1: Her mouth watered, and she barely hid that she was
00:24:49
Speaker 1: licking her lips. Nia pointed out photographs and told her
00:24:56
Speaker 1: stories of India. Here was a t coming out of
00:25:01
Speaker 1: the jungle. There was an elephant, a man dressed in white,
00:25:07
Speaker 1: riding high on its back. Here was a picture of
00:25:12
Speaker 1: a houseboat resting on a lake so still that the
00:25:17
Speaker 1: mountains were mirrored so perfectly you barely knew which way
00:25:23
Speaker 1: up the image should go. There was a photograph of
00:25:29
Speaker 1: a sweeping curve of beach lined with masses and masses
00:25:35
Speaker 1: of palm trees. Imagin learned that Nia had left her
00:25:41
Speaker 1: country years ago along with her husband, looking for another
00:25:46
Speaker 1: life overseas. She had rebuilt her country here within the
00:25:53
Speaker 1: four walls of forty six Sea over the last thirty years.
00:26:01
Speaker 1: It doesn't look much from the outside, does it, said
00:26:06
Speaker 1: Nia softly, and Imogen slowly shook her head. No, she
00:26:13
Speaker 1: said it didn't. But inside, oh inside, sweetheart, this place
00:26:23
Speaker 1: can be whatever you want it to be. And know
00:26:28
Speaker 1: that you are always welcome in forty six set always.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: She held Imogen's arm and pressed it gently, looking earnestly
00:26:41
Speaker 1: into her eyes and smiling. Now, what about some food,
00:26:48
Speaker 1: she said, Go and get your parents. Tell them I
00:26:54
Speaker 1: won't hear any arguments. It would be wrong for them
00:26:59
Speaker 1: to have to cook on the day that they've moved.
00:27:02
Speaker 1: Go fetch. By the time Imagin returned, her parents looking
00:27:10
Speaker 1: slightly sheepish at first, but then letting their mouths fall
00:27:15
Speaker 1: open as they saw the magic Nya had created in
00:27:19
Speaker 1: the simple space. The table had been laid, the pan
00:27:25
Speaker 1: from the stove now steamed in the middle, pouring its
00:27:29
Speaker 1: scents out into the world. A pile of soft white
00:27:36
Speaker 1: rice waited with a huge silver spoon. Naya ushered them
00:27:42
Speaker 1: into their spaces, pressing them down into chairs and directing
00:27:48
Speaker 1: them to take and take generously. You don't need to
00:27:55
Speaker 1: eat much at my age, she said, You're doing me
00:27:59
Speaker 1: a fing favor, really by eating the food. I loved
00:28:04
Speaker 1: a cook, but not so much to eat. She winked
00:28:09
Speaker 1: at Imogen, who leaned forwards and took an extra helping
00:28:14
Speaker 1: from the steaming pot. Well done, whispered Niah. Imogen had
00:28:22
Speaker 1: never eaten food that had so many flavors at once.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: It danced on her tongue, tasting even better than she
00:28:32
Speaker 1: had imagined from the smell she had first caught out
00:28:36
Speaker 1: on the balcony. It was warm and hot and spicy
00:28:43
Speaker 1: and sweet all at the same time. And more than that,
00:28:50
Speaker 1: it was exciting. Imogen didn't know until then that food
00:28:57
Speaker 1: could be exciting. The three of them left forty six
00:29:03
Speaker 1: c with hugs, with a tiny nire who had refused
00:29:07
Speaker 1: any help with the tidying arway of dishes and waved
00:29:11
Speaker 1: them towards the door. Certainly not, she'd said, shewing them away.
00:29:21
Speaker 1: Imagine on your first night too. Tt There wasn't a
00:29:29
Speaker 1: bathtub for imaging to lie in her ducks alongside, so
00:29:34
Speaker 1: instead she balanced them along the edge of the shower.
00:29:38
Speaker 1: They seemed to like it. There. She poured on her
00:29:42
Speaker 1: pajamas and climbed into bed, the same bed as always,
00:29:49
Speaker 1: but with those beautiful new sheets covered in the tiniest
00:29:56
Speaker 1: to forget me not flowers. I've made two new friends
00:30:01
Speaker 1: to day, she announced to her mother. There's a boy
00:30:06
Speaker 1: who lives in the pink house who says howdy and
00:30:10
Speaker 1: has a nice smile. And there's Nia who lives in
00:30:15
Speaker 1: a Laddin's cave right next door. That's two more friends
00:30:21
Speaker 1: than I ever made in Buttercup Drive. Oh and did
00:30:26
Speaker 1: you know there's a cat who lives below us. He's
00:30:30
Speaker 1: black and white and he sleeps out on a chair
00:30:34
Speaker 1: on a balcony that's absolutely covered in geraniums. Her mother
00:30:42
Speaker 1: smiled at her and brushed Immagen's hair back from her face.
00:30:48
Speaker 1: So it isn't so very terrible after all, being here
00:30:55
Speaker 1: she said. We know it isn't you know what you're
00:31:00
Speaker 1: used to. But it's a new adventure, isn't it for
00:31:05
Speaker 1: all of us? Imagen nodded. I think I'm going to
00:31:13
Speaker 1: like it. Did you know? There are cows in the
00:31:17
Speaker 1: field in the distance if you screw up your eyes
00:31:21
Speaker 1: and look really, really hard. And there are swings in
00:31:26
Speaker 1: the park. Maybe we can go there tomorrow. And there's
00:31:32
Speaker 1: a boy with a dog and a ball, and there's
00:31:37
Speaker 1: two more doors out there with people behind them. We
00:31:40
Speaker 1: have to meet, and we have to make our door
00:31:44
Speaker 1: beautiful too, don't we. And she drifted asleep thinking about
00:31:53
Speaker 1: all the thing she had seen that day. She had
00:31:57
Speaker 1: already forgotten twenty three Buttercup Drive. It was a part
00:32:04
Speaker 1: of her life, but it wasn't everything of her life,
00:32:09
Speaker 1: and that was fine. It had been a very pretty
00:32:13
Speaker 1: house with a very pretty garden, but she had never
00:32:18
Speaker 1: talked to anyone there. He was too far from a
00:32:23
Speaker 1: park for her to go and play, and nobody had
00:32:27
Speaker 1: ever said howdy to her before. And she'd never seen
00:32:33
Speaker 1: someone as tiny and old and kind and beautiful as
00:32:39
Speaker 1: Nia with the sparkling bracelets on her wrists. Because that's
00:32:46
Speaker 1: the thing you see The things that seem as if
00:32:51
Speaker 1: they're going to be scary are really just brand new
00:32:56
Speaker 1: adventures waiting to happen. They might not look perfect when
00:33:03
Speaker 1: you first start, but you soon come to see they're
00:33:08
Speaker 1: full of their own kind of magic. Imagine Nia's Aladdin's
00:33:15
Speaker 1: Cave as you fall asleep, with all the mirrors on
00:33:20
Speaker 1: the walls, and all the colors pouring over each other,
00:33:27
Speaker 1: gold and silver dazzling in the moonbeams that dance into
00:33:33
Speaker 1: the room. There isn't a star in the universe that
00:33:39
Speaker 1: shines brighter than the light in Nia's eyes. The lady
00:33:45
Speaker 1: with the spices and the stories, the tigers and the
00:33:51
Speaker 1: elephants and the threads of marigolds, welcoming the world to
00:33:58
Speaker 1: her door.