The Bird Who Looked After Lost Things

Part One. The Feather in the Playground

On Monday morning, there was a feather in the playground, and it was bigger than Mister Harris's car.

It lay across the grass like a fallen sail. It was silver at the edges, green in the middle and gold at the tip. Every time the wind blew, it rippled, and little sparks of colour ran down it like rain down a window.

We all stood round it in a ring. Kenji poked it with a stick. Ollie tried to climb it. Dot lay down on it and said it was the softest bed in the world, and that she was going to live there now.

Nobody had put it there. Nobody had seen anyone put it there. But somebody had to have, because it had definitely not been there on Friday.

"It's from last night," said Alex.

"It's from the voice," said Felix.

"The voice that asked about small, lost things," said Alex.

"And then the shadow," said Felix.

We all looked up. The sky was empty and blue.

Willow, the Bengal reading cat, who is nine and has seen a lot of things, walked all the way round the feather twice. Then she sat down next to it and stared at the school roof with her ears forward.

That's when we heard it. A soft, deep whump, whump, whump, and a rustle, up on the roof.

Part Two. The New Teacher

By the time the bell rang, she was in the hall.

We did not see how she got in. One minute the hall was empty, and the next minute there was a very tall lady standing on the stage with her hands folded, wearing a long green coat that shimmered like a beetle's back. Her hair was silver, and so long that it was tied in a plait that went down to the floor. She had a copper-coloured scarf wound round her neck, and her eyes were a deep, calm gold.

Her badge said Madam Simurgh, Lost Property.

"Good morning, small people," she said. Her voice was low and slow. It sounded like it came from the bottom of a well, a nice well, with warm water in it. "I am told that this is a school that looks after small, lost things. I would like to help."

"Lost property!" shouted Dot. She loves lost property. She once spent a whole wet play looking through the lost property box and found three odd socks and a tiny tin whistle.

"Yes, Dot," said Madam Simurgh. "I'm very good at lost property."

"How do you know my name?" said Dot.

"Because you are small and you are friendly," said Madam Simurgh. "I notice things like that."

Mister Harris clapped his hands. "Everyone, please welcome our new Lost Property Mistress. She has a rather large office, so we've given her the cupboard under the stairs."

"I will fit," said Madam Simurgh.

We looked at the cupboard under the stairs. We looked at Madam Simurgh. She was at least two metres tall.

"I will fold," said Madam Simurgh.

Part Three. Maya Has the Whole Story

"She's the Simurgh," said Maya.

She said it at break, behind the bike shed. She had her notebook open and her pencil in her hand, and her cheeks had gone pink with excitement.

"The what?" said Kenji.

"The Simurgh," said Maya. "It's a giant bird from Persia. That's the old name for Iran, and it's in the Middle East. Her story is in a very old book called the Shahnameh, which means the Book of Kings. It's got about fifty thousand verses in it."

"Fifty thousand?" said Ollie.

"Which is a lot," said Maya. "And the Simurgh is one of the best characters. She's enormous. She has a peacock's tail and a lion's claws, and wings that shine like copper in the sun. She lives on a mountain called Alborz, and she's older than anyone can count. Some stories say she lives in a tree with every seed in the world growing on it, and when she shakes her wings, the seeds fly out and make new plants."

"That's why she looks so green," said Alex.

"And her wings can heal," said Maya. "If you're hurt, she can sweep a feather over you and make you better. And the best bit is the baby."

"What baby?" said Felix.

"There was a baby boy called Zal," said Maya. "He was born with white hair, and his father was scared and thought it was bad luck. So he left the baby on the mountain, all alone. And the Simurgh found him."

"Oh no," said Dot, in a small voice.

"But it's okay, because she took him home to her nest," said Maya. "And she fed him, and kept him warm, and raised him with her chicks. For years and years. And when Zal grew up and wanted to go back to people, she didn't stop him. She gave him a feather. She said, If you are ever in trouble, burn this, and I'll come."

"And did he?" said Alex.

"Lots of times," said Maya. "And she always came."

Part Four. The Cupboard Under the Stairs

We were allowed to visit her on Tuesday, in groups of three.

The cupboard under the stairs had changed. It was twice as deep as before, and warm, and it smelled of cinnamon and clean laundry. Shelf after shelf ran back into the dark, filled to the ceiling with lost things. There were odd gloves, and a rainbow of woolly hats. There was a doll with one shoe, and a cricket bat with a name on it from 1962. There was a drawing of a purple horse, and a tooth in a small glass jar.

"Everything here has someone it belongs to," said Madam Simurgh. She had folded herself into a tall wooden chair, with her coat spread round her like wings. "Some of them have forgotten. Some of them have not noticed yet. But every lost thing is lost from somebody. And I find the somebody."

Dot held up the doll with the one shoe. "Whose is this?"

"She belongs to a girl called Priya," said Madam Simurgh. "She has been looking for her ever since she lost her. I have already sent her a note."

"How did you know?" said Felix.

"I know where everything lost is waiting," said Madam Simurgh. "It's the one thing I do better than anything. When I fly over the world, I can feel them. All the things that are missing. All the people who feel they have fallen out of the world. It hums, a little, in my feathers."

Willow had climbed into an empty hat box on the bottom shelf. She turned round three times and settled with her chin on the rim.

"A very sensible cat," said Madam Simurgh.

Then she looked at Alex and Felix, and her golden eyes grew a little brighter.

"I have something for you two," she said.

Part Five. One Feather Between Two

She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a feather.

It was no bigger than a pencil. It was silver at the edges and green in the middle, with a tiny gold tip. It lay in her palm and glowed a little, as if it had a small light inside it.

"This is for you," she said. "Both of you. Not one each. One between two."

Alex looked at Felix. Felix looked at Alex.

"We can share," said Alex.

"We always share," said Felix.

"I know," said Madam Simurgh. "That is why I chose you."

She held the feather out flat. Alex put one hand under one end, and Felix put one hand under the other. And as soon as both their hands were holding it, it glowed a bit brighter, and hummed, very gently, like a bee in a jar.

"Now," said Madam Simurgh. "This is how it works. In the old stories, people burned my feathers to call me. But we don't set fire to anything in a school, and I wouldn't want you to. So here is a better way. If you are ever truly lost, and you do not know which way to go, hold it together, the two of you, and say, We're lost, please. Then I will come."

"Both of us?" said Felix.

"Both of you," said Madam Simurgh. "It will not work for one. That is the rule."

"Why?" said Alex.

"Because being lost is lonely," said Madam Simurgh. "And I have noticed that when two people hold on to each other, they are usually not as lost as they think."

Alex tucked the feather carefully into his top pocket. Felix patted it flat.

Part Six. The Walk to Gobbler Hill

On Wednesday, Mister Harris decided we would go for a nature walk.

It was a bright, crisp, sunny morning. The sky was an enormous blue, and the leaves on the trees were all the colours of toast. We put on our wellies and our coats, and Mister Harris counted us at the gate. There were twenty-six children, and one cat, who was not supposed to come, but who had put herself at the front of the line.

"Stay together!" shouted Mister Harris, with his clipboard. "We are going up Gobbler Hill to see the autumn colours and have our packed lunch. Walk in pairs! Hold hands! Nobody wanders off!"

We walked in pairs. Alex and Felix were at the front, with Maya and Willow just behind them. Dot was with Kenji, and Ollie was with the girl who always has an apple.

We climbed up the lane. We climbed over the stile. We climbed up the narrow path between the brambles, where there were still a few blackberries. It was lovely. The leaves crunched under our feet. And at the top, in the sunshine, was a big flat rock where we were going to sit and eat our sandwiches.

That's when Ollie said, "Is it getting darker?"

It was.

Part Seven. The Grey

It crept up the hill like a cat creeping up on a bird.

First it was a thin haze on the edge of the field. Then a pale wall, moving slowly, then faster, then all at once. It swallowed the trees, one by one. It swallowed the stile and the lane. It swallowed the path behind us, and the sky above us, and the sound of the wind.

"Fog!" shouted Mister Harris. "Stay close! Everybody hold hands!"

But the fog was so thick that we couldn't see our own hands. We couldn't see each other's faces. All we could see was a soft, cold, whirling grey, with no up or down in it, and no edges.

"Mister Harris?" called Alex.

"Mister Harris?" called Felix.

Nobody answered. We could hear a few voices a long way off, thin as thread, calling to each other. They were moving away.

"Maya?" said Alex.

"I'm here," said Maya, very close. Her hand found his sleeve. "I've got you. I've got Willow too. She's on my shoulder."

"Where's Dot?" said Felix.

"I'm here!" said a voice. "I've got Kenji! And Ollie!"

We bumped into each other in the dark, and held on. The six of us stood in a tight knot in the middle of the grey, and nobody said anything for a bit, because they were all trying to be brave.

"We've got to stay still," said Maya, in a wobbly voice. "That's what you're supposed to do. You stay put, and people find you."

"What if they don't?" whispered Ollie.

"They will," said Maya.

But nobody could hear Mister Harris any more.

Then Willow's ears went up.

Part Eight. The Thirty Little Birds

Willow had heard it before any of us. She slid off Maya's shoulder, and before anyone could grab her, she walked straight out into the grey, all by herself, with her tail up like a flag, until she was just a faint grey shape, and then nothing at all.

"Willow!" whispered Maya. "Come back!"

Willow did not come back. But from out in the fog, there came a very small, thin, cheeping sound.

"Hold on to me," said Maya, and held on to Alex. Alex held on to Felix. Felix held on to Dot, and Dot held on to Kenji, and Kenji held on to Ollie. We shuffled forward in a chain, step by step, through the cold, toward the sound, until our boots bumped into something warm and furry.

It was Willow. She was sitting very still, with her face down in the grass. And in front of her, low down, the crying was tiny. It was a thin, high, cheeping, flapping sort of sound. It was the sound of a lot of very small things being very frightened.

"Is that the wind?" said Kenji.

"It's birds," said Felix.

He crouched down, and put out his hand, and touched something soft and round. A tiny face looked up at him. It was a wren, a brown, round, small one, no bigger than a plum, with its beak open and its wings shaking.

Next to it was a sparrow. And next to the sparrow, a robin. And beside the robin, a finch, and a tit, and a thrush, and three starlings, and a dozen others, all huddled in a pile on the cold ground, packed so tightly together that they made one big fluffy ball.

"There's loads of them," whispered Dot.

"There are thirty," said Maya, counting fast. "Exactly thirty."

"We're lost," said the wren, in a very small voice.

We all stared. Willow just blinked, as if she had known all along.

"They can talk," said Alex.

"Of course we can talk," said the sparrow, crossly. "We are birds of great importance. We have been flying for seven days, looking for our king."

"Your king?" said Felix.

"The Simurgh," said the wren. "The great bird. We were told that she would lead us home. But then the fog came down, and we couldn't see the stars, and we couldn't find the way, and we have been sitting here for hours, and we are very small and very tired and very cold."

"The Simurgh is our Lost Property Mistress," said Alex.

"What?" said thirty birds, all together.

Part Nine. We're Lost, Please

Maya knew what to do.

"It's the Conference of the Birds," she whispered. "It's another Persian story! A poet called Attar wrote it about a thousand years ago. The birds of the world all got together and said, We need a king. And the hoopoe told them about the Simurgh, and they set out to find her. But it was a very long way, through seven valleys, and most of them gave up."

"That's us," chirped the wren. "We are the ones who didn't give up."

"But the fog came," said the robin, sadly.

Alex took the little feather out of his pocket. Felix took the other end. The silver light in the middle of it glowed in the grey like a tiny lantern.

"Together," said Alex.

"Together," said Felix.

They held it up between them, one hand each, as high as they could reach. It hummed. It shivered. The birds went silent. And both twins took a breath together and said, in clear voices that didn't wobble at all:

"We're lost, please."

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then something huge moved in the fog.

Part Ten. The Wings

The sound came first. Whump. Whump. Whump.

It shook the ground. It shook the air. It shook the drops of water hanging on every blade of grass. The fog began to swirl, and spin, and thin, and tear, as if someone had stuck a giant spoon in it and was stirring.

And out of the grey came a pair of wings.

They were wider than the road. They shone like copper in the sun, and as they beat, they threw off sparks of green and silver and gold. Behind them trailed a tail like a peacock's, three times as long as a bus, with a hundred bright eyes on it. And in the middle of it all, huge and calm, was a head with a curved beak and two deep golden eyes that looked down at us as if we were the only things in the world.

It was Madam Simurgh.

She landed on the hilltop with a soft thump, and folded her wings. The last of the fog drifted away like a curtain pulled back. We were standing on the big flat rock after all, with the sun shining and the whole valley spread out below. The school was a tiny red dot in the distance. And all round us, as far as we could see, the hills were gold.

"Madam Simurgh!" screamed Dot, and ran forward and hugged her great scaly leg.

"Hello, Dot," said Madam Simurgh. "I came as fast as I could."

Part Eleven. The Puddle

The thirty birds had not moved.

They sat in a clump on the rock, staring up at her with their beaks open. The wren had fallen off the edge and was dangling by one foot. The sparrow had fainted. The thrush was trying to say something, and kept making a noise like eep.

"Oh," whispered the robin. "Oh, oh, oh. It's her. We found the Simurgh. We've found our king."

"You have found a bird," said Madam Simurgh, gently. "Come closer, little ones. Do not be afraid."

They hopped forward, trembling. She bent her great head, and her golden eyes grew very kind.

"You have come a long way," she said. "Seven days. Through storms and mountains and a very thick fog. That is a brave thing to do."

"We just wanted to be told what to do," squeaked the wren.

"I know," said Madam Simurgh. "Many do. But I will show you something. Look down."

At the foot of the rock was a puddle, left from last night's rain. It was perfectly still, and bright as a mirror. The birds hopped to the edge and looked in.

There was the wren. There was the sparrow, and the robin, and the finch. And there were all the others, thirty little shapes, side by side, huddled together. And in the puddle they made a picture, a great shimmering shape of copper and green and silver, with a tail full of eyes.

It was the shape of a huge, wonderful bird.

"That is me," whispered the wren.

"It is us," said the sparrow.

"In my old language," said Madam Simurgh, "si means thirty and morgh means bird. Simurgh. Thirty birds. That is my name, small ones. It always was. I am not one bird. I am what you become when you hold on together."

Part Twelve. You Were Already It

Nobody said anything for a long time. A tiny breeze ruffled the puddle.

"We were looking for a king," said the robin. "And we were already one."

"You were already enough," said Madam Simurgh. "All of you. Even the smallest. Especially the smallest. You did not need me to lead you. You needed someone to tell you that you could."

"But we got lost," said the wren, in a wobbly voice.

"Of course you got lost," said Madam Simurgh. "Everyone gets lost. I get lost. Being lost is not something wrong with you. It is only a place you happen to be standing for a while. And the way out of it is very simple. You ask. Or you wait for somebody to come. Or both."

"Like the twins," said Maya.

"Like Alex and Felix," said Madam Simurgh. "Who did the brave thing. They were frightened, and they held on to each other, and they asked for help out loud. That is the hardest thing there is, and they did it together."

Alex went pink. Felix went pinker.

"It was the feather," said Alex.

"It was both of us," said Felix.

"It was both of you," said Madam Simurgh. "That is what I said."

Willow, who had found them in the fog, walked across the rock. She sat down in front of the thirty birds, quite close, and looked at them with her golden eyes. The sparrow squeaked. The robin shut its eyes. But Willow only put her head down on her paws, and purred, a big warm purr, as if to say, I'm not going to eat you, I'm going to look after you.

The wren hopped slowly forward. It climbed on to her back. And Willow, who was very careful, did not move a muscle.

Part Thirteen. Mister Harris

That's when Mister Harris found us.

He came crashing up the hill, red-faced and out of breath, with the rest of the class stumbling behind him in a long line. He had lost his clipboard and one welly. His hair stood up like a hedge.

"There you are!" he gasped, collapsing against the rock. "I've counted you eleven times! I've been up and down this hill twice! Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness. You're all here. You're all here!"

He looked up. His eyes went round and round as he took in the huge copper bird, the thirty small birds, and the six of us in the middle.

"Madam Simurgh," he said faintly. "You're... larger than I expected."

"I am larger than most people expect," said Madam Simurgh, kindly. "I'm sorry I startled you."

"I thought I'd lost you," said Mister Harris, and to our surprise, his voice cracked. "I'm in charge of you all. And I lost six of you in a fog."

"But you didn't lose us," said Felix. "We were just somewhere else."

"We stayed together," said Alex. "That's what you told us."

Mister Harris sat down on the rock and took off his glasses and wiped them on his jumper for a very long time.

"You will each need a very big hot chocolate," he said.

"With marshmallows," said Ollie.

"With marshmallows," said Mister Harris, "and I'm going to make a new rule. Nobody goes up a hill again without a Lost Property Mistress."

"I can do that," said Madam Simurgh.

Part Fourteen. The Ride Home

She took us all home on her back.

There were twenty-six of us, and one cat, and thirty small birds, and one rather damp teacher. She spread her wings flat on the rock like a copper carpet, and we climbed on in rows. It was warm, and soft, and smelled of cinnamon and clean air. Dot sat at the front, because she said she was in charge of the map. Alex and Felix sat together in the middle, with the feather held between them. Maya sat just behind, writing so fast her pencil smoked.

Mister Harris sat at the very back, holding on to his remaining welly.

"Ready?" said Madam Simurgh.

"Ready!" we shouted.

She took off in a gust of gold, and we were flying.

The valley fell away beneath us. The hills rolled out like green blankets. A river wound through the fields like a silver ribbon, and tiny cows looked up at us, chewing. The wind rushed past our ears. And behind us, in a long, wobbly ribbon, flew the thirty small birds, wing to wing, whirling and diving and laughing as they went, looping round her tail like a dancing scarf.

"This is the best day of my life," said Kenji.

"Mine too," said Ollie.

"Mine," said Dot.

Alex and Felix grinned at each other.

"Ours," they said.

Part Fifteen. The Oak Tree

The birds stayed.

Madam Simurgh gave them the old oak tree at the edge of the playground, the one with the twisted branches that nobody climbs. She shook out her wings above it, and a rain of seeds came tumbling down, bright as sparkles. Wherever they landed, they sprouted. By morning, the whole tree was hung with tiny nests, thirty of them, each one the perfect size.

"A home," said the wren, sniffing. "We've never had a proper one."

"You do now," said Madam Simurgh. "You belong here as long as you like."

On Friday, there was a ceremony. All the staff gods came out and stood under the oak: Mrs Oshun, in her golden dress, carrying a basket of honey cakes. Mister Raven and Mister Coyote, side by side. Miss Pele, steaming happily. Baba Yaga, with a pot of soup for the birds. Even Mister Harris came, wearing a clean jumper and two matching wellies.

The wren made a speech. It was very short, and mostly squeaks. But we could tell from the way his chest puffed out that it was about being brave.

Dot cried. Ollie cried. Kenji said he wasn't crying but his face was wet. And Madam Simurgh, standing at the back, gave a little nod, like someone who has put a very large jigsaw puzzle into its box and is very pleased with how it came out.

Part Sixteen. What She Said at the End

On the last evening, we all sat on the grass under the oak, and Madam Simurgh sat in the middle of us, folded small again, in her green coat.

Alex and Felix and Maya and Willow sat in the front. Dot was asleep, with her head on Ollie's shoulder. Kenji was feeding crumbs to the starlings.

"I want to tell you something," said Madam Simurgh. "Because you were the ones who asked."

We waited.

"You are all a little bit lost sometimes," she said. "Even the grown-ups. Even me. Feeling lost doesn't mean you are broken. It means you are still travelling."

"What do you do?" said Felix.

"You stop," said Madam Simurgh. "You hold on to someone. And you say, out loud, I'm lost, please. And you will find that someone always comes. Perhaps not straight away. But someone."

"And if nobody comes?" said Alex.

"Then you become the one who comes for someone else," said Madam Simurgh. "That's how it works. That is how I began."

She put one long finger gently under each of their chins.

"You two are very much not lost," she said. "You have each other, and you have the habit of asking. Keep the feather."

"Even though we didn't burn it?" said Alex.

"Especially because you didn't," said Madam Simurgh. "You found a better way."

Maya wrote it down. She wrote someone always comes and, very quietly, drew a box round it.

Part Seventeen. The Ending, with a Hook

The sun went down. The nests glowed softly in the oak tree. The thirty birds had gone to sleep, and the playground was very still.

Alex and Felix walked home through the dusk, with Willow between them and Maya just behind. The feather was safe in Alex's pocket. Felix kept his hand over it, just in case.

At the gate, Willow stopped.

Her fur had gone up on end. Her ears were pointing at the sky.

"What is it?" whispered Maya.

We looked up.

The first stars were coming out. And across the dark blue sky above the school, from one side to the other, ran a long, thin, jagged line. It was a crack. It glowed a faint, uneasy red, like a wound. And as we watched, a few tiny flecks fell from it, glittering as they dropped, and landed in the grass at our feet.

They were small stones. One was red. One was yellow. One was blue-green. One was white and one was black.

Alex picked up the red one. It was warm.

And from somewhere high above, from the top of the crack in the sky, came a voice. It was cheerful, and slightly out of breath, and it sounded like a person balancing on a very tall ladder.

"Excuse me!" it called. "Hello? Sorry to bother you! Is there anybody down there who knows how to mend a hole in the sky?"

Something long and green and scaly flicked across the stars. It looked very much like a tail.

Alex and Felix looked at each other, with the red stone glowing between them. They said, at exactly the same time, "Monday."

The End.