The Lady Who Hid the Sun

Part One. A Very Pale Morning

On Monday morning, the sun came up, but it looked like it hadn't slept.

It was thin and pale and wobbly, like a poached egg that has gone wrong. It hung over the school at an odd angle, and every few seconds it flickered, as if somebody were switching it on and off to check the bulb.

We stood at the gate in our coats and looked up at it.

"It was out last night," said Alex.

"Completely out," said Felix.

"And there was laughing," said Alex.

"And bells," said Felix.

"And someone lost a mirror," said Alex.

"Is that why it's gone funny?" said Dot, who is in Reception and likes things explained plainly.

Nobody knew. But Willow, the Bengal reading cat, who had sat on the front wall all night to keep watch, jumped down with her tail straight up and trotted across the playground to the main doors, as if she had somewhere to be.

We followed her. And on the front steps, with her back to the door, sat a lady in a white robe.

Part Two. Mrs Amaterasu

She was very beautiful, and very nervous.

Her robe was white as milk, with a gold sash round the middle. Her hair was black and shining, tied up with ribbons. Round her head, like a crown, glowed a ring of soft golden rays that went in and out, in and out, like breathing. Tiny silver bells jingled on her sleeves every time she moved.

She was patting all her pockets. She was patting the steps. She looked under her own robe.

Her badge said Mrs Amaterasu, Light and Mornings.

"Good morning," she said, in a small, polite voice. "I'm so sorry. I seem to have mislaid something."

"Your mirror?" said Felix.

She jumped. Her rays flared up so brightly that the whole front of the school turned gold, and then dimmed again.

"How did you know?" she said.

"We heard you," said Alex. "Last night. You said it from the hill."

"Oh dear," said Mrs Amaterasu. "Oh, I do apologise. That was meant to be a private worry." Her cheeks went pink. "I'm told I'm the person who puts the morning on. I'm supposed to come in and make it nice and bright for everyone. And I can't, you see, because I can't find my mirror, and when I can't find it..." She waved a hand at the flickering sun. "It goes a bit like that."

Part Three. Maya Has Eight Hundred Questions

"She's the Sun Goddess," whispered Maya.

We were behind the bike shed. Her notebook was open, and she'd drawn a tiny sun with a face in the margin.

"She's Amaterasu," said Maya. "It means the one who shines in heaven. She's from Japan, and she's one of the most important goddesses in the whole of Japanese myth. In fact, there's an old tradition that the royal family of Japan is descended from her. And a lot of people still visit her shrine at a place called Ise, to say thank you for the sun."

"She's nervous," said Kenji.

"She's shy," said Maya. "That's in the stories too. She's the brightest of all the gods, but she doesn't like a fuss. And she has three special treasures. A jewel, a sword, and a mirror. It's the mirror that's most important to her, because it's the one where she can see her own light."

"Why does she need to see it?" said Ollie.

"I don't know," said Maya. She frowned. "Maybe so she remembers it's there."

Behind us, something tinkled. We turned round. A tiny shape, no bigger than a thumb, was sitting on the bike shed roof, glowing like a firefly. It giggled. Then there was another, and another, and soon the whole roof was covered in small, shiny, giggling creatures with lantern heads.

"What are they?" whispered Dot.

"I think," said Maya slowly, "they're the kami. In Japan, kami are the spirits and sacred presences in things, in the sun and the mountains and the rivers. And these are the little ones. Hundreds of them. I think they came with her, to look after her. A few of them giggle when they're nervous."

There were eight hundred of them, in the end. We counted.

Part Four. Lost Property

We took Mrs Amaterasu to the cupboard under the stairs.

Madam Simurgh was sitting in her tall wooden chair, folded small as a hen, polishing a boot. She looked up when we came in. Her golden eyes took in the pale sun-lady and the eight hundred glowing little spirits, and she nodded as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.

"Something small and shiny, and very precious," she said. "Round. Bronze. With a handle."

"How did you...?" said Mrs Amaterasu.

"It's a lost thing," said Madam Simurgh. "I can feel them. It hums." She closed her eyes, and her feathers rippled, and she tilted her head. "It is nearby. But it is not in a place I can easily reach."

"Where?" said Alex.

"Somewhere high," said Madam Simurgh. "And very dark."

Dot was already burrowing through the shelves. She came back with a purple hat, a lonely mitten, a spelling book and a slightly squashed banana. "No mirror," she said, sadly.

"Keep looking," said Madam Simurgh. "It will turn up. Lost things always turn up, in the end, if you stay kind and keep looking."

Mrs Amaterasu nodded, and bit her lip. Behind her, her golden rays flickered once, and weakly steadied.

That's when the door of the school slammed open and a gust of wind blew through it.

Part Five. Mister Susanoo

He came in like a storm.

He was enormous. He had a bushy red beard and a green cloak that flapped even though there was no wind indoors, and he had to duck under every doorway. A small, angry thundercloud followed him wherever he went, and drizzled on his shoulders. On his belt hung a very large, very shiny sword, and he had mud up to both knees.

His badge said Mister Susanoo, Weather and Sports Day.

"SISTER!" he boomed. "THERE you are! I've been looking everywhere for you!"

Mrs Amaterasu's rays dropped to a dim flicker.

"Hello, Susanoo," she said, quietly.

"I'm the new sports teacher!" he roared, delighted. "I brought a football! And a wrestling mat! And some very exciting hurdles! Come and see!"

"It's a little loud in here," said Mrs Amaterasu.

"IS IT?" shouted Mister Susanoo. Everyone in the corridor put their hands over their ears. A shelf of paper cups fell off the wall. "Sorry! I'll lower it! Is this lower?"

"A tiny bit," said Mrs Amaterasu, with a wince.

We watched them go down the corridor together, a big loud storm of a man and a small pale sun with her bells ringing nervously. Behind them trailed the kami, glowing softly, a few of them hiding in her sleeves.

"He's her brother," whispered Maya. "That's in the story, too. The sun and the storm. They're two of the three great children of the first gods, and they've never got on. Not because he's mean. He's just... a lot."

"Is he naughty?" said Dot.

"He's noisy," said Maya. "Which is different. Sometimes."

Part Six. The Harvest Assembly

The trouble began on Wednesday.

It was the Harvest Assembly, which happens every autumn, when everyone brings in tins and vegetables and puts them on a long table in the hall. Mrs Amaterasu was in charge of the decorations. She had worked on them all week. She had made rice sheaves out of gold paper. She had hung a hundred little paper lanterns from the ceiling. She had lit every one with a tiny spark from her own glow.

It was the most beautiful hall we'd ever seen. All the kami were hanging from the lanterns, glowing softly.

We sat on the floor in rows. Mister Harris stood on the stage and cleared his throat.

"Welcome, everyone, to our Harvest Assembly," he began. "I would like to thank Mrs Amaterasu for the lovely..."

The doors banged open.

"HELLO!" shouted Mister Susanoo, arriving at a run, with his football under his arm. "I've got a game! It's called Harvest Football! The vegetables are the goalposts! Watch this!"

He kicked.

The ball sailed across the hall, bounced off a pumpkin, hit a lantern, and bounced off the head of Mister Jackson. A hundred paper lanterns swayed. A turnip rolled off the table. Then another. Then a tin of beans, then a basket of apples, then the whole harvest display, which crashed across the floor in a long, tumbling, terrible avalanche.

For a moment, nobody breathed.

Part Seven. Not Funny

"It's just a joke!" said Mister Susanoo, going red.

Nobody laughed.

Mrs Amaterasu stood very still at the end of the hall. Her gold paper sheaves lay trampled on the floor. Her lanterns had all gone out, one by one, in the wind from the doors. Her rays, which had been small and pale all week, shrank until there was only a thin glimmer round her head.

"I worked on that for days and days," she said, in a very small voice.

"It was an accident!" said Mister Susanoo. "I didn't mean to! You're being dramatic!"

That was the wrong thing to say. We all knew it, even Ollie. We saw her face crumple. We heard the little silver bells on her sleeves ring once, softly, and stop.

"I think," said Mrs Amaterasu, "I should like to be on my own for a bit."

She turned and walked out of the hall. She walked down the corridor, and through the back door, and across the playground, to the old stone storeroom at the end of the caretaker's shed. It was an ancient, windowless room with a heavy round stone door, where they keep the spare chairs. She went in. We heard the stone door grind shut behind her.

And the sun went out.

Part Eight. The Dark

It happened all at once.

The sky, which had been pale, went grey, and then black. The light drained out of the hall like water out of a bath. Mister Harris's torch flickered on. Ollie shrieked. A hundred lanterns hung in the dark, not glowing. And outside, in the playground, the world was night, in the middle of the morning, with not one star in the sky.

"Everyone stay calm!" shouted Mister Harris.

"I'm calm!" shouted Kenji, from under a chair.

"I can't see my hands!" shouted Ollie.

"They're still on the end of your arms," said Maya, in the dark.

It got cold, too. The sort of cold that makes your breath come out in clouds. The wind picked up, and a thin layer of frost crept across the windows. Out on the field, the autumn leaves froze in the middle of falling and hung in the air, stiff and silver.

"Where's the sun?" whimpered Dot.

"She's gone in," said Alex, quietly. "She's hiding."

"She's hurt," said Felix.

Willow, who sees very well in the dark, was already trotting out of the hall. Alex and Felix followed her, hand in hand, with Maya behind, and Dot behind her, holding the back of Maya's coat.

By the time we got to the storeroom, half the school was there.

Part Nine. Pushing

They had all had ideas.

Mister Heston was trying to push the stone door open with a crowbar. It did not move. The Caretaker was banging on it with a mallet. It did not move. Mister Hadad shouted, and thunder rolled, and the door still stayed where it was. Two weather teachers, and neither of them could help. Miss Pele melted a bit of the frost off the step, and Baba Yaga offered to send in some soup through the keyhole.

"Come out, Amaterasu!" bellowed Mister Susanoo. He was standing in front of the door with his fists clenched and rain pouring off his head. "This is silly! It was only a game! Come out right now!"

From inside the storeroom, nothing.

"You're being unreasonable!" he shouted.

Silence.

"Stop it," said Felix.

"You're making it worse," said Alex.

Mister Susanoo glared down. He was twice as tall as the Caretaker. Rain was dripping off the end of his nose. But when he saw the two small faces looking up at him, side by side, his scowl wobbled.

"What do you know?" he muttered.

"We know what it's like to be shouted at when you're sad," said Alex.

"It doesn't help," said Felix.

Mister Susanoo opened his mouth. He shut it. His cloud shrank a little.

"I'll lean on the door a bit harder," he said, gruffly.

"No," said Maya. "That's not the way."

Part Ten. The Story of the Party

"I've worked it out," said Maya.

We were all crowded under the eaves of the shed, in the cold and the dark. Her notebook was open on her knee, lit by the little glow of one kami who'd climbed onto her shoulder. She'd written CAVE in big letters at the top.

"It's in the myth. It's the same thing. Amaterasu really did hide in a cave, in the old story, after her brother upset her. And the whole world went dark. And the gods tried everything. They tried banging. They tried shouting. It didn't work. In the end, they thought of something else."

"What?" said Alex.

"A party," said Maya.

"A party?" said Mister Harris.

"They hung a tree with jewels and ribbons just outside the cave," said Maya. "And they put a mirror on the tree. And they got a goddess called Uzume to dance on an upside-down tub, so loudly and so funnily that all the other gods roared with laughter. And Amaterasu, inside the cave, heard the laughing, and thought, what's so funny out there? And she opened the door, just a crack, to look."

"And then?" said Felix.

"And then she saw herself in the mirror," said Maya. "And she thought, oh, who's that, shining so brightly? And she came a little closer."

"Her mirror!" said Alex.

"But we haven't got it," said Felix.

And that's when something went clunk on top of Madam Simurgh's head.

Part Eleven. The Mirror

It was a small, round, bronze mirror with a handle, and it had fallen out of the sky.

Madam Simurgh had stretched her wings out wide, to carry the cold away from the children. And a little way up, tangled in the feathers on her head, where it had been stuck since Sunday night in the dark, was the mirror.

"It was caught in the clouds," she said, plucking it out gently. "When she lost it, it flew up into the sky. And I could not feel it before, because I was not high enough. Here."

She put it in Alex's hands. Alex put his hand on one side. Felix put his hand on the other. And the mirror, which had been dull and dusty, began to glow, just a little, as if it were remembering.

"We'll hang it on a tree," said Alex.

"We'll make the party," said Felix.

"We need a tub," said Maya.

"We need a dancer," said Ollie.

"Dot," said everybody at once.

Dot, who had been quietly holding her mitten, looked up.

"Me?" she said.

"You're the best at dancing in the whole school," said Kenji, truthfully.

Dot looked at the sky, which was black. She looked at the stone door. She looked at her own shoes. Then she put her chin up, and said, "Okay."

Part Twelve. The Party at the Cave

We built it in ten minutes.

Mister Heston found an old metal tub and turned it upside down. The Caretaker propped up a small tree from the garden, and Madam Simurgh hung it with ribbons from her own tail. Mrs Oshun brought a basket of honey cakes. Mister Väinämöinen sat on a log with his five-stringed instrument and began to play. And the eight hundred kami, who love a party, lined up along the shed roof and the fence and the wall, glowing like fairy lights.

Alex and Felix hung the mirror on the tree together, one on each side. It glowed a little brighter.

"Ready?" said Maya, to Dot.

"Ready," said Dot.

She climbed onto the upturned tub. She was very small and very serious. And then she began to dance.

It was the silliest dance any of us had ever seen. She waggled. She wiggled. She flapped her elbows like a chicken, and shook her bottom like a jelly, and did a sort of hopping spin that made her fall over, and get up, and do it again. Willow, all at once, leapt on to the tub beside her and began to dance too, in a stiff, solemn, cat sort of way, with her tail up and her whiskers twitching.

Kenji started laughing. Then Ollie. Then the whole class. Then the staff. Mister Coyote laughed so hard he dropped his sandwich. Baba Yaga cackled. Mister Harris wiped his eyes. And the eight hundred kami shone and tinkled, glowing so brightly that the whole playground turned gold.

Part Thirteen. A Crack in the Door

Inside the storeroom, something shifted.

We heard it. A tiny scrape, then a pause. And then, very slowly, the heavy stone door moved, just a finger's width, and a thin line of light fell across the grass.

"Why is everyone laughing?" said a small voice.

Dot, on the tub, took a deep bow. "Because I'm very funny," she said.

There was a long pause.

"And what," said the voice, "is that?"

The stone door opened a little wider. A pale eye appeared in the crack. Her gaze slid across the playground, past the tub, and the tree, and the dancing cat, until it landed on the shining mirror in the branches.

"Oh," said Mrs Amaterasu. "Oh. There it is."

She stepped forward. The door swung open, a little. Her rays flickered in the dark.

"Who is that shining?" she whispered. She was looking at the reflection in the mirror, a lady in white, with a crown of gold. "She's so bright."

"It's you," said Alex.

"It's you," said Felix.

"It's always been you," said Maya.

Mrs Amaterasu stared. She raised one hand, and the reflection raised hers. She smiled, and the reflection smiled back, shyly. And her rays, which had been small and dim for days, grew, and warmed, and brightened, and spread.

Part Fourteen. Sorry

"I'm sorry," said Mister Susanoo.

He had been standing at the back, with his hat in his hands. The rain from his cloud had stopped. He looked smaller than before.

Everyone went quiet.

"I'm sorry I kicked the ball," he said. "And I'm sorry I knocked down the harvest. And I'm sorry I said you were being dramatic. I wasn't trying to be funny. I was only trying to..." He rubbed his face with his enormous hand. "I wanted you to like me. I never know how to be near you. I get loud, because I'm nervous. And then it all goes wrong."

Mrs Amaterasu stepped out of the storeroom. She walked across the playground, slowly, in the growing light. She stopped in front of her enormous brother, and looked up.

"I like you very much," she said. "I just need you to be a little bit quieter."

"I can try," said Mister Susanoo.

"And I need you to ask," said Mrs Amaterasu. "Before you do the big thing. Not after."

"I can do that," said Mister Susanoo, wiping his nose on his cloak.

"And I'm sorry that I hid," said Mrs Amaterasu. "It frightened everyone. I should have told you how I felt, instead of shutting the door."

"But you're allowed to need a quiet place," said Felix.

"As long as you tell someone where you are," said Alex.

She laughed, a real laugh, bright as a bell. And the sun came up.

Part Fifteen. The Sun Comes Back

It rose over the hill all at once, round and gold and fat, warm as a cup of tea. It poured over the school roof. It spilled into the playground. It lit every window and every puddle and every lantern in the hall. The frost melted. The frozen leaves began to fall, slowly, one by one. The kami cheered, a tiny golden roar.

And across the sky, from one side to the other, shimmered the long, bright, patchwork seam that Mrs Nuwa had sewn the week before, glowing in every colour as the sunrise lit it up.

"It's beautiful," breathed Dot.

"It's all of us," said Maya.

The staff went back to rebuild the harvest display, with Mister Susanoo carrying all the heavy things, very carefully, and not kicking anything. Mrs Oshun re-lit the lanterns. Mrs Lakshmi re-did the gold paper sheaves. Mister Ketz made a huge corn loaf to share. And at the end of the playground, the Caretaker wedged the stone door of the storeroom open with a chair, so that it would never stay shut by accident again.

"If I want to go in," said Mrs Amaterasu, "I know where it is."

"And we'll know where you are," said Alex.

"And we'll wait," said Felix, "with a lamp."

Part Sixteen. What She Told Us at Sunset

That evening, the sun went down slowly, as it was supposed to, in a long soft glow of pink and orange.

Mrs Amaterasu sat on the steps of the storeroom with her mirror in her lap. Alex and Felix sat on one side of her, and Maya and Willow on the other. Dot, worn out, was asleep in a wheelbarrow with a kami curled up on her nose.

"I should say thank you," said Mrs Amaterasu. "You did not shout, and you did not pull. You sat down outside the door and made a party. Do you know, that is the kindest way anyone has ever asked me to come out?"

"Maya remembered," said Alex.

"Dot danced," said Felix.

"The cat danced," said Maya.

"And you all came," said Mrs Amaterasu. "That is what I will remember."

She turned the mirror in her hands.

"I will tell you something I wish I had known sooner," she said. "It is all right to hide when you are hurt, but don't stay in there forever. There are people on the outside who love you, waiting with a lamp."

"What if no one comes?" said Felix.

"Somebody always comes," said Mrs Amaterasu. "And if they don't, then you are the one who will come for someone else. That is how the light travels."

She tapped the mirror.

"And one more thing. When you cannot see your own shine, ask a friend to hold up a mirror. Your friends can see it, even when you can't."

Maya wrote it down, and then, because it was a good one, she drew a tiny sun beside it.

Part Seventeen. The Ending, with a Hook

The first stars came out over the school.

Alex and Felix walked home through the dusk, with Willow between them and Maya behind, still scribbling. The playground smelled of corn bread and wet grass. Behind us, in the open doorway of the storeroom, Mrs Amaterasu's glow shone soft and steady, like a lamp left on for someone. In the sky, the colourful seam was fading slowly into the night, like a ribbon being drawn out of a box.

At the gate, Willow stopped.

She put her nose to the ground. Her ears swivelled. Her tail went stiff.

"What?" whispered Maya.

Then we felt it.

It was a very small shake, deep down. It came up through the pavement, and through our boots, and through our knees. The puddles trembled. A pebble on the path jumped. Then, from far below, a sound rumbled up, slow and deep and warm, like a very large person sighing in their sleep.

At the gate stood a llama. It was wearing a tiny woven hat with a bobble, and a coat striped in red and yellow and green, and one of its long ears was golden. It looked at us calmly, chewing.

And from somewhere underneath the school, out of the ground itself, a voice came up. It was round and slow and cosy, like a hug that has been left in an oven.

"Excuse me," it said. "Has somebody been stamping on my floor?"

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

The End.