In tonight’s bedtime story for kids, we're on another adventure with Tilly & Bo and the Vanimals! Tonight, they're on a search for some fireflies to light up Mellow Yellow, and they meet another animal on the way. 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.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to Coco Sleep, a podcast of
00:00:14
Speaker 1: original children's bedtime stories and meditations designed to make bedtime
00:00:19
Speaker 1: a tree. Tonight's story is so jam packed with wonderful
00:00:24
Speaker 1: imagery that I'm tempted to get out my coloring pencils
00:00:27
Speaker 1: and paints. Then I want to invite any of you
00:00:30
Speaker 1: to do the same, although maybe do it tomorrow when
00:00:33
Speaker 1: you're more awake. But before we start, I would like
00:00:36
Speaker 1: to say a ginormous hello to our newest Cocoa clubbers, Hi, River, Rosanna, Alexia, Emily, Henrik, Hannah, Nolan, Gavin, Maverick, Olivia, Luna, Georgia, Ada,
00:00:56
Speaker 1: Arthur and Coolwhali. Thank you all so much from me
00:01:01
Speaker 1: from Cocoa, from the entire team for joining us and
00:01:04
Speaker 1: supporting the show. Now, then get ready for a wonderful
00:01:09
Speaker 1: ride as we get ready to head back into the
00:01:12
Speaker 1: wonderful world of Aunt Tilly Bow Mellow Yellow the Van,
00:01:17
Speaker 1: and we're going to join them on their next adventure
00:01:20
Speaker 1: where they pick up more of animals on their search
00:01:23
Speaker 1: for light. One drizzly mizzly day. Oh, just before we
00:01:28
Speaker 1: set off, get into bed and get all your wiggles
00:01:32
Speaker 1: and giggles out. Have a stretch if you need, and
00:01:35
Speaker 1: find your comfious position on the mattress. Maybe try having
00:01:41
Speaker 1: a lovely sigh on your next outbreath and relax a
00:01:49
Speaker 1: little bit more. Close your eyes lovely. Now, let's see
00:01:57
Speaker 1: what happens in Tilly and Bow and the Search for
00:02:01
Speaker 1: Light by Jane Thomas. It was yet another rainy day
00:02:14
Speaker 1: in a long line of rainy days. Bo didn't mind
00:02:19
Speaker 1: rainy days so very much, to be honest, because they
00:02:21
Speaker 1: gave him an extra reason, as if extra reasons were needed,
00:02:26
Speaker 1: to go to his favorite bookshop. The bookshop sits halfway
00:02:30
Speaker 1: up the hill from Lower Starry Skies and halfway down
00:02:34
Speaker 1: the hill from Upper Starry Skies. In order to keep
00:02:38
Speaker 1: everyone happy, the bookshop is called neither up nor Down.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: It was mizzling when Bow left home, the sort of
00:02:47
Speaker 1: mizzle that makes you think perhaps the sun will shine
00:02:50
Speaker 1: after all. By the time he reached the bottom of
00:02:54
Speaker 1: the hill it was drizzling. He thought about putting up
00:02:58
Speaker 1: his umbrella, but instead just buried his hands in his
00:03:01
Speaker 1: pockets and hunched his shoulders a little more and kept going.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: But when he drew level with the little church, it
00:03:09
Speaker 1: was out and out, pouring down fat raindrops, splashing and
00:03:14
Speaker 1: bouncing off the road. Under such circumstances, the umbrella was essential,
00:03:21
Speaker 1: and so it was. He entered, neither up nor down,
00:03:25
Speaker 1: making the little bell announce his arrival to everyone already there,
00:03:28
Speaker 1: and he shook out the umbrella and popped it into
00:03:31
Speaker 1: the stand. Bo walked into the center of the shop,
00:03:35
Speaker 1: past the high shelves crowned with teetering piles of books,
00:03:39
Speaker 1: and settled himself into the coziest, comfiest chair right by
00:03:43
Speaker 1: the fire. It was just as he liked it, neither
00:03:47
Speaker 1: at the front nor at the back, but happily somewhere
00:03:51
Speaker 1: in between, able to see both ends of the store
00:03:55
Speaker 1: and keep an eye on proceedings. Who never knew, after all,
00:04:00
Speaker 1: when someone would come in and want a book fetching
00:04:03
Speaker 1: down from a shelf higher than they could reach. Or
00:04:07
Speaker 1: perhaps they would ask for recommendations, and Bow was full
00:04:11
Speaker 1: of those. To day he decided to indulge in a
00:04:15
Speaker 1: little armchair travel. He went and found his favorite atlas,
00:04:20
Speaker 1: the one that didn't just show all the mountains and
00:04:23
Speaker 1: rivers and roads and cities, but also had pictures of
00:04:27
Speaker 1: the animals and flowers that lived in every country of
00:04:29
Speaker 1: the world, and rearranging the cushions to make them sit
00:04:34
Speaker 1: just so. He snuggled down for a good long read.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Bou was busy traveling around Panama in his mind, imagining
00:04:45
Speaker 1: heading deep into a jungle and pushing past heavy bunches
00:04:49
Speaker 1: of bananas to come across the sleepiest of sleepy sloths.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: When a cheerful toot outside interrupted his thoughts. He'd know
00:04:58
Speaker 1: that cheerful too anywhere outside. Great Aunt Tilly sat in
00:05:05
Speaker 1: Mellow Yellow the van, peering into the bookshop and hoping
00:05:09
Speaker 1: that Bo was inside. Just in case he was, she'd
00:05:13
Speaker 1: packed a basket of homemade rhubarb and ginger cookies. The
00:05:18
Speaker 1: rhubarb had been terribly obliging this year, and she'd had
00:05:22
Speaker 1: heaps of the long, fat, pinkish stems to choose from. Fortunately,
00:05:27
Speaker 1: the rhubarb made it easy for her, for every time
00:05:30
Speaker 1: she went to pick a stork, a single leaf at
00:05:33
Speaker 1: the end of a stem would shake, as if to
00:05:36
Speaker 1: tell her which was the finest, juiciest, most rhubarbie stem
00:05:41
Speaker 1: of all. Mellow Yellow tooted her horn again just to
00:05:46
Speaker 1: be sure Bou had heard her. Bow stood up and
00:05:51
Speaker 1: waved to Tilly in the little yellow van, returning his
00:05:54
Speaker 1: atlas to the bookshelf, and retrieving his umbrella from the stand,
00:05:59
Speaker 1: he dashed out to the shop and in three giant steps,
00:06:02
Speaker 1: made it across to the van door, throwing himself inside
00:06:06
Speaker 1: to avoid as many rain drops as possible. Hello, dear,
00:06:12
Speaker 1: said Tilly, I thought i'd find you here. There aren't
00:06:17
Speaker 1: many better places to be on a rainy day, after
00:06:21
Speaker 1: all than a bookshop. I was just looking through my
00:06:25
Speaker 1: favorite atlas, he said. Have you ever been to Panama?
00:06:31
Speaker 1: Tilly chuckled. Had she ever been to Panama? Of course
00:06:36
Speaker 1: she'd been to Panama. Tilly, you see, had been absolutely everywhere.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: She'd been to every place you could find in any atlas,
00:06:48
Speaker 1: and she'd been to a lot of places that even
00:06:51
Speaker 1: atlases didn't know existed. Some places are very good at
00:06:56
Speaker 1: hiding themselves when explorers come looking for them, tucking away
00:07:01
Speaker 1: behind thick clouds or setting up whirlpools around their borders.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: Tilly was sure there must be corners. Even she hadn't
00:07:10
Speaker 1: seen places that were so bashful and shy they weren't
00:07:15
Speaker 1: yet ready for any person to visit them. And she
00:07:18
Speaker 1: was really quite all right with that. Just like people,
00:07:23
Speaker 1: places have a right to be as quiet and tucked
00:07:26
Speaker 1: away as they want to be. Listen, dear, I'll tell
00:07:31
Speaker 1: you all about Panama one day. But right now I
00:07:36
Speaker 1: have a little problem and I need your help. I've
00:07:40
Speaker 1: rather gone and run out of light, you see. Bo
00:07:46
Speaker 1: looked into the back of the van, and she was
00:07:48
Speaker 1: quite right. It was pitch dark in there. He clambered
00:07:54
Speaker 1: between the seats and kneeled on the soft nest of
00:07:57
Speaker 1: a bed, feeling along the books on the shelves at
00:08:01
Speaker 1: the back until he came to the snuggly pair of
00:08:05
Speaker 1: socks and a warm, furry little head. Hello mouse, said Bow,
00:08:13
Speaker 1: stroking a little creature that lay snuggled up in the socks.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: Mouse was the first official of animal, a living, breathing
00:08:23
Speaker 1: pair of scissors. Whenever Tilly or Bow needed to cut something,
00:08:29
Speaker 1: the mouse nuzzled against Bow's hand before disappearing back into
00:08:34
Speaker 1: his dream of living in the holes of a giant
00:08:37
Speaker 1: block of Swiss cheese. Back in the front of Mellow Yellow,
00:08:43
Speaker 1: Bow asked where one could find light for sale. He'd
00:08:47
Speaker 1: seen plenty of shops selling lamps and light shades and
00:08:50
Speaker 1: things like that, but he'd never seen one that just
00:08:53
Speaker 1: sold light. Thinking about it, he realized it must be
00:08:57
Speaker 1: a bit of a problem when a person ran out
00:08:59
Speaker 1: of light. Usually I just bottle up sunlight, said Tilly,
00:09:06
Speaker 1: as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: Of course, said bo, not wanting to seem like the
00:09:13
Speaker 1: fool who knew nothing of bottling sunlight. But as you see,
00:09:19
Speaker 1: it's raining, and those clouds go on forever. I know.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: We went all the way to upper starry skies and
00:09:29
Speaker 1: looked out from the highest point, and in every direction
00:09:33
Speaker 1: as far as I can see, the skies are gray, gray, gray.
00:09:40
Speaker 1: It feels as if it's never going to end. And
00:09:45
Speaker 1: that is often how it feels, isn't it. When it rains,
00:09:49
Speaker 1: it feels as if it's never going to stop raining,
00:09:53
Speaker 1: and that the sun has quite forgotten how to shine.
00:09:57
Speaker 1: It's not that I mind rain, continued Tilly. It's terribly
00:10:02
Speaker 1: good for the roses, after all, But everything is so
00:10:07
Speaker 1: much easier when the sun shines. Bow knew exactly what
00:10:14
Speaker 1: she meant. One of his favorite things, though, was falling
00:10:19
Speaker 1: asleep when it was pouring down outside. It somehow made
00:10:24
Speaker 1: everything extra cozy, buried under blankets and listening to rain
00:10:30
Speaker 1: drumming gently on the roof. No, said Tilly, without sunlight.
00:10:38
Speaker 1: I need to think of something else. I thought about
00:10:43
Speaker 1: waiting for night time to capture some moonbeams or starlight,
00:10:48
Speaker 1: but with all these clouds around, that won't be possible either.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: I'm really in quite a pickle and hoped you might
00:10:57
Speaker 1: have an idea. Bow was quite please that Tilly would think,
00:11:02
Speaker 1: even for a heartbeat, that he might have a good
00:11:04
Speaker 1: idea about something, But at the same time he felt
00:11:09
Speaker 1: more than a little worried because he really didn't have
00:11:13
Speaker 1: any ideas at all. Mellow Yellow headed down the hill,
00:11:18
Speaker 1: taking care to drive extra slowly since the roads were
00:11:22
Speaker 1: so wet and slippery. She paused at the turning. I'm
00:11:27
Speaker 1: sure if Tilly wanted to head home to her cottage
00:11:30
Speaker 1: or go further in search of the light she needed.
00:11:34
Speaker 1: Then Tilly popped on the indicator and Mellow Yellow understood
00:11:39
Speaker 1: they were off home. Bo was happily munching through his
00:11:44
Speaker 1: second rhubarb and ginger cookie when they poured up outside
00:11:48
Speaker 1: the rose covered cottage. Both he and Tilly tucked themselves
00:11:53
Speaker 1: under his single umbrella and scuttled up the garden path
00:11:57
Speaker 1: as quickly as they could say safely Inside, Bo settled
00:12:02
Speaker 1: down in the kitchen while Tilly bustled about with teapots
00:12:06
Speaker 1: and sugar bowls. It was cammile tea, Bow's absolute favorite. Sometimes,
00:12:14
Speaker 1: when he was having problems falling asleep, he'd take a
00:12:18
Speaker 1: few SIPs of Cammar tea, and they seemed to soothe
00:12:22
Speaker 1: every part of his mind and soul, sending him drifting
00:12:27
Speaker 1: off into dreams in no time at all. Today, though,
00:12:33
Speaker 1: he had to focus. There was an important problem to
00:12:37
Speaker 1: be solved. What about candles, Bo suggested. Candles have a
00:12:45
Speaker 1: lovely light. Yes, I thought of that, said Tilly. But
00:12:51
Speaker 1: candles aren't a very good idea in mellow yellow. I
00:12:56
Speaker 1: just don't think it would be safe. Bo, so she
00:13:00
Speaker 1: was right. Imagine poor mouse could singe his whiskers on
00:13:05
Speaker 1: a candle in the van. Anything could happen. No, he
00:13:10
Speaker 1: needed a better idea. He remembered taking off his wooly
00:13:14
Speaker 1: jumper in the dark, ones and lots of tiny sparks
00:13:19
Speaker 1: flew into the air. He'd asked his teacher in school
00:13:23
Speaker 1: the next day, and she'd said it was something called
00:13:26
Speaker 1: static electricity. Could they somehow gather up a jarful of
00:13:32
Speaker 1: static electricity? He wondered. It's a better idea, said Tilly slowly,
00:13:40
Speaker 1: and not very convincingly. I think it would take a
00:13:46
Speaker 1: long time and a lot of jumper shaking to get
00:13:50
Speaker 1: even a jarful of light, though each of those sparks
00:13:54
Speaker 1: is very very tiny indeed, But CLO's minds started to drift.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: He'd been thinking as hard as he could, and he
00:14:05
Speaker 1: wasn't getting anywhere, and the caramar tee was making him
00:14:09
Speaker 1: a little sleepy, and the rhubarb and ginger cookies were
00:14:14
Speaker 1: so warm and soothing. For a moment, he closed his
00:14:19
Speaker 1: eyes and pretended he was back in the bookshop, curled
00:14:24
Speaker 1: up in the chair by the fireside and wondering the world.
00:14:28
Speaker 1: With his Atlas in his mind. He turned the pages,
00:14:34
Speaker 1: heading past Columbia and Guatemala and back to Panama. He
00:14:41
Speaker 1: explored the page, tracing the lines of the rivers and
00:14:45
Speaker 1: mountains before looking at the pictures that showed the animals
00:14:49
Speaker 1: living there. I've got it, he suddenly said, sitting bolt upright.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: We need fireflies. The atlas showed pictures of tiny specks
00:15:03
Speaker 1: of light darting around at night, each a soft, yellow,
00:15:09
Speaker 1: glowing sphere. I knew you'd find the answer, said Tilly, delightedly,
00:15:16
Speaker 1: clapping her hands and rushing around the table to wrap
00:15:20
Speaker 1: him in one of her floating cloud hugs. Well done, dear,
00:15:26
Speaker 1: she said, and kissed him softly on the cheek. Put
00:15:30
Speaker 1: down your cup, we're going out. Tilly quite forgot it
00:15:36
Speaker 1: was raining in her hurry to get back to Mellow Yellow,
00:15:39
Speaker 1: dashing between the heavy drops and appearing by the little
00:15:43
Speaker 1: van's door before bou had put his cup back in
00:15:46
Speaker 1: the saucer. He rushed after her, holding out his arm
00:15:51
Speaker 1: to help her climb up, up, up into her seat,
00:15:56
Speaker 1: waiting patiently as she wriggled herself around on her cushions.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: When he was quite sure she was just as she
00:16:04
Speaker 1: needed to be, he gently closed the door and went
00:16:08
Speaker 1: around to his side, climbing in and shaking himself the
00:16:12
Speaker 1: way a dog does to get as much water off
00:16:14
Speaker 1: as possible. In the back, the little mouse squeaked something
00:16:21
Speaker 1: that was either a welcome back or a do you
00:16:26
Speaker 1: mind I'm sleeping here. Tilly turned Mellow Yellow's key and
00:16:32
Speaker 1: coaxed the van back to life. Mellow Yellow had been
00:16:36
Speaker 1: quite happily taking a nap, dreaming of warmer, sunnier days
00:16:41
Speaker 1: that matched her shining yellow paintwork, and took a while
00:16:45
Speaker 1: to get her engine going properly. Tilly peered at the
00:16:50
Speaker 1: windshield and the water pouring down it, a blurred world
00:16:55
Speaker 1: waiting to be driven into. She flicked the little ever
00:17:00
Speaker 1: to turn on the wiper blades and nothing. She tried
00:17:05
Speaker 1: flicking it again, reminding the van what she wanted. Come on,
00:17:10
Speaker 1: old girl, I need to be able to see where
00:17:14
Speaker 1: I'm going, she explained. But try as she did, the
00:17:19
Speaker 1: little old van couldn't get her wiper blades to move.
00:17:25
Speaker 1: Do you know I think I have the solution, said
00:17:30
Speaker 1: Bo quietly and confidently. The Panama page of the atlas
00:17:36
Speaker 1: still floated around in his mind. What we need is
00:17:42
Speaker 1: another animal of animal dear, said Tilly. It's what I
00:17:49
Speaker 1: call mouse, an animal that lives in the van with
00:17:53
Speaker 1: us and helps us out. And I think another animal
00:17:58
Speaker 1: can help you clear that in shield. What we need
00:18:03
Speaker 1: is a sloth. Do you know that's an absolutely wonderful idea,
00:18:12
Speaker 1: said Tilly. Why a sloth could just lie on the
00:18:17
Speaker 1: roof quite happily and wave his long arm up and
00:18:22
Speaker 1: down to clear the view. And after all, they don't
00:18:26
Speaker 1: mind the rain one bit. They're quite used to it, really,
00:18:31
Speaker 1: what with living in rainforests. Bow nodded, enthusiastically. That's exactly
00:18:40
Speaker 1: what I was thinking, he said, Shall we send a
00:18:44
Speaker 1: message into sleepy forest and see if there's a sloth around.
00:18:50
Speaker 1: Tilly wound down the window just a little and whistled
00:18:53
Speaker 1: low and soft. It didn't take long for a pigeon
00:18:57
Speaker 1: to appear, puffed up with the importance of having to
00:19:01
Speaker 1: deliver a message for great Aunt Tilly. He listened carefully
00:19:07
Speaker 1: as she explained exactly what she was after, which was
00:19:11
Speaker 1: a sloth with the longest, silkiest, smoothest arms of all,
00:19:18
Speaker 1: and then fluttered off to the forest to see who
00:19:21
Speaker 1: he could find to help. Bow and Tilly sat and
00:19:26
Speaker 1: waited until out of the forest flew a pair of
00:19:30
Speaker 1: golden eagles, and beneath them swung a sleepy, snoozy sloth.
00:19:36
Speaker 1: Softly gripped in their long talons. They gently lowered him
00:19:42
Speaker 1: on to Mellow Yellow's roof, and the pigeon appeared at
00:19:45
Speaker 1: the window, tapping with his beak. You wonderful bird, said Tilly,
00:19:52
Speaker 1: handing him a rhubarb and ginger cookie to thank him
00:19:56
Speaker 1: for his time. The pigeon flew off, happy to have helped,
00:20:01
Speaker 1: but keen to get back to the little ones in
00:20:03
Speaker 1: his nest and to snuggle down, warm and safe out
00:20:07
Speaker 1: of the rain. Wasn't that smart of the pigeon to
00:20:12
Speaker 1: get the golden eagles to carry the sloth, said Tilly
00:20:16
Speaker 1: to both, we'd have been waiting an eternity for the
00:20:21
Speaker 1: sloth to come by himself. The sloth, hearing this, allowed
00:20:27
Speaker 1: himself a small smile. She was perfectly right, of course,
00:20:33
Speaker 1: he did move terribly slowly. He lowered one of his
00:20:38
Speaker 1: long arms onto the windshield and started slowly waving it
00:20:44
Speaker 1: back and forth, back and forth, moving the raindrops from
00:20:49
Speaker 1: side to side, and making it perfectly possible for Great
00:20:54
Speaker 1: Aunt Tilly to see properly again. And now said Tilly,
00:21:01
Speaker 1: We're off to find some fireflies. I think I know
00:21:07
Speaker 1: just the place. So off they bumbled, heading up the
00:21:12
Speaker 1: lane and through Lower Starry Skies, and back up the hill,
00:21:17
Speaker 1: past the little church and Bow's School, and neither up
00:21:20
Speaker 1: nor down, and the wool shop named where there's a
00:21:24
Speaker 1: wool there's a way all the way up to Upper
00:21:28
Speaker 1: Starry Skies. And when they reached Upper Starry Skies, Tilly
00:21:33
Speaker 1: clicked on the indicator, so Mellow Yellow new she had
00:21:37
Speaker 1: to turn left, and off they went, weaving their way
00:21:41
Speaker 1: through the puddles and past the fields and meadows, heading
00:21:46
Speaker 1: Tilly said towards the great w w W the Internet,
00:21:54
Speaker 1: asked Bo, thinking that Tilly was all sorts of wonderful,
00:21:58
Speaker 1: but had deaf not lost the plot this time? What
00:22:04
Speaker 1: on earth is that? She said? The www the wondering
00:22:12
Speaker 1: wondering woods? Last time I heard they were over near
00:22:16
Speaker 1: the village of lily Haven. All the while, the sloth
00:22:21
Speaker 1: psalm slowly eased back and forth, back and forth, clearing
00:22:28
Speaker 1: the rains so Tilly and Mellow Yellow could see where
00:22:32
Speaker 1: they were going, And in the back, the mouse snored
00:22:37
Speaker 1: contentedly in his soft bed of socks, nestled between a
00:22:42
Speaker 1: couple of books of fairy tales. Sure enough, as they
00:22:49
Speaker 1: neared lily Haven, Bou could see a woodland that he
00:22:53
Speaker 1: was sure had never been there before. It seemed to
00:22:57
Speaker 1: be moving ever so slowly, stopping to pause every now
00:23:02
Speaker 1: and then before heading off, the green trees traveling as
00:23:07
Speaker 1: one mass of moving leaves and branches and trunks that
00:23:12
Speaker 1: glided across the ground as if their roots had become
00:23:16
Speaker 1: quite undone. There it is, said Tillie, aren't they be beautiful?
00:23:25
Speaker 1: You know? It's very hard to wonder about anything if
00:23:29
Speaker 1: you're tied down to a single idea and rooted to
00:23:33
Speaker 1: the spot. And these trees all wondered so very much
00:23:40
Speaker 1: about so very many things that eventually they just left
00:23:45
Speaker 1: their roots behind and went for a wonder There's some
00:23:50
Speaker 1: of the wisest trees I've ever come across, and I
00:23:55
Speaker 1: have met trees that are hundreds of years old. You know,
00:24:00
Speaker 1: I believe there's a group of fireflies living in the woods,
00:24:05
Speaker 1: lighting the path for them at night. It wasn't so
00:24:11
Speaker 1: very long ago that Beau had thought the single most
00:24:15
Speaker 1: wonderful thing about great Aunt Tillie was her cinnamon cookies.
00:24:21
Speaker 1: But he was beginning to realize that this tiny old
00:24:26
Speaker 1: lady with clothes that floated and billowed and danced even
00:24:31
Speaker 1: when dampened with rain drops was even more magical than
00:24:36
Speaker 1: he'd ever believed possible. As they drew to a stop
00:24:42
Speaker 1: alongside the edge of the wondering, wondering woods, the sloth
00:24:47
Speaker 1: drew his arm back up to use as a pillow
00:24:51
Speaker 1: and was fast asleep by the time Bow and till
00:24:54
Speaker 1: He emerged, clutching clear glass jars ready to be filled
00:25:00
Speaker 1: with fireflies. Into the woods they went, holding the jars aloft,
00:25:07
Speaker 1: Tillie called out softly and gently, fireflies, fireflies, please come
00:25:18
Speaker 1: and light up my world. And ever so slowly the
00:25:23
Speaker 1: words spread through the trees, and fireflies gathered, dancing in
00:25:29
Speaker 1: groups into the empty jars and filling them with the softest, warmest,
00:25:35
Speaker 1: most beautiful light. It was quite dark by the time
00:25:40
Speaker 1: they returned to the van, night wrapping around the scene
00:25:45
Speaker 1: like velvet. I think it's best if we sleep in
00:25:52
Speaker 1: mellow yellow, don't you, said Tilly, already climbing towards her
00:25:58
Speaker 1: nest in the back. She hung the jars around the van,
00:26:04
Speaker 1: and the fireflies slowed their dancing, dimming their lights to
00:26:10
Speaker 1: just a gentle hint of something soothing and soft. Bow
00:26:17
Speaker 1: helped the sloth down from the roof and balanced a
00:26:21
Speaker 1: branch inside, draping the animal's long limbs around so it
00:26:26
Speaker 1: was quite wrapped up in itself. The sloth nuzzled against
00:26:32
Speaker 1: the branch, smiling gently at Bow, before disappearing into a
00:26:38
Speaker 1: land of dreams. The mouse's soft snores drifted out from
00:26:45
Speaker 1: the bookshelves, and Tilly turned her head on the pillow
00:26:51
Speaker 1: this way and that until she found the perfect spot
00:26:56
Speaker 1: to sleep. Bow smiled as he hung ung up the
00:27:00
Speaker 1: hammock across the front seats, remembering to draw the curtains
00:27:06
Speaker 1: so Mellow Yellow could get a good night's sleep too,
00:27:10
Speaker 1: And he climbed into his own little nest, wrapping himself
00:27:15
Speaker 1: in a blanket and snuggling down, listening to the rain
00:27:19
Speaker 1: drumming away on their little van's roof and feeling cozier
00:27:25
Speaker 1: than he ever had before. And the van smiled, rocking
00:27:32
Speaker 1: gently so the animals and Tilly and Bow would be
00:27:39
Speaker 1: sure to have the dreamiest of dreams, and settled down
00:27:44
Speaker 1: herself to think of country lanes and meadows and sweeping
00:27:51
Speaker 1: panoramas and sun dressed views, and all the animal friends
00:27:59
Speaker 1: they were find in the endless, timeless travels they would
00:28:05
Speaker 1: have assass