In tonight's story, we meet a boy named Ziggy whose brain is so busy he can barely stop to think! His mind is always pinging from question to question, and when he begins to paint one day, the page quickly fills up with every creature, plant, and object you could possibly imagine. 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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Koala 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. Firstly, I'd like to give a warm welcome
00:00:24
Speaker 1: and hello to our special new Cocoa Club members tonight.
00:00:28
Speaker 1: That's you, Hannah Oshine and Sadie from Dublin, Lily Smith
00:00:33
Speaker 1: from Georgia, Rosie A, Rosalie Beddard from Quebec, Mia and Florence, Reagan, Grant,
00:00:42
Speaker 1: and Lyndon. Thank you all for joining and for all
00:00:47
Speaker 1: of your kind words about how much you and your
00:00:49
Speaker 1: families are enjoying listening to the stories together. We love
00:00:53
Speaker 1: hearing from you, and genuinely we feel really honored when
00:00:56
Speaker 1: you write to us and say you're recommending us to
00:00:59
Speaker 1: your friends too.
00:01:00
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: Now, then, are you someone who likes to draw and
00:01:05
Speaker 1: sketch and paint? I am. I find it very relaxing
00:01:09
Speaker 1: most of the time. Sometimes I find it hard to
00:01:12
Speaker 1: know what to draw, though, and there's something about the
00:01:15
Speaker 1: way our little friend Ziggy in this story approaches painting
00:01:18
Speaker 1: that I really really like. We'll soon meet him and
00:01:22
Speaker 1: his very busy brain, but first let's see if we
00:01:26
Speaker 1: can stop our own brain from being so active if
00:01:30
Speaker 1: you're listening at bedtime, it's always a good idea to
00:01:33
Speaker 1: try and actively quiet your thoughts down before trying to sleep,
00:01:37
Speaker 1: And one way is simply to concentrate on your breathing.
00:01:42
Speaker 1: So close your eyes and breathe in and out or
00:01:47
Speaker 1: a few times. Get comfy as you do this by
00:01:51
Speaker 1: moving a little bit and wriggling if you want. And
00:01:54
Speaker 1: then when you're in your comfy a spot, just listen
00:01:57
Speaker 1: to your breath coming in through your nose.
00:02:00
Speaker 2: And out in and out, in and out, steady and quiet,
00:02:13
Speaker 2: just like that, lovely.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: Now, then we're ready to meet a little boy named
00:02:20
Speaker 1: Ziggy whose brain is so busy he can barely stop
00:02:24
Speaker 1: to think. His mind is always pinging from question to question,
00:02:30
Speaker 1: and when he begins to paint one day, the page
00:02:33
Speaker 1: quickly fills up with every creature, plant, an object you
00:02:37
Speaker 1: could possibly imagine. This is Ziggy's busy brain by Jane Thomas.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: If you take a moment to think about it, there
00:02:54
Speaker 1: are thousands of questions that could be asked every single day.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: Where the rainbows come? How does stars hang in the
00:03:02
Speaker 1: night sky? Is the moon.
00:03:05
Speaker 2: Really made of cheese?
00:03:08
Speaker 1: Some people keep these questions inside, wondering about the answers
00:03:12
Speaker 1: for hours or days or even years, until suddenly there
00:03:18
Speaker 1: it is the answer. It may appear in the pages
00:03:21
Speaker 1: of a book, or in a lesson at school, or
00:03:25
Speaker 1: perhaps the answer just comes up in conversation, and then
00:03:29
Speaker 1: it can all be filed away in the brain. One
00:03:32
Speaker 1: less mystery in the world. But there are other people
00:03:37
Speaker 1: who like to ask questions because they want answers straight away.
00:03:42
Speaker 1: And nobody in the history of people has ever asked
00:03:46
Speaker 1: more questions than little Ziggy. Leave Ziggy alone in a
00:03:51
Speaker 1: garden for five minutes, and he will have a thousand
00:03:54
Speaker 1: new questions to ask about white daisies have yellow centers
00:03:58
Speaker 1: but white petals, or why clouds are sometimes soft and
00:04:03
Speaker 1: billowing and other times dark and heavy.
00:04:07
Speaker 2: Ziggi visited a beach.
00:04:08
Speaker 1: Once with his family, and he spent the whole time
00:04:12
Speaker 1: asking them questions. Why weren't waves all the same sizes.
00:04:17
Speaker 1: Why were there shells on this part of the beach
00:04:20
Speaker 1: but not that part of the beach. Why did some
00:04:23
Speaker 1: of the shells have extra.
00:04:24
Speaker 2: Holes in them?
00:04:26
Speaker 1: Why could he hear the sea if he held a
00:04:28
Speaker 1: shell up to his ear. Why was some seaweed so
00:04:32
Speaker 1: smooth and green and slippery? And other seaweed was brittle
00:04:36
Speaker 1: and hard and brown. How did crabs dig perfectly round
00:04:41
Speaker 1: holes to escape into? And why were sea gulls so very,
00:04:46
Speaker 1: very loud. It was supposed to be a relaxing day
00:04:51
Speaker 1: at the seaside, but his whole family was exhausted by
00:04:55
Speaker 1: the time they got in the car to come home.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: Ziggi had asked more questions than ever. They knew the
00:05:03
Speaker 1: answers to some of them, but after a few hours
00:05:06
Speaker 1: they had run out of ideas. The family had once
00:05:11
Speaker 1: visited Scotland, a wild place with purple heather mountains reaching
00:05:16
Speaker 1: up to the sky. Ziggy watched from a train window
00:05:20
Speaker 1: as the world whisked by, asking questions about kilts and cows,
00:05:26
Speaker 1: lakes and valleys, and why people from Scotland sounded different
00:05:31
Speaker 1: to the people from England. His mother could answer that one.
00:05:36
Speaker 1: It's just a different accent, dear, she told him, thinking
00:05:41
Speaker 1: that this was the end.
00:05:42
Speaker 2: Of the matter.
00:05:43
Speaker 1: They still speak the same language, yes, said Ziggy, but
00:05:51
Speaker 1: why why do they have a different accent? I think
00:05:57
Speaker 1: it's because people came from lot of different places to
00:06:01
Speaker 1: live in England and Scotland a very very long time ago,
00:06:06
Speaker 1: and they brought different accents with them, replied his mother,
00:06:10
Speaker 1: quite pleased with her answer that had made her remember
00:06:13
Speaker 1: history lessons from many years before. Ziggy was almost satisfied,
00:06:20
Speaker 1: but then he asked, why did they bring different accents?
00:06:26
Speaker 1: Why doesn't everyone just sound the same? And Ziggy's mother
00:06:31
Speaker 1: threw her hands in the air and surrendered. Ziggy's older
00:06:36
Speaker 1: brother turned the question round on him and asked Ziggy
00:06:40
Speaker 1: why he needed to know at all, and Ziggy stuck
00:06:43
Speaker 1: out his tongue and said, just because, folding his arms
00:06:48
Speaker 1: crossly and staring glumly out of the window again. It
00:06:54
Speaker 1: was on a day when Ziggy was home from school
00:06:57
Speaker 1: with a bad cold that everything changed. The house was
00:07:02
Speaker 1: almost completely empty. There was the cat George, who lay
00:07:07
Speaker 1: asleep on a cushion in a shaft of sunlight. There
00:07:11
Speaker 1: was the dog Toby, who, after a morning of chasing
00:07:14
Speaker 1: balls and sticks and leaping in and out of the river,
00:07:18
Speaker 1: was also taking a nap, curled up at the end
00:07:22
Speaker 1: of Ziggy's older brother's bed. And there was Ziggy's mother,
00:07:27
Speaker 1: armed with a pile of papers that reached from her
00:07:31
Speaker 1: waist to her chin, and she was heading to her office.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: I'll be right here if you need.
00:07:38
Speaker 1: Me, she whispered to Ziggy as she left him, curled
00:07:42
Speaker 1: up on the sofa beneath a mountain of soft blankets.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: Just you know, try not to need me for a while,
00:07:51
Speaker 1: she added, eyeing up the mountain of papers. Ziggy lay
00:07:56
Speaker 1: on the sofa and looked out through the window into
00:07:59
Speaker 1: the garden. And the family lived in a cottage quite
00:08:03
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, and almost the whole of
00:08:07
Speaker 1: the wall of the living room was made of glass.
00:08:10
Speaker 1: It meant that it almost felt as if the garden
00:08:14
Speaker 1: was really inside the house. Sometimes in the spring, Ziggy
00:08:19
Speaker 1: could watch the pink and white blossoms appear on the trees,
00:08:23
Speaker 1: and he often hoped there would be a soft breeze
00:08:26
Speaker 1: come through that would cover the ground in the pink petals,
00:08:30
Speaker 1: and for a few days at least changed the color
00:08:33
Speaker 1: of the lawn from green to pink. In the summer,
00:08:38
Speaker 1: Ziggi could watch the birds and butterflies as they fluttered
00:08:42
Speaker 1: between the different flowers. In the autumn, he watched as
00:08:47
Speaker 1: the green on the trees turned to yellows and oranges
00:08:50
Speaker 1: and reds, the dried up leaves forming little piles at
00:08:55
Speaker 1: the base of trees. This was Toby the dog's favorite
00:09:00
Speaker 1: time of the year, when he would run through the
00:09:02
Speaker 1: piles and kick them up behind him, a glorious golden
00:09:06
Speaker 1: wake of leaves flying into the air as he ran.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: But now it was winter, and Ziggi looked out onto
00:09:16
Speaker 1: a cold garden with no leaves on the trees and
00:09:20
Speaker 1: no flowers showing off their bright colors. It made him
00:09:25
Speaker 1: feel colder just to look at it, and he snuggled
00:09:28
Speaker 1: a little deeper into his blankets. He had only been
00:09:34
Speaker 1: there a few minutes, but already he had a thousand
00:09:38
Speaker 1: questions to ask. On a couple of occasions, the questions
00:09:43
Speaker 1: were so important that he almost leapt up and marched
00:09:46
Speaker 1: over to his mother's office, but he remembered the huge
00:09:50
Speaker 1: pile of papers she'd carried in there, and the tired
00:09:53
Speaker 1: look on her face. For the first time in his life,
00:09:59
Speaker 1: Ziggy man to keep the questions to himself. He clenched
00:10:04
Speaker 1: his fists and pushed his fingers into his palms, closing
00:10:09
Speaker 1: his eyes tight and hoping that he could keep all
00:10:12
Speaker 1: the questions inside. When it became almost unbearable all of
00:10:19
Speaker 1: five minutes later, Ziggy knew he had to do something.
00:10:24
Speaker 1: He climbed out from under the blankets, pushing his feet
00:10:28
Speaker 1: into the soft slippers his mother had left next to
00:10:30
Speaker 1: the sofa and pulling on the heavy blue jumper that
00:10:34
Speaker 1: was extra snugly. He went to his bedroom and rummaged around,
00:10:41
Speaker 1: looking for something to keep his mind off all the
00:10:44
Speaker 1: questions he wanted to ask, and finally he found the answer.
00:10:50
Speaker 1: With a smile, Ziggi returned to the sofa armed with
00:10:54
Speaker 1: a box of paints and a pad of paper. He
00:10:58
Speaker 1: didn't particularly like looking at the cold and wintry view
00:11:02
Speaker 1: outside the window, so instead he decided to paint what
00:11:06
Speaker 1: he would like to see. At first, Ziggi painted the
00:11:11
Speaker 1: garden as it would look in the summer. He remembered
00:11:15
Speaker 1: the way the purple wisteria draped itself along the wall,
00:11:20
Speaker 1: hanging with heavy purple cascades. He knew just where to
00:11:26
Speaker 1: put the roses, their deep red petals the color of love.
00:11:31
Speaker 1: And along the side of the old stables he added
00:11:36
Speaker 1: hanging baskets that spilled over with purples and pinks, and
00:11:40
Speaker 1: whites and yellows, all the colors pouring almost to the
00:11:45
Speaker 1: ground in their excitement to be seen. Ziggy was really
00:11:51
Speaker 1: quite happy with his painting, but then he wondered, just
00:11:55
Speaker 1: for a moment, what it would be like if he
00:11:57
Speaker 1: added in something that wasn't really mean to be there.
00:12:01
Speaker 1: He thought about it for a while, and then picked
00:12:04
Speaker 1: up a pot of brown paint and carefully, with his
00:12:08
Speaker 1: tongue sticking out at the corner of his mouth for
00:12:10
Speaker 1: extra concentration, added a horse looking over the wall and
00:12:16
Speaker 1: admiring the scene. He quite liked it, but then wondered
00:12:22
Speaker 1: why the horse would look over in the first place,
00:12:25
Speaker 1: so had to paint in the answer to that by
00:12:28
Speaker 1: adding a carrot into its mouth. The bright orange carrot
00:12:33
Speaker 1: looked just fine, But then Ziggi realized that the carrot
00:12:37
Speaker 1: had to come from somewhere too, so he added himself
00:12:42
Speaker 1: standing in the garden and holding some more carrots.
00:12:46
Speaker 2: That wouldn't do either.
00:12:48
Speaker 1: So then he had to create a whole extra bed
00:12:52
Speaker 1: in the garden where carrots grew, and because it didn't
00:12:56
Speaker 1: make sense that the family only grew carrots, he added
00:13:00
Speaker 1: a whole load of other.
00:13:01
Speaker 2: Vegetables in there.
00:13:04
Speaker 1: By the time he was done adding raspberry canes and
00:13:08
Speaker 1: BlackBerry bushes, the picture had become, if he was being honest,
00:13:14
Speaker 1: more than a little chaotic. There was paint all over
00:13:19
Speaker 1: the place, spilling this way and that and running into
00:13:24
Speaker 1: other paint, and in some places the paper was so
00:13:28
Speaker 1: heavy with paint it almost had.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: A hole in it.
00:13:33
Speaker 1: Ziggi decided to start again, only this time he wouldn't
00:13:38
Speaker 1: just paint the garden. He tapped the paint brush against
00:13:43
Speaker 1: his teeth and thought about what he would most like
00:13:46
Speaker 1: to see. His little sister always talked about the fairies
00:13:52
Speaker 1: that lived in the forest, so he decided to paint
00:13:55
Speaker 1: those for her. First, he painted the tall tree with
00:14:01
Speaker 1: big round trunks and branches heavy with green. Next, he
00:14:07
Speaker 1: took some of the brightest colors in his box and
00:14:10
Speaker 1: added the fairy doors to the bottom of the trees,
00:14:14
Speaker 1: because everyone knows that's where fairies live after all. He
00:14:19
Speaker 1: took the smallest brush he had and carefully added door
00:14:24
Speaker 1: handles and doorknockers and letter boxes. Then he shut his
00:14:30
Speaker 1: eyes tight and tried to imagine what a fairy looked like.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: But try as he might, all he could see when
00:14:40
Speaker 1: he closed his eyes was a family made of gingerbread.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: Ziggy shrugged and reluctantly accepted that this is what was
00:14:49
Speaker 1: meant to be seen in the picture, and he added
00:14:52
Speaker 1: little gingerbread families around the scene. He put one family
00:14:57
Speaker 1: walking along with a tiny gingerbread baby in a pushchair,
00:15:01
Speaker 1: and wondered where they might be going, So then he
00:15:05
Speaker 1: had to add a playpark to give them something to
00:15:08
Speaker 1: go and visit. He painted in a bright red slide
00:15:12
Speaker 1: and some bright yellow swings and a bright blue roundabout.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: Ziggi completed the picture by adding a school and a bakery,
00:15:23
Speaker 1: and a greengrocer and a cafe with colorful tables and
00:15:26
Speaker 1: chairs outside, and leaned back to admire his work. The
00:15:33
Speaker 1: same thing had happened as with the first picture. He
00:15:37
Speaker 1: had put so much paint on the page that it
00:15:41
Speaker 1: had all started to get a little chaotic. Everything poured
00:15:46
Speaker 1: into everything else, and it was hard to tell what
00:15:50
Speaker 1: all the parts were supposed to be anymore. What was worse,
00:15:55
Speaker 1: this time, the paper was so wet with paint it
00:15:58
Speaker 1: had two holes in it, not just one. Ziggy sighed
00:16:04
Speaker 1: and went over to the kitchen, putting his paintings on
00:16:08
Speaker 1: the counter next to the sink. All the questions he
00:16:13
Speaker 1: wanted to ask were getting caught up in the paintings.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: You realized that if he just painted something to look nice,
00:16:22
Speaker 1: he wasn't that bad. But it was when he started
00:16:26
Speaker 1: trying to have it all make sense that it went
00:16:29
Speaker 1: a bit wrong, and he added far too much. Ziggy
00:16:34
Speaker 1: settled back down on the sofa, determined to paint something
00:16:39
Speaker 1: that was simple this time. He sucked the end of
00:16:43
Speaker 1: his paint brush and thought about what he could do
00:16:47
Speaker 1: that was nice and easy. He thought about the sky
00:16:52
Speaker 1: at night, and how little silver and gold stars hung
00:16:57
Speaker 1: themselves against a sheet of black, and how the moon
00:17:01
Speaker 1: was sometimes full and round, and sometimes just the faintest
00:17:07
Speaker 1: sliver of a crescent. He thought of the time he
00:17:12
Speaker 1: and his brother had gone to the top of the
00:17:14
Speaker 1: nearby hill one night and laying on their back in
00:17:17
Speaker 1: the soft grass, and looked at the stars for hours.
00:17:23
Speaker 1: This would surely be an easy thing to paint, he decided,
00:17:28
Speaker 1: and there were no questions to ask, so he poured
00:17:33
Speaker 1: out a fresh sheet of paper and covered it in
00:17:36
Speaker 1: black paint. He went right to the edges of the
00:17:39
Speaker 1: paper and made sure he used the blackest of black
00:17:43
Speaker 1: paints he could find. Ziggi remembered the way the paint
00:17:49
Speaker 1: in his last two paintings had spilled into each other,
00:17:53
Speaker 1: and he decided not to make the same mistake for
00:17:56
Speaker 1: a third time. So he blew on the black paint,
00:18:01
Speaker 1: and he shook the paper in the air and waved
00:18:04
Speaker 1: it back and forth, waiting for the paint to dry
00:18:08
Speaker 1: before he would add anything else. When he was quite
00:18:14
Speaker 1: sure the black was completely dry, he picked up the
00:18:17
Speaker 1: special gold pen he'd been given last Christmas and added
00:18:21
Speaker 1: little stars. He then decided to add the moon and
00:18:27
Speaker 1: set about creating the finest slice of moon he could,
00:18:32
Speaker 1: just a little bit of a crescent. And then the
00:18:36
Speaker 1: paint brush slipped and he reluctantly accepted it would have
00:18:40
Speaker 1: to be a half moon that he painted instead, and
00:18:44
Speaker 1: it was nearly perfect, just added the final finishing touch
00:18:50
Speaker 1: when the brush slipped again, and Ziggi realized he would
00:18:53
Speaker 1: need to paint.
00:18:54
Speaker 2: A full moon after all.
00:18:57
Speaker 1: With all the stars in the moon hanging in their
00:19:00
Speaker 1: rightful places in the sky, Ziggy stepped back to look
00:19:05
Speaker 1: at his picture. He was a little annoyed that he
00:19:09
Speaker 1: hadn't managed to paint the perfect crescent moon, and looking
00:19:13
Speaker 1: at it now, he thought the moon looked more than
00:19:16
Speaker 1: a little empty. Perhaps he should add something to the
00:19:21
Speaker 1: big golden disk in the sky. He thought, what about
00:19:24
Speaker 1: a mouse? Mice like cheese and the moon is, as
00:19:29
Speaker 1: everyone knows, made of cheese. The mouse became, of course,
00:19:35
Speaker 1: a whole family of mice, and then Ziggy needed to
00:19:40
Speaker 1: work out how the mice had got to the moon
00:19:42
Speaker 1: in the first place, so he added a rocket too.
00:19:48
Speaker 1: It seemed a shame for the rocket to only be
00:19:51
Speaker 1: going to the moon, so Ziggy carefully added some planets
00:19:56
Speaker 1: for them to go and visit as well. Before he
00:20:00
Speaker 1: i knew it, the same thing had happened to this
00:20:03
Speaker 1: painting as the other two. There was absolute chaos on
00:20:08
Speaker 1: the page, with multiple rockets disappearing into all corners of
00:20:13
Speaker 1: the universe and planets swirling colorful hoola hoops around their middles.
00:20:20
Speaker 1: The family of mice had expanded more than a little,
00:20:25
Speaker 1: and he had hedgehogs on one planet and badgers on another.
00:20:29
Speaker 1: He tried to paint camels on one, but the necks
00:20:32
Speaker 1: had gone wrong, so a little group of giraffes hung
00:20:35
Speaker 1: out on what was meant to be Jupiter. As Ziggy
00:20:40
Speaker 1: wondered whether he would ever be able to paint something decent,
00:20:44
Speaker 1: his mother emerged from the office. Ziggy looked up and
00:20:49
Speaker 1: saw that it was now quite dark outside, and somehow
00:20:53
Speaker 1: the entire day had disappeared in a whirl of paint
00:20:56
Speaker 1: brushes and wild ideas. His mother yawned and stretched, shaking
00:21:04
Speaker 1: the working day out of the ends of her fingers
00:21:07
Speaker 1: and the ends.
00:21:07
Speaker 2: Of her toes.
00:21:10
Speaker 1: She walked over to the kitchen and looked down at
00:21:13
Speaker 1: Ziggy's paintings, and he went over to join her, carrying
00:21:17
Speaker 1: the third picture of the night sky. Goodness, She said,
00:21:23
Speaker 1: at last, you have been busy. Ziggy shuffled his feet.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: They're not that good, are they, he said? At last, Well, dear,
00:21:37
Speaker 1: they're certainly colorful, his mother said, smiling. Did you enjoy
00:21:43
Speaker 1: painting them? Ziggi nodded his head, even though they weren't
00:21:49
Speaker 1: very good at all. He'd had a lovely time imagining everything.
00:21:54
Speaker 1: Are these giraffes, his mother asked, pointing to the long
00:22:00
Speaker 1: necked creatures on the purple planet. Ziggi nodded.
00:22:06
Speaker 2: Why are there giraffes in space? She asked.
00:22:11
Speaker 1: Ziggy shrugged, because the camels went wrong. The explanation made
00:22:17
Speaker 1: sense to him, and his mother raised an eyebrow.
00:22:21
Speaker 2: Of course, and why were.
00:22:25
Speaker 1: They going to be camels on the planet, Because it's
00:22:30
Speaker 1: one of the planets closer to the Sun, and camels
00:22:33
Speaker 1: like hot places, Ziggy explained. As his mother tucked him
00:22:40
Speaker 1: into bed that night, she gave him an extra tight squeeze.
00:22:46
Speaker 1: As long as you like doing the paintings, you keep
00:22:50
Speaker 1: doing them, she said to him, telling him to forget
00:22:54
Speaker 1: the comments his father and brother and sister had made.
00:22:59
Speaker 1: Even the dog had barked when he'd seen the paintings
00:23:03
Speaker 1: backing off with the hairs on the back of his
00:23:05
Speaker 1: neck standing up. The cat had hidden behind the sofa
00:23:08
Speaker 1: and refused to come out. Ziggi curled up in his
00:23:12
Speaker 1: bed and snuggled his way under the blankets. He fell
00:23:17
Speaker 1: asleep thinking of all the things he would paint the
00:23:21
Speaker 1: next day, dreaming of the purple heather mountains he'd seen
00:23:26
Speaker 1: in Scotland and the waves pulling themselves back and forth
00:23:31
Speaker 1: across the sand, and wondered how he could show the
00:23:36
Speaker 1: sounds of the shingle in his picture. He wondered how
00:23:41
Speaker 1: he could share the soft whoosh of an owl's wings
00:23:45
Speaker 1: as they swept through the night sky, or the feel
00:23:49
Speaker 1: of a summer breeze brushing across his face, or the
00:23:55
Speaker 1: scent of cherry blossom floating in the air. And over
00:24:01
Speaker 1: the years, Ziggy painted and painted and painted. Almost every
00:24:07
Speaker 1: day he painted something, practicing and perfecting each and every
00:24:13
Speaker 1: scene that poured from his imagination. And I wish I
00:24:19
Speaker 1: could say that this little boy grew up to be
00:24:22
Speaker 1: one of those famous artists with pictures and galleries and
00:24:27
Speaker 1: people queuing up to buy his masterpieces and hang them
00:24:30
Speaker 1: on their walls. But even after years of painting, Ziggy
00:24:36
Speaker 1: still asked too many questions in his pictures. He still
00:24:40
Speaker 1: let the paint spill from one scene into another, the
00:24:44
Speaker 1: washes easing across the pages. You never did learn that
00:24:50
Speaker 1: it didn't matter if the gingerbread family had nowhere to go,
00:24:54
Speaker 1: or how a mouse made it onto the moon, or
00:24:58
Speaker 1: why a horse would look over a wall, And it
00:25:01
Speaker 1: didn't matter, because every night Ziggi would climb into his
00:25:06
Speaker 1: bed and be asleep in moments because he had found
00:25:12
Speaker 1: something that made him happy and that, it turns out,
00:25:18
Speaker 1: is the most precious thing in the world. Every night,
00:25:24
Speaker 1: his head would touch the pillow, and after he tucked
00:25:28
Speaker 1: the blanket under his chin, he breathed in, and he
00:25:33
Speaker 1: breathed out, and he was once more very deep in
00:25:39
Speaker 1: his dreams.
00:26:01
Speaker 2: Dre