The Day the Moon Sat on the Roof

Part One. The Moon on the Roof

On Monday morning, the moon was sitting on the school roof.

It was not the night moon. It was nine o'clock, and the sky was blue, and there it was anyway, round and pale and much too low, resting on the ridge of the roof like a pale round cheese on the edge of a table. It was so close that we could see the dents in it.

It was also the wrong size. The moon is meant to be about as big as a penny held at arm's length. This one was as big as the school hall.

"It's near," said Ollie.

"It's too near," said Kenji. "I think it's going to fall off."

Nobody else seemed to have noticed. The buses went past. A man walked his dog. Mister Harris came out of the front doors with his clipboard, looked up at the biggest thing in the sky, and said, "Lovely morning," and went back in again.

That's when Willow stopped at the school gate, and sat down, and looked up. She does not look up at things often. Her nose was wet.

A single drop of something silver landed on it.

Part Two. Silver Puddles

It was not rain. Rain does not shine.

The drops fell one at a time from the edge of the moon, slowly, like a tap that has not been turned off properly. Each one landed on the playground and made a small round puddle, as bright as a coin.

Dot found the first. She is in Reception, and she is not scared of anything, and she jumped straight in it with both feet. Nothing splashed. It was not wet. It was more like jumping on a mirror.

"Alex," said Felix, who was kneeling beside the second one. "Look in there."

Alex knelt down next to him. In the silver puddle was the sky, but it was not our sky. It was darker, and bigger, and had two moons in it, and a long bridge that glowed every colour at once, stretching across from one side to the other.

Alex put his hand on the puddle. It was cool and smooth, like glass.

"Somebody else's sky," he said.

"Is it a good one?" said Felix.

"It's got a bridge," said Alex. "So, yes."

Willow came over. She sat down at the edge of the puddle and looked into it for a long time, with her whiskers pointing forward. She is a Bengal cat, and she is nine, and when she looks at something that hard, we try to look too.

Part Three. Ollie's Lunch

The first thing swapped at break time.

Ollie opened his lunchbox, as he does every day at exactly half past ten, even though lunch is at twelve. He likes to check that it is still there.

It was still there. But it was not the same.

Instead of a cheese sandwich, there was a roast leg of something. It was large and brown and glistening, with a bone sticking out of one end, and it smelled so good that three people dropped their pencils. It was the size of a baby.

"That's not mine," said Ollie, slowly.

"It is now," said Kenji.

"It's enormous," said Ollie. He lifted it up with both hands. "It's warm. It's very warm. Who has a roast in a lunchbox?"

He took one bite, and his eyes went round.

Then, with a little pop, it was gone. The leg disappeared out of his hands, and in its place, lying in the lunchbox, was a cheese sandwich again. It was a bit squashed.

"I'd like it back," said Ollie, in a small voice. "The leg. Not the sandwich. Mostly the leg."

"Somewhere," said Maya, writing fast, "somebody is sitting in a big room, and looking at a cheese sandwich, and feeling the same."

Part Four. Three More

By lunchtime, there were three more.

Kenji's recorder turned into a long curly horn, the sort you blow to call people to a feast. He blew it before he could stop himself, and it made a sound like a very surprised cow. Then it turned back.

Dot's wellies, which she had left on the peg, turned into a pair of boots as big as buckets, with a giant's name written inside in letters that moved. Then back again. Dot said it was the best thing that had happened to her all week, and it was only Monday.

And at the end of lunch, Mister Harris's clipboard turned into a heavy grey slab of stone with squiggles on it. He held it up, looked at it, and said, "I'm sure that's perfectly under control." Then it was a clipboard again.

"With help," he added, quietly.

Each time, it was only for about as long as it takes to say "Is that a...?" And each time, the thing that swapped went and came back at exactly the same moment, as if it was on a short piece of elastic.

"It's not stealing," said Felix, thoughtfully. "It's swapping."

"It's borrowing," said Alex. "They'd want theirs back."

"Who's they?" said Ollie.

We looked at the silver puddles. They were still there, and there were more of them now. Each one showed a different bit of somebody else's world. We saw a hill, and a hall with a long table, and a bit of a river. Nobody was in any of them.

Part Five. Maya Counts

"I've been counting," said Maya.

She had her notebook open on her knee and her pencil behind her ear and another pencil in her hand. She looked as if she had not slept.

"More than fifty gods have come to this school," she said. "That's counting the Seven Lucky Men as seven, and a turtle. If you put them all in the staff room at once, you couldn't shut the door."

"We've got a very big staff room," said Kenji.

"It's not about the room," said Maya. "It's about the school. All the gods here, all at once, all being gods. Mister Thor makes the thunder. Miss Pele makes the hot water. Mister Hadad does the weather. Missus Bast does the cats. Something that big has to go somewhere."

"Where does it go?" said Felix.

"I don't know," said Maya. "Thin, I think. Like a pair of socks. If you wear them too much, you can see through the heels."

She turned the page.

"Evidence number one. The moon is too low. Evidence number two. It's dripping. Evidence number three. The swaps." She chewed her pencil. "And every single swap was for a matching thing. A lunchbox for a lunch. A recorder for a horn. A pair of wellies for a pair of boots. It's as if our school is touching somebody else's, and wherever they're the same..."

"They swap," said Alex.

"For about a second," said Maya.

"And then it goes back," said Felix.

"When the matching stops," said Maya. "I think. It lasts exactly as long as the two things are the same. Ollie stopped holding his lunchbox the same way, and pop."

"That's for lunchboxes," said Alex.

"So far," said Maya. "I don't know what would happen with something bigger."

Part Six. Mister Janus Holds the Clock

Mister Janus was standing very still in the corridor, with his back against the wall, holding the biggest key on his ring against his chest.

He looked tired. The bright face and the quiet face were both looking at the ceiling, as if they were listening to something far away.

"Mister Janus," said Felix. "Are you all right?"

"I am holding the clock," said the quiet face.

"We both are," said the bright face.

"What clock?" said Alex.

"The clock," said both faces. "The one the whole world goes by. When one place begins to press on another, they begin to wobble. Time wobbles first. So I am holding it still. Gently. With both hands."

He held up his hands. They were shaking, a tiny bit.

"For as long as I hold it," said the bright face, "everything stays exactly as it was. Nothing is late. Nobody is missed."

"And when you let go?" said Kenji.

The two faces looked at each other, which they can do now, since last time. "Don't make me," said the quiet face.

"We've heard what the children say," said the bright face. "The thin places. It's true. I can hold a door. I can hold a clock. I cannot hold a whole sky."

"What do I do?" said Maya, with her pencil ready.

"Nothing the same," said Mister Janus. "Not for a moment. Don't do the same as anyone, in the same place, at the same time. It's where two things match that the worlds touch."

He closed his eyes. Both pairs.

"And I should like to sit down now," he said. "But I have not got a chair that is wide enough."

Part Seven. Mister Loki Has No Children

At afternoon break, Mister Loki came wandering across the playground, with a pack of cards that he was trying to hide.

"Hello, my favourites!" he said. He was wearing his green jumper with the gold stripe. He was juggling three pencils, and dropping one every time. "Terrible business with the moon. Nothing to do with me. I haven't touched it. I haven't been near it. I have been in the staff room all day, being completely innocent."

A thin gold thread slid out of his sleeve and wriggled about on the grass.

"Mister Loki," said Kenji. "Have you got any children?"

"Children!" said Mister Loki, with a loud, hollow laugh. "Me? Not a single one. Never had one. I'm far too busy."

The gold thread was now two metres long. It had begun to curl up round Kenji's shoe.

"Loki," said a deep voice. It was Mister Thor, coming out of the shed with a spanner. He had stopped, quite gently, so he wouldn't make a boom. "That's not true, and you know it."

"It's a bit true," said Mister Loki.

"You have three."

"They were little," said Mister Loki. "Are. Were. I don't know. We aren't close. One of them is a wolf." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I haven't seen them for years. Hundreds. It's complicated, all right? Can we not?"

He stuffed the gold thread back up his sleeve, and the cards fell out of his pocket.

"The one with one hand would know about thin places," said Mister Thor, to nobody in particular. "Tyr. But he never visits. He's always minding somebody. It's his thing."

Nobody said anything. We just wrote it down. Maya wrote it twice.

Part Eight. What Missus Ibbs Said

"There is a matter," said Missus Ibbs, "of the Record."

She was standing in the dinner hall, on her one leg, with a large old book open on the counter, and her reed pen in her hand. She was counting peas. She does that when she is thinking.

"It is sealed on Friday," she said. "At the full moon. I have copied the school's week into it every Tuesday night, and when the moon is full, the pages are closed. After that, what is written is how things are."

"Can't you change it?" said Alex.

"I can mend a spelling," said Missus Ibbs. "I can cross out a reccord and write a record. But I may not change a fact. A record that changes its mind is no record at all."

She looked up at the dinner hall window. The moon was very large in it.

"That is not our moon," she said, with her lips pressed together. "I know our moon. We have not been on speaking terms for five thousand years, but I would know it anywhere. It does not sit on roofs, and it does not drip."

"Today is Monday," she said. "On Friday the moon is full. If this mix-up has not been put right by then, it will be written. And what is written..."

"Is how things are," said Felix.

"Yes," said Missus Ibbs. She put down a pea. "I do not know what this is yet. But I do not like it."

Ollie put up his hand. "Is the roast leg going to be in the Record?"

"The leg is only a leg," said Missus Ibbs. "I am much more worried about what it was in."

Part Nine. A Different Day

That afternoon, Mister Harris made an announcement.

He did it over the loudspeaker, because he was too nervous to do it in person. It crackled a lot.

"Good afternoon, everyone. For the rest of today, and until further notice, it will be a Different Day. This means that nobody may do the same thing as anybody else in the same place at the same time. It is not a game. I repeat, it is not a game. I have a clipboard."

It was the most difficult hour we have ever had.

You cannot line up for the hall, because lining up is everyone doing the same thing. So we went in one at a time, by different routes. Ollie hopped. Kenji went backwards. Maya went round the long way, and arrived before everyone else, and was cross.

In PE, Mister Hanu had to stop the whole class from running at once. He split us into people who ran, people who skipped, and people who sort of drifted. Dot invented a new way of moving called spooling.

At the water fountain, there was a queue of three, and all three of them wanted to be different. Ollie drank sideways. Kenji drank with his eyes shut. Felix took a mouthful and spat it out, because it turned out that being different with water is hard.

"This is the worst," said Kenji.

"It's the best," said Dot, from underneath a table.

"Do the same," said Maya, "as nobody. Do the same as nobody. That's all."

Part Ten. Willow at the Puddle

The next bit, we did not see. We were all busy being different, at the other end of the playground. Alex and Felix told us about it afterwards, and Maya wrote it down, so this is how they told it.

At the end of the afternoon, Alex noticed that Willow was missing.

He found her at the far end of the playground, at the biggest of the silver puddles. She was sitting beside it, very straight, with her paws together, looking down.

She was not poking it. She was not trying to drink it. She was just looking.

"Felix," said Alex. "Come and see."

Felix came over. Behind them, the rest of the class was being different, and a long way off.

"She's looking at something," said Felix. "What is it?"

"I don't know," said Alex. "She's looking at it like it's looking back."

They knelt either side of her. She did not move, but her ears turned a small bit, to say that they could stay.

And together, they looked in.

Part Eleven. The Hill

It was a hill.

It was a green hill in the evening, with a long grey hedge along the top, and in the sky above it, two moons. The grass was long, and silver at the tips. There was a tree with a bench round it, and a stump, and a winding path going up to something very big and golden that they could only see the edge of.

At the top of the hill, a girl was standing with her back to a wolf.

She was about their age, or a bit bigger. She was wearing a long, plain, grey dress, and she was standing quite stiffly, like somebody who had been told to stand still. One half of her face was pale as milk. The other half was warm and pink as toast. She had dark hair that went down her back.

And behind her, on his tummy in the grass, a wolf was creeping.

He was a puppy. He was a large puppy. He was the size of a big dog, grey and shaggy, with paws like dinner plates and ears that did not know yet what they were for. He was tiptoeing on those paws, with his tongue out, one step at a time, with the quivering look of someone who has been told to creep and is bursting to run.

They could not hear anything through the puddle. But the girl's mouth kept moving. She said something short, and the puppy took a few creeping steps. She said something else, and he took a few more. Each time, he got a bit closer to her back, and each time, he nearly burst.

"They're playing something," whispered Alex.

"They're playing a game," whispered Felix. "I think. It's a creeping one."

"Is the wolf the baddie?" said Alex.

"No," said Felix. "Look at his tail."

The puppy's tail was going round and round like a propeller.

Part Twelve. The Man with the Ribbon

There was someone else on the hill.

He was sitting on the stump at the side, with his back to them. He was a tall man in a plain brown tunic, with a rough brown beard. One of his hands rested on his knee. It was not quite right. It was darker than the other one, and very still, and it did not seem to be a hand at all. A wooden one, Felix thought.

In the other hand, he was holding a ribbon.

It was long, and pale, and it shone as softly as silk. He was winding it round his fingers, and unwinding it, and winding it again. He did it slowly, as if it was heavy, and as if he did not want to.

Every now and then he looked up at the puppy, and then quickly down at the ribbon again.

It did not look like a nice ribbon.

"Who's that?" said Alex.

"I don't know," said Felix. "He looks sad."

"He looks like he's got a job," said Alex, "that he doesn't want."

Willow made a small sound in her throat. It was not a meow. It was the sort of noise a cat makes when she has found out something and is thinking about it carefully.

"Felix," said Alex. "That girl. Is she looking at us?"

Part Thirteen. The Wave

She was.

The girl on the hill had turned right round. She wasn't looking at the puppy. She was looking straight out of the puddle, past the grass and the bench and the golden thing, through two moons, at two boys and a cat kneeling on a playground.

She had very serious eyes. She stared at them for a long time.

Then, slowly, she lifted one hand, the pale one, and waved.

It was the smallest wave in the world. She did not smile. But she waved.

Alex waved back. Felix waved back. Willow did not, because she is a cat, but she blinked at the girl, once, slowly, which in cat is the same thing.

The wolf puppy froze mid-creep and looked up. He saw them, too. His whole back end started to wag.

And then the silver of the puddle went cloudy, as if somebody had breathed on it, and the hill was gone. There was only the playground, and a smear of silver, and a sky with a low moon.

"Who was she?" said Alex.

"I don't know," said Felix. "But she waved first."

Part Fourteen. Nothing the Same

We found them there, afterwards, when the bell rang.

They told us what they'd seen, and Maya wrote it down. It took a long time, because Ollie kept interrupting to ask if there had been any food on the hill, and the answer was no, which upset him.

"A girl, a wolf, a man, a ribbon," said Maya. She read it aloud. "I don't know what any of it means. But I know that we are not going to do the same as them."

"Hang on," said Kenji. "A wolf. Mister Loki said one of his was a wolf."

Maya's pencil stopped. "Mister Loki's children," she said, slowly. She wrote it down. She wrote ASK HIM next to it, in capitals. "Tomorrow. He'll fib, so we'll have to be clever."

"What would the same be?" said Kenji.

"A game," said Maya. "Any game they were playing. Whatever it was. We'll say no. We'll say we don't play it."

"We don't even know what it was," said Felix.

"A creeping game," said Alex. "With a wolf."

"We'll avoid creeping," said Maya. She wrote it in capitals, and underlined it. "And nobody is to play anything with a hill in it."

"We haven't got a hill," said Ollie.

"Gobbler Hill," said Kenji.

"Nobody is to play anything on Gobbler Hill, either," said Maya.

"What about the bank?" said Dot. At the bottom of the field there is a little grassy bump, about as high as your knees, which the little ones roll down at lunchtime.

"That isn't a hill," said Kenji. "It's only a bump."

"Is a bump a hill?" said Ollie.

Maya looked at the bump for a long time. "No," she said, not quite sure. "Probably not."

We all nodded. It seemed sensible.

Part Fifteen. The Moon Speaks

When it was nearly dark, the moon spoke.

We had stayed behind a little, because it seemed rude not to. We were standing in the playground, looking up. Nobody had said anything for a while. Then a voice came, very quietly, from the roof.

"Excuse me," it said. "Is this the right sky?"

It was a soft voice, like warm water. It had a bit of a wobble in it. Looking up, we could just see her: a round face in the moon, pale and kind, with big, tired eyes and a mouth that was trying not to tremble. A silver drop gathered at the edge of one eye, and fell, and landed with a plink in a puddle.

"Hello," said Maya, in her best polite voice. "Are you the moon?"

"I am a moon," said the moon. "Not yours. Yours is behind me, being polite, and pretending not to look. Quilla, they call me, in my own country, a long way off. Mama Quilla." She sniffed. "I keep the calendar. I tell people when the festivals are, and when to plant, and what month it is. And I have been rather upset, because there are two skies tonight, and I can't tell which is mine."

"Ours is the one with the cat in it," said Felix.

"There's a cat in both," said Mama Quilla, sadly. "That's the trouble."

"Ours has the dinner hall," said Alex, who had been thinking about it. "It smells of fish pie on Thursdays."

"Does it?" said the moon, and sniffed, and looked a little cheered up. "That's a start. Mine smells of cold stone and woodsmoke."

Maya had stopped writing. She had the look she gets when she knows the answer and doesn't like it.

"Mama Quilla," she said. "The Inca people, in Peru, long ago, they said that silver was your tears."

"They did," said the moon. "It is. I am so sorry about your playground."

Part Sixteen. Silver

"Don't be," said Alex.

"It's nice," said Felix. "We've never had silver puddles."

The moon blinked, slowly. She was a long way up. But she looked a little less like somebody who was going to cry, and a little more like somebody who was thinking about not.

"You're kind," she said. "I shall stay as long as I can. But I shall have to go back up soon, and I'm afraid I don't know which way is up."

"We'll help," said Felix.

"We don't know how yet," said Alex.

"But we'll help," they said, together.

Behind them, in the puddle at the end of the playground, something waved.

It was only a small, pale hand, with dark hair above it, and a very big furry shape beside it. Alex saw it first. Felix saw it second. Willow, who had been watching it the whole time, put her tail round her feet and went on looking.

"Felix," said Alex. "She's still there."

"We're not playing creeping games," said Felix.

"We're not," said Alex. "We're really, really not."

They looked down into the puddle. In the puddle, the girl on the hill had turned her back again, and was standing straight. And the wolf puppy had flattened himself in the grass, with his bottom in the air and his tail going round, ready to creep.

Somebody was about to ask her something. Neither of them could tell who.

Nobody had to say it. They said, at exactly the same time, "Monday."

The End.