The Last Day of Term

Part One. The Last Week

Last time, two hills touched, a man said sorry to a wolf, and everybody got home.

After the Friday on the hill, the week was ordinary, which was the best thing about it.

The moon went down at the right time. The doors went to the right rooms. The lollipop lady crossed the road once, and landed on the side she had meant to. There were no more silver puddles in the playground, only the ordinary sort, and Dot jumped in all of them to check.

We would like to tell you that nothing odd happened for the whole of that week. We cannot, because Ollie found an old and very cross-looking goat in the dinner hall on Tuesday, but the dinner ladies said that was only one of Mister Thor's goats, and had nothing to do with anything.

And then, all at once, it was the very last day of the autumn term.

It was a bright one. The field was crisp and white at the edges, and the sky was very blue. There was a feeling in the air that you only get on the last day: as if somebody had left all the windows open, and the whole building was breathing out. The coats were all on, because the party was going to be outside. The pegs were bare. Nobody was doing any work. There was a big banner across the hall that said WELL DONE EVERYONE in Mister Harris's best handwriting.

"Well done at what?" said Kenji.

"At everything," said Mister Harris, with great feeling. "I don't know what, specifically. But all of it."

Part Two. Mrs Nuwa Brings a Needle

The first thing that morning was the stitching.

We had asked for it. After the Friday on the hill, Mister Janus had said that the thin place was locked, but not mended, and that a lock is only as good as the wall around it. "Somebody," he said, "needs to sew it up."

So we asked Mrs Nuwa.

She came up Gobbler Hill at eight o'clock, in the cold of the morning, with her long sleeves rolled up, and a big wicker basket over her arm. She had a needle as long as a rolling pin. She had a spool of silver thread. She had a spool of gold thread, and a spool of the colour you get when the sun comes up behind a cloud, and a small pot of clay in case.

"It's the same as the sky," she said, looking up at the air at the top of the hill. "A bit of the world has worn thin. It has happened to me before. Twice. I'm getting quite good at it."

"Is it dangerous?" said Dot.

"It's sewing," said Mrs Nuwa. "The danger is only the needle."

She stood on tiptoe at the very top of the hill, in front of nothing at all, and pushed the needle into the air. It went in without a sound. She drew out a long silver thread, and tugged it, and a seam appeared across the sky, fine and straight, like a line of frost.

"Hold that end," she said.

Alex held one end of the thread. Felix held the other. And the whole of that morning, with the sun coming up, she walked across the top of the hill, drawing the thread behind her, stitch after stitch, in silver and gold, and the colour of sunrise.

Part Three. The Seam

By nine o'clock, there was a new line in the sky.

It stretched from the top of Gobbler Hill, over the school, and out of sight. It was not a thing you could see in the middle of the day. But if you looked sideways, and half shut your eyes, you could just make out a very thin bright seam, as fine as a hair, with tiny stitches in it all the way along.

"It's the same as the one over the school," said Maya, looking up. "From the sky that cracked. Look. It's joined up. They're one line."

"It glows at sunrise and sunset," said Mrs Nuwa. "Both of them do. You'll see it when the light is low." She bit off the thread, and sat down on the grass with a sigh, and a small piece of clay. "There. It can't wear thin again, if somebody checks it."

"Who checks it?" said Felix.

"Whoever has the keys," said Mrs Nuwa. She looked at Alex, and at Felix. "It's the same as a door. A door that has a keeper is a door that can be opened on purpose. Not by accident, and not by a moon, but by somebody who has been asked. Somebody at each end. Here, that's you: you say goodbye, you say hello. And then it opens, gently, for as long as is wanted."

"Like a play date," said Dot.

"Exactly like a play date," said Mrs Nuwa. "That's the whole point of them."

At the other end of the thread, on the far side of the sky, we could not see anybody. But all the same, Alex gave it a little tug, and after a moment, something small and far away gave it a tug back.

Part Four. A Chair for Mister Janus

At ten o'clock, Mister Janus finally sat down.

He had let go of the clock on Friday night, the second the door was locked. But there was still not a chair in the school wide enough, so he had gone on standing, out of politeness, for another whole week. We had all noticed it, and nobody had said so, and that morning, just before assembly, Ollie came running across the playground, pink and out of breath, and said, "I've found it! I've found him a chair!"

It was not a chair. It was the bench by the pond, the one on the playground, the one with the plaque that says THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE. It was wide, and it was long, and it was made of golden wood that Mrs Oshun had grown specially. Ollie said he had been looking at it for ages, and it was obviously the right size, because it was the only seat in the school with room for two faces.

"It's the right size," said the bright face, with great relief.

"It's a good bench," said the quiet face.

Mister Janus lowered himself onto it, as slowly and as gently as a man getting into a hot bath. His keys jingled. His shoulders came down. He let out a long, long breath, like a very big bag of air being let go, and both his faces closed their eyes.

"Oh," said the bright face.

"Oh," said the quiet face.

"I have been standing for twelve days," said Mister Janus. "I did not know how tired I was."

"You can stay there all day," said Dot.

"I rather think I shall," said Mister Janus. And for the first time in his whole life, we think, both faces fell asleep at exactly the same moment.

Willow, who does not sit on anybody unless she has decided to, walked up the bench, stepped over his keys, and settled in the space between the two shoulders like a cat in a doorway. She looked at us with her golden eyes half closed. She was keeping the door.

Part Five. The Cousins

It was while they were setting up the party that Elfine and Marion came.

We should say that we had not seen them all week. They are the twin cousins, who are in the class above ours, and they had been away on a school trip and had missed all of it. They came running across the playground with their bags banging on their backs, shouting "Alex! Felix!" and looked just the same as ever, with the same plaits and the same grins, only taller.

"We heard you were on a hill!" said Elfine.

"We heard there was a wolf!" said Marion.

"There was," said Alex.

"He ate a coat," said Felix.

"We missed everything," said Elfine. She sounded put out.

"It was quite loud," said Alex, kindly.

"Anyway," said Marion. She cleared her throat. She looked a little embarrassed, and tugged at her jumper. "We've got something for you. It's our last day of being Reading Buddies. We're going up, next term, and we have to give it to somebody. And we thought... well. You're quite good at reading. We heard about the letter."

She held out two small, round, wooden badges, on bits of green ribbon. They were a bit worn at the edges. They said READING BUDDY in neat, tiny letters. One was for Alex, and one was for Felix.

"You have to look after the new little ones," said Elfine. "Start of term. Show them where the loos are. And the dinner hall. And read them a story, if they cry."

"Both of you," said Marion. "At the same time."

Alex took his badge. Felix took his. They held them, one in each palm, and neither of them said anything for a bit.

Part Six. The Little Ones

The new little ones came at eleven o'clock.

They were only visiting. They were coming in January, and it was a sort of practice, so that they could see where everything was. There were fifteen of them, in a wobbly line, with a teacher at the front and a teaching assistant at the back. They were so small. They held on to each other's hands. They looked up at the school as if it was a mountain.

"They're tiny," whispered Ollie.

"We were that size," said Kenji.

"We were smaller," said Dot, who is in Reception, and has been, and still is.

A little girl at the front of the line had a very worried face. She stopped when she saw Alex and Felix, standing on the step with their badges pinned to their jumpers. She was holding a toy rabbit by one ear, tightly.

"Are you the big ones?" she said.

Alex and Felix glanced down at their badges. They had never been the big ones before.

"Yes," said Alex.

"We're the Reading Buddies," said Felix.

"Is it a nice school?" said the little girl.

"It's the best," said Alex.

"It's odd," said Felix.

"But it's the best," said Alex.

"All right," said the little girl, and looked a bit less worried. "What's your names?"

Part Seven. Who Are All These Gods?

It took them about three minutes to get to the question.

They were standing in the hall, in a circle, with the little ones in front, and the rabbit on the floor. Mister Harris had given a short speech and cried a bit. That's when a very small boy with a missing front tooth put up his hand and said, quite clearly, "Excuse me, why has that man got two faces?"

Everybody turned. Mister Janus was asleep on the bench, outside the hall window, with both faces snoring.

"That's Mister Janus," said Alex, calmly. "He does doors."

"He's got two faces because he looks both ways," said Felix. "He looks at what's gone, and he looks at what's coming. That's why he's sad and glad."

"At the same time," said Alex.

"Oh," said the boy. He thought about it. "Is he a god?"

"Yes," said Alex.

"Are all of them gods?" said the boy, pointing out of the window. There was Mister Thor, with his hammer, mending the gate. There was Mrs Pachamama in the vegetable patch. There was Madam Simurgh, with a bird on her head. There was a small tree that nobody had noticed before, standing by the bins, humming.

"Most of them," said Felix.

"That one's a tree," said Alex. "But it's actually Mister Loki."

"Does he know that you know?"

"He knows," said Felix. "He just likes it when you say hello."

"Hello," said the little boy to the tree, loudly. There was a long, rustly silence. And then, quite clearly, from inside the leaves, something said, "Hello, my favourites."

Part Eight. The Visitors

At twelve o'clock exactly, the seam on Gobbler Hill began to open.

We all went up in a bunch. Mister Harris had said it was not an assembly, it was an occasion, which is a thing you can say on the last day. We stood on the top of the hill, in the crisp grass, in a half-circle. Alex and Felix stood at the front, with their keys.

"Goodbye, Friday," said Alex. It was a Friday again, and so they said it again, and thought it was funny.

"Hello, Saturday," said Felix. "We're a bit early. Sorry."

They turned the keys, one after the other, in the air. There was a very small, round, friendly clunk. And, one stitch at a time, in a long line, like a zip being pulled gently down, the silver seam in the sky came undone.

Behind it was a hill with a golden hall on top.

"Is it all right?" said a voice, from the other side. It was a deep voice, a bit nervous. "May we come in? I have been practising my coat peg."

A tall man stepped out of the air, on to Gobbler Hill. He had a long grey beard and a blue hat. There were two ravens on his shoulders and he was holding, carefully, in front of him with both hands, a small wooden coat peg. It had a painted hook, and a ribbon on it with his name.

"I was told," said Odin, "that one is meant to bring one's own."

Part Nine. Odin Hangs Up His Hat

He hung it on the school fence.

It took him a long time, because he had never hung anything on a fence, and it kept swinging round. When it was done, he stood back and put his hat on the peg, and the ravens sat on top of it. He looked at it with deep satisfaction.

"I do not think," said Odin, "that anything has made me so happy for a very long time."

"It's only a peg," said Ollie.

"It's my peg," said Odin. "At your school."

Across the playground, there was a clang. Mister Thor had dropped his spanner. He stood quite still, so as not to make a boom, and made a very small one anyway.

"Father," he said.

"Thor," said Odin. His voice did something odd in the middle. "You are mending a gate."

"It's mostly pipes," said Mister Thor. "The gate is a Tuesday job."

Odin crossed the grass. He did not say anything else. He only put one enormous hand on his son's shoulder, and Mister Thor, who is the strongest god in the nine worlds, looked at the ground and sniffed. Out at the crossing, Mister Heimdall put down his lollipop and listened to the grass. "It's very loud today," he said. "In a good way."

Behind him, one by one, they came through. First came Frigg, with a basket of honey cakes. Under her other arm, wrapped in a cloth, was something large and warm, and she held it out to Ollie. "I was told that somebody was left short," said Frigg.

It was a roast leg of something. It was the size of a baby.

"It is not the same leg," she said. "But it is a very close cousin."

Ollie took it in both arms, and did not say a word, and his eyes went round and shiny.

Then came Bragi, with his harp, and a new verse; and Skadi, in her white cloak, holding a lumpy bag and looking embarrassed. "I have brought a bone," she said, in a gruff voice, to nobody in particular. "For the wolf. I thought he might. If he liked it. I have never... given anything to anyone before."

"He'll love it," said Alex.

"He'll eat the bag," said Felix.

"He eats everything," said Hel, behind her. "It's not personal."

She stepped on to Gobbler Hill in her long grey dress. She was a bit taller than before, we thought, and her face did something we had seen only once, on the bump, when the puppy fell over. This time it stayed. It smiled. It was a small, careful smile, a new one, as though she were still working out where to put it.

"Alex," she said. "I have dusted the chair."

Her hair was tied back with a bobble, and Dot, who noticed everything about her, looked at it and then at Felix, and gave him a very small nod.

Part Ten. The Wolf and the Hand

The wolf came last, and he came at a run.

He had grown a bit, we thought, even in a few days. He came through the seam in a rush, all paws, with his ears flying, and went three times round the hilltop before he stopped. He went straight up to Mister Harris, and sat on his foot. He went straight up to Ollie, and ate his sandwich. He went straight up to Dot, and licked her whole face, and Dot lay down in the grass and shrieked.

And then he stopped.

At the top of the hill, quite still, was a tall man in a plain brown tunic, with his hands at his sides. He had stepped through the seam after the wolf, rather slowly, as though he was not quite sure he was allowed.

"Hello, Fenris," said Tyr.

The wolf looked at him. He did not turn his back. He crossed the grass, and sat down in front of Tyr, and put one enormous front paw, very gently, on the wooden hand.

"Every week," said Tyr, in a thick voice. "I did say."

"He's keeping you to it," said Hel.

"Good," said Tyr. And he sat down in the grass, quite suddenly, and put both arms round a large grey wolf, and nobody on that hill minded in the slightest that he was making an odd noise into the wolf's fur. And Mister Loki, who had come up the hill behind him, with a very large cushion, put it down on the grass carefully, in the middle of everybody, and sat on it, and looked rather relieved.

Skadi was holding the bone. She put it down in front of him, and, with the air of somebody defusing a bomb, gave him a pat on the head, a little less stiff than the last. He leaned into it so hard that she nearly fell over.

"Hm," said Skadi. After a moment, she did it again.

"That's two of mine found," said Mister Loki, from his cushion, to nobody in particular. "There's still the long one."

"He is very long, and very shy, and he lives in the sea," said Hel. "We shall need a boat."

"I'll bring a bigger cushion," said Mister Loki.

Hel waited until the fuss had died down. Then she took a small, soft, folded piece of paper out of her pocket, and held it out to Tyr, and did not say anything at all.

He unfolded it. It was a drawing in black crayon, done by somebody who had pressed very hard. He looked at the three people on it, and at the wobbly capitals over the top. He read them twice. Then he folded it up again, very carefully, and put it in the pocket where the ribbon used to be.

"It is a good drawing," said Tyr, in a voice that was not quite working.

"It is not finished," said Hel. "There is room for more people."

Part Eleven. The Game

Of course, we played the game.

There was no question. Everybody was there, and it was the last day, and a wolf was standing at the top of the hill with his tongue out, wagging at a long line of people who could not believe their luck.

"Is it safe?" said Maya, who had been thinking about it. "The same game, on two hills, at the same time? Isn't that exactly how it started?"

"It is how it started," said Mrs Nuwa. She had come up the hill with the rest of us, with her basket on her arm. "But then there was nobody minding the gap. Now there is somebody at each end. A seam only swaps when it is left alone."

"We're minding," said Alex.

"Very hard," said Felix.

"Then play," said Mrs Nuwa.

"I'll be Mister Wolf," said Odin. "I understand it is quite simple."

"You can't be Mister Wolf," said Dot. "You've got ravens."

"They shall wait on the fence," said Odin, drawing himself up. "I will be quite fair."

He stood on the very top of the hill, in his blue cloak, with his back to us. Behind him, in a long line, were the little ones with their rabbits, and Alex and Felix and the cousins, and Maya and Kenji, and Ollie, and Dot, and Frigg, and Skadi, who was carrying a bone, and Bragi, who was making up a song, and Hel, and Mister Loki, who had turned himself into a small hedgehog by mistake. The wolf crouched in front, with his bottom in the air.

"WHAT'S THE TIME, MISTER WOLF?" we said.

"A quarter to hat," said Odin.

"That isn't a time," said the little boy with the missing tooth.

"It's a time," said Odin, with great seriousness. "It's four steps. Possibly five."

Somewhere in the middle, the little boy with the missing tooth waited until the rest of us had finished. Then he crept forward, one slow, careful step after another, in perfect silence, all the way up the hill to Mister Wolf's back, and tapped him on the hat.

Through the open seam, on the other hill, a very old man in a thick knitted jumper was sitting in a big chair, with a blanket over his knees. Somebody had carried it to the window for him. He had not taken a single step. He had finished with steps. But he had hummed every one of ours.

"Well," said Old Ulf, in a dry, delighted voice. "Somebody has beaten it at last."

By the time he said dinner time, Odin had been caught by thirty-one people and a wolf. He was lying on his back in the grass, with his hat on the wrong way round, laughing so hard that the ravens had to hold him down. He had never been so thoroughly caught in all his life.

Part Twelve. An Old Feather

At about three o'clock, Madam Simurgh took Dot and Hel on one side.

She is the Lost Property lady. She has a very large bird on her head and a smile like a teapot. She had in her hand a long, bright, shimmering feather in many colours, which she held out carefully between two fingers.

"This is an old one," she said. "It is for people who might need to find one another. It only works if two people hold it, together, and say the right thing."

"What's the right thing?" said Dot.

"We're lost, please," said Madam Simurgh.

Hel looked at the feather. She had a particular look, the same one she had when looking at the visitor chair. "Will it find her?" she said. "If I hold one end?"

"Wherever she is," said Madam Simurgh. "And wherever you are. Even a long way off. It is not for finding where you are. It is for finding each other."

"That's what I would like," said Hel. She said it in a small voice, to Dot, as though it was something very heavy. "I have only just had one friend. I do not know the rules. But I should like to try. Tea is at five," she added, "and it is not optional."

"You're doing brilliantly," said Dot, fiercely. And she took the other end of the feather in her fist.

They held it between them for a long time, not saying anything at all, a small girl in a school jumper and a serious girl in a long grey dress. And a long way up in the sky, as the afternoon turned gold, a moon that nobody was looking at gave a little silvery smile.

Part Thirteen. What Tyr Said

At sunset, Tyr said something.

He did it at the top of the hill, with the school spread out below and the two skies going gold. Everyone had gone quiet. Even the wolf was asleep, with his chin in Tyr's lap and one leg going.

Over the seam, in the other sky, a small cold moon had come up early, with a round bite taken out of its edge. The wolf opened one eye and looked at it for a long moment. Then he gave a small, embarrassed wuff, and shut the eye again. We are fairly sure the little moon blushed.

Ganglöt had arrived a little before. She had set off at nine that morning, in one red slipper and one blue, with a flask of tea, and she said she had enjoyed every step.

"I was a god of promises," said Tyr, "and I broke one. I thought that was the end of me. I thought a broken promise was a broken thing, and that was all it could ever be." He looked at his wooden hand. "I did not know that it could be mended."

"How?" said Felix.

"Not by saying it louder," said Tyr. "I tried that. It does not work. You do it by saying sorry first. And then you do the next promise, and you keep it. And then the one after that." He stroked the wolf's fur. "It is a slow mend. But it holds."

Alex thought about it. He thought about the chair with the stars on it, and the tidy room, and the drawing in black crayon. Neither of them said anything. But Alex leaned his head on Tyr's arm, and Felix leaned on the other side, and Tyr closed his eyes.

Nobody wrote it down. Maya had put her notebook in her bag. But she was looking at her best friends with a look that said she would remember it anyway.

Part Fourteen. Locking Up

The last thing on the last day was the doors.

It was dark by then. The visitors had gone, back through the seam, one at a time, waving, with a wolf who had to be carried halfway and a man who had to be talked into leaving his coat peg on the fence, because it was his, and it ought to stay there for next time. The school was quiet. All the lights were out. A single star had come out over the roof.

Alex and Felix stood on the front step, with their badges, and their keys. Willow sat between them on the mat, with her paws together.

"Goodbye, this year," said Alex, to the doors. He said it quite quietly, and he put his key into the lock. "You were the oddest one. You had a wolf in it. And a moon. And Hel."

"Thank you," said Felix, to the doors. It wasn't in the ritual. But it was the thing that came. "Thank you for the boar."

Alex turned his key.

"Hello, next year," said Felix. He put in his own key, just beside Alex's. "We're going to be the big ones. We've got badges. Please be a good one."

He turned it.

Clunk. It was round, and warm, and it settled all through the school like a hand on a shoulder. The whole building seemed to breathe out, and go still.

High above the roof, the moon had risen. She was a long way up, and she was not crying. She was only smiling, as pale and calm as a lamp in somebody's window, and she looked down at the two small boys on the step, and the cat between them. Behind her, small and old and pale, and not saying a word, the school's own moon had come out too. At the dinner hall window, Mrs Ibbs nodded to it. It did not nod back. But it stayed.

"Goodnight," said Mama Quilla.

"Goodnight," said Alex and Felix.

"Goodnight," said the school, in its small, creaking voice. Even Willow, in her own way, said goodnight, too.

And for the first time in a very long while, the moon knew exactly where she was.

The End.