The Pottery Teacher Who Was NÜWA

Part One. The Turtle Is Still There

The first time we saw Ao was on a Monday, and he was IN THE POND.

You might remember that on Friday, a turtle as big as a table had risen out of the school pond and asked if this was the school with the Chinese goddess. Then Mr Harris had come out with his keys, said "Home time, everyone," and walked straight past without noticing, because Mr Harris never notices anything that doesn't have a clipboard.

On Monday morning, the turtle was still there. He was floating very slowly, with waterweed on his shell and a duckling asleep on his head.

"Good morning," he said, in a voice like a creaky door. "I am Ao. I have come to hold up the sky. Do you know where she is?"

"Who?" said Ollie Grant.

"The lady with the green tail," said Ao. "I mean, the lady with the green skirt. It's a long story. I'm very old and I forget which bit I'm telling."

Alex and Felix Bailey are twins, so they have a system. Alex notices things and Felix asks about them. Then they swap, and it works every time.

Alex noticed that the pond was perfectly flat, even though the wind was blowing the flag about like a tea towel. It was as if the water did not want to wobble the turtle. Felix asked Ao how long he had been travelling.

"Oh, about three thousand years," said Ao. "I walk slowly."

Willow, our Bengal Reading Cat, sat on the edge of the pond and looked at Ao for a long time. Then she looked up at the sky, very hard, the way you look at a ceiling when you think you heard a creak.

Alex and Felix said, "We need Maya."

Part Two. The Lady in Jade

Maya Singh was behind the compost bin with her notebook. Kenji Mori and Ollie sat on their upside-down buckets, and Dot from Reception sat on the lid, swinging her boots.

Before Maya could say a word, a voice floated across the playground.

"Good morning, my little clay pots!"

It was a new teacher, walking across the grass with a tray of wet lumps of clay. She was tall and smiling, in a long skirt the colour of jade that swished behind her like a tail. Her hands were yellow with clay up to the elbows, and her badge said MS WA, POTTERY (AND PEOPLE).

Mr Harris was hurrying along beside her with his clipboard, saying, "And that is the hall, and that is our brand new flagpole, which I am VERY proud of."

It stood in the middle of the playground, taller than the roof of the dinner hall, with the school flag on top. It was the tallest thing for miles. Mr Harris patted it like a horse.

Ms Wa nodded politely. But her eyes were on the pond.

She stopped. Her whole face lit up.

"Ao!" she said. "You're early!"

"I'm three thousand years late," said Ao. "But I came as fast as I could."

The duckling woke up, looked at the lady in jade, and quacked as if it had known her all its life.

Maya put down her pencil very slowly.

"That," she whispered, "is NÜWA."

Part Three. Who Is Nüwa?

Kenji said, "Is that a type of noodle?"

"No, Kenji," said Maya. "It's said Nwah. Like you're saying new and wah really fast."

She told us that in China, a very long time ago, people told stories about a goddess called Nüwa. In the old pictures she had the face of a kind woman and the body of a long, shimmery dragon, with scales the colour of jade.

Dot said, "A dragon lady?"

"A dragon lady," said Maya. "And the best bit is this. When the world was new and empty, Nüwa got lonely. So she knelt by the Yellow River, scooped up a handful of yellow clay, and shaped a tiny person. She blew on it, and it jumped up and said hello."

"She MADE people?" said Ollie.

"Out of clay. Hundreds of them. Every one different." Maya turned a page. "That is how the old story goes. People tell it in lots of ways, and this is only one."

Alex said, "That's why she's the pottery teacher."

"And that's not even the best bit," said Maya. "Years later, the sky broke. Two very cross gods had a fight, and one of them banged his head on the mountain that was holding it up. A huge crack opened, and floods and fires poured through."

We all went very quiet.

"So Nüwa melted five stones of five colours, red, yellow, blue, white and black, and used them to mend the crack," said Maya. "And she used the four legs of a giant turtle as pillars, to hold up the four corners of the sky."

Everyone slowly turned and looked at the pond.

Ao gave a small, shy wave with one flipper.

Part Four. No Two the Same

The pottery room was the old art cupboard, and by lunchtime it smelled of rain on a flowerpot.

Ms Wa put the whole class at long tables and gave each of us a lump of clay the size of an orange. "Clay has three rules," she said, holding up her yellow fingers. "Keep it wet. Keep it warm. Keep it moving. Clay that is left alone goes hard, and hard clay cannot be mended."

Ollie put his lump straight in his mouth to see if it was warm. It was not food. Ms Wa gave him a spoon of water and no telling off.

On the shelf behind her desk stood five tall jars of glaze, one each of red, yellow, blue, white and black. "Every colour of glaze is only a ground-up stone," she said. "People forget that. Stones are what the world is made of, and so are pots."

On the desk sat fifty tiny clay people, lined up like a very small audience. None of them was the same. One had a hat. One was laughing. One was holding a very small umbrella.

"Make a person," said Ms Wa. "Anyone you like."

Alex made a person with sticky-out ears. Felix, next to him, tried to make exactly the same one. He looked at Alex's person and copied the ears, the arms, the smile, and he pressed a pea-sized nose in the middle.

They put them side by side.

They were not the same. Felix's person had a lopsided grin and a hump on its back, and Alex's had one ear bigger than the other. The harder they tried to fix it, the more different they got.

"Why can't I make it the same?" said Felix.

Ms Wa smiled. "I have been trying that for thousands of years," she said. "It has never once worked. I think that is the best thing about people."

Felix looked at his lopsided person and decided he liked it. Then he looked at Alex's, and said, "Yours is better."

"It isn't," said Alex. "It's different."

Willow sniffed both figures and sat down between them. Everyone agreed this meant she had no favourite.

Alex held the pencil. Felix held Maya's notebook, because they always share jobs.

1. THE GREEN SKIRT. It swishes even when there is no wind, and sometimes it seems longer than she is.

2. THE YELLOW HANDS. Clay never washes off.

3. THE LITTLE PEOPLE. On her desk are fifty tiny clay figures, and Felix swears one of them waved.

4. THE TURTLE. He knows her by name.

5. THE WORRIED LOOK. Every lunchtime, Ms Wa looks at the sky. Not at the clouds. At the blue, like she's checking it's still there.

Maya read it over twice. "That," she said, "is the saddest and best list yet."

Elfine and Marion, our twin cousins from the class above, looked at the list over Felix's shoulder. "Item five is true," said Elfine. "She does it with her whole neck." "I counted," said Marion. "Eleven times at lunch."

Part Five. Ao Is Worried

At break we sat by the pond with Ao. He did not say much. He just floated, looking sad, with the duckling still asleep on his head.

"Why are you sad, Ao?" said Dot.

"I am old and slow, and I am not clever," said Ao. "The others are clever. They are quick and they have plans and they know things. I am just a turtle. I hold things up. That's all I do."

"That sounds like a very important job," said Felix.

"It is only important if I am strong enough," said Ao. "What if I am not? What if the sky is too heavy, and I wobble?"

"Did you wobble before?" asked Alex.

"No. But before I was younger."

We did not know what to say. Dot patted his shell very gently, and the duckling woke up and quacked.

Ms Wa sat down on the grass beside the pond, with her skirt swishing round her. "Ao, my dear," she said. "Do you know why I picked your legs?"

"Because I was nearby?"

"Because you are steady. You never rush. You never give up. You keep going, one slow step at a time. Slow is not small, Ao. Slow and steady holds up the sky."

Ao said it back, very quietly, to see how it felt. A tiny smile crept across his wrinkly face.

Then Ms Wa looked up at the blue, and her smile went a little thin.

Part Six. Fire Against Water

That would have been a happy end to Monday. But on Tuesday, two new people arrived at school, and they were arguing.

One was a short, stocky man with a red face, a bushy orange beard and sparks flying from his fingertips. His badge said MR ZHU, KITCHEN (HOT).

The other was a tall, damp man with a long blue-green beard that dripped on the floor. His badge said MR GONG, SWIMMING POOL (WET).

They stood in the middle of the playground, nose to nose.

"Fire is the strongest," said Mr Zhu.

"Water is the strongest," said Mr Gong.

"Fire!"

"Water!"

"Fire!"

"WATER!"

Maya whispered, "Oh no. It's Zhurong and Gong Gong. They're the two gods who broke the sky."

"Why are they here?" whispered Kenji.

"Because Mr Harris hired them," whispered Maya. "He didn't read the CVs."

By Thursday the whole school was sick of it. Mr Harris said, "Gentlemen, please settle this in a friendly way, with a game."

That was a terrible idea.

On Friday lunchtime, in front of the whole school, they stood at opposite ends of the playground. A minibus from Pridefield Primary had pulled up for a return visit, and its team, led by Arabella Webb from the quiz, sat along the wall with their sandwiches. Arabella thought it was a rather silly game, and she was right.

"First to push the other off the playground wins!" said Mr Zhu.

"Agreed!" said Mr Gong.

Ms Wa called, "Please! Think about what happened last time!"

They did not hear. They were far too busy.

They charged. WHOOSH! A great cloud of steam hissed up where fire met water. They pushed and shoved and stamped across the playground, as the little ones scattered to the edges and Mrs Tibbs blew her whistle at nobody in particular.

At last Mr Zhu gave a mighty shove, and Mr Gong stumbled backwards, tripped over a skipping rope, and fell flat on his back.

"I WIN!" shouted Mr Zhu.

Mr Gong went purple. He leaped up. "IT'S NOT FAIR!" he shouted.

And in his anger, he put down his head and ran straight at the tallest thing in the playground.

It was the brand new flagpole.

BONK.

For a moment, nothing happened. The flagpole rang like a bell. Mr Harris said, "My flagpole!" in a very small voice.

Then, high above the school, there was a long, slow, horrible sound.

CRRRRRRRRRRRRRACK.

We all looked up.

A thin black line was spreading across the blue sky, like a crack in a plate. It zigzagged from one side of the school to the other, getting wider and wider. Through it we could see something dark and swirling.

A single enormous drop of water fell out and landed on the playground with a SPLAT the size of a paddling pool.

Then a spark as big as a football shot out and set the bin on fire.

Mr Gong said, in a very small voice, "Oh."

"What have you done?" said Mr Zhu.

"I think," said Mr Gong, "I broke the sky."

Part Seven. Floods and Fires

It got worse very quickly.

The crack grew, and out poured more water in great gushing waterfalls, flooding the playground and the field and the car park. At the same moment, balls of fire dropped out of the crack and rolled across the grass, setting light to the football goals.

Mrs Tibbs took charge at once, the way she does. "Whole school into the hall. Little ones first. Hold hands." Elfine and Marion each took a line of Reception children by the hand, and Marion counted them in out loud. Mr Harris shouted, "Everybody inside!" and tried to carry nine chairs at once.

The gods tried to help, but nothing worked. Mr Thorley's thunder made the crack go wider. Mr Heston put up a bronze shield, and it melted. Mr Hanu leapt up to patch the hole with his hands, but the water was too strong.

"Anything strong makes it worse," said Ms Athene. "We must be clever."

"I'm not clever," said Mr Locke. "I'm just sorry for everything."

Then everyone looked at Ms Wa.

Part Eight. Nüwa Says No

Ms Wa stood in the middle of the playground with water swirling round her knees. Her skirt was glowing green. She had gone very pale.

"I did this once before," she said. "I can't do it again."

"Why not?" said Dot, who had not gone to the hall. She was holding Alex's hand on one side and Felix's on the other, very tightly. Nobody had noticed her come.

"I used up all five stones last time. I melted every one. There aren't any left." She looked up at the broken sky. "And I am older now. I'm not as strong."

Nobody said anything. The water rose higher. Somewhere, a fire alarm was beeping.

Ao slowly climbed out of the pond. He walked across the flooded playground, one slow flipper at a time, and stopped next to Ms Wa.

"I will hold it up," he said.

"Ao, you are not strong enough to hold it on your own. And the crack is far too wide."

"I know," said Ao. "But I am here. And I am slow."

He took a deep breath. He planted his four big feet in the mud and raised his huge shell. And the shell began to glow.

He grew. His shell grew as big as a bus. Then as big as a house. Then it rose into the air on his four giant legs, higher and higher, until it touched the sky like a roof over the whole school.

The crack stopped growing. The water slowed to a trickle. The fireballs bounced off his shell and fizzled.

But he was shaking. Every part of him was trembling.

"I cannot hold it for long," he said, in a small, strained voice.

"How long?" said Ms Wa.

"Until the sun sets. Maybe less."

Maya looked at her watch. It was a quarter to one.

"That's a lot of hours," said Ollie.

"No," said Maya. "It's the afternoon. The sun doesn't set until... oh no. It's November. It sets at four."

Everyone looked up at the grey light.

"That's three hours," said Alex.

"That's not enough time to fix it," said Felix.

And then Alex noticed something. High up, under the edge of Ao's shell, the crack was not still. It was opening a tiny bit, then closing a tiny bit, then opening again, very slowly, like something asleep.

He wrote it in the notebook, with a question mark, and said nothing yet.

Part Nine. The Rule of Five

"I need five stones in five colours," said Ms Wa. "Red, yellow, blue, white and black. If we can find them, I can melt them with fire and mend the crack. But the old ones are gone."

She held up a yellow finger. "And there is a rule. They must be real stones, from the real world. And they must be given freely. Not taken, not swapped, not borrowed. Given."

"That's the hard part," said Maya.

The twins did not say a word. They did not have to.

"We'll find them," they said together.

Mrs Tibbs had followed them out with her coat held over Dot's head. She looked at the water and at the twins for a long moment. "Inside the gates," she said. "Back at the pond by half past three. Mr Hanu will watch from the roof, and if I blow my whistle, you come running."

Alex went left. Felix went right. They split up because it was faster, and because they both knew exactly where to go.

Part Ten. Red and Yellow

Alex ran to the Making Club shed. Mr Heston was inside with the doors shut and a melted shield over his head.

"Mr Heston, please," said Alex. "We need a red stone. The reddest in the world. It has to be given freely."

"What for?"

Alex told him. Mr Heston's eyes grew wide. He limped to the forge, reached into the heart of the fire, and drew out a lump of glowing red rock, as bright as a ruby.

"It's from the heart of my volcano," he said. "The hottest red there is. It's yours."

Alex held it in his sleeve, because it was warm. "Thank you."

"Take care," said Mr Heston. "Are you scared?"

"Yes," said Alex. He ran anyway.

Meanwhile, Felix ran to the sandpit in the Reception garden, and knelt in the wet sand, and dug with his hands.

A very small voice said, "What are you looking for?"

It was a little Reception girl in a sparkly coat. She was sitting on the edge with a bucket. Nobody had managed to move her to the hall, because she had been busy.

"A yellow stone," said Felix. "It has to be given freely."

"I've got one."

She reached into her bucket and took out a smooth, round, golden pebble the colour of butter. It was the prettiest one she had.

"I found it on holiday," she said. "It's my best one."

"Are you sure?"

"Is it for the sky?"

"Yes."

"Then you can have it."

Felix felt his eyes prickle. "Thank you," he said. "You're very brave."

"I'm not scared," said the girl. "I've got my coat."

He ran. And Mr Hanu, from the roof, picked her up gently in one hand and carried her to the hall, because a sparkly coat is not enough in a flood.

Part Eleven. The Blue Stone

Alex was racing past the pond when he saw something shine in the shallows. It was a flat, round, blue pebble, smooth as glass.

The pond had gone wild. Waves slapped the bank where Ao had climbed out. On the far side, a very small duckling was standing at the edge, quacking at the water as if it could scold it.

Alex stopped. The pebble lay in the deep part, right where the waves were biggest. The duckling would not go near it. And Alex knew better than to go into deep water on his own.

Somebody walked past his knees.

It was Willow. She hates water. She hates it more than she hates the vacuum cleaner. But she put one paw in, and then another, and waded into the pond with her whiskers back and her tail held high like a flag, as if she did this every day. The water came up to her chest. She did not make a single sound.

She waded all the way across, and sat down beside the duckling, wet and shaking, and began to purr.

The duckling stopped quacking. It looked at Willow. Then it paddled slowly out to the pebble and pushed it towards the bank with its little beak, all the way to Alex's hands.

"Is it yours?" said Alex. "I need it for the sky. It has to be given freely."

The duckling quacked once, very politely.

"Thank you," said Alex.

Willow waded back out, as dignified as a queen, and shook herself over his shoes. Alex rubbed her dry with his scarf, and she let him. Then he ran.

Part Twelve. The White Stone

Felix came to the playground wall. He remembered something: the hopscotch grid was drawn in white chalk, and at the end of the grid sat a big white stone the big kids used as a marker.

He looked for it, and there was only a pale ring in the mud where it had been. Somebody had picked it up. That somebody was sitting on the wall, away from the others, with her arms folded very tight.

"Arabella?" said Felix.

"I'm waiting for my lift," said Arabella Webb. "They told me to stay on the bus. I'm not good at staying on things." She looked at the sky. Her chin wobbled. "It's very big, isn't it? And I've never been the one who doesn't know what to do."

"What's in your pocket?" said Felix.

She took out a stone. It was white, and round, and worn smooth. "It's my lucky one," she said. "I take it to every quiz. I've had it since I was little. I always hold it when I'm nervous." She turned it over. "Why?"

"The sky needs a white one," said Felix. "It has to be given freely. But you don't have to."

Arabella looked at the stone for a long time. Then she looked at Ao, shaking.

"I don't know how to help," she said. "Yet."

She put the stone in Felix's hand and closed his fingers round it.

"Go on, run," she said.

"What about your luck?" said Felix.

"I think," said Arabella, "that I'd like to find out how much of it was the stone."

Part Thirteen. The Black Stone

The last one was the hardest. They met halfway, at the edge of the field, and checked their list.

"We've got red, yellow, blue and white," said Alex.

"We need black," said Felix.

They looked round. There was nothing black on the field. The grass was green, the sky was grey, and the wall was brown.

Then they both remembered.

"The boiler room," they said together.

They ran down the stairs, past the sleeping three-headed dog (who opened one eye and thumped a tail), and down to the very bottom, where the walls were black stone.

Mr Haydes was sitting at the bottom in his woolly hat. He looked up.

"I've been expecting you," he said.

"We need a black stone," said Alex.

"It has to be given freely," said Felix.

Mr Haydes stood up. He walked to the wall and put his hand on a dark, shiny, smooth stone, as black as the night.

"This is from the very bottom of the world," he said. "Nobody has ever had one before." He pulled it out and held it for a moment. "You came down here once and asked me how I was, and I didn't forget. Here."

Alex took the stone. Felix touched it too.

"Good luck," said Mr Haydes.

"Thank you," they said, and they ran up the stairs two at a time, with all five stones in their arms, and the light going.

Part Fourteen. Back to the Sky

It was half past three when they got back to the pond. The light was fading. Ao was trembling so hard that the whole school shook. His legs were buckling. His shell was creaking. A tiny crack had appeared at the very edge of it.

"Ao!" cried Ms Wa. "Hold on!"

"I am holding," said Ao. His voice was a whisper. "I am... slow."

Everyone froze. Then one leg slipped in the mud, and the whole sky seemed to tip.

Ms Wa put both hands flat against his front leg, and Mr Hanu and Mr Thorley and Mr Heston came running and pushed against his side until he steadied. It was the longest moment of the day.

"Better," said Ao, at last. "A bit better."

Then she turned and saw the twins, soaked and muddy, with their hands full of colours.

"You found them," she said.

They held them out. Red, yellow, blue, white and black, sparkling in the twilight.

"They were freely given?"

"Every one," said Alex.

"Even the duckling's," said Felix.

"Even Arabella's," said Alex. "She asked if she could find out how much of her luck was the stone."

Ms Wa smiled. "Then it will work," she said. "But slowly. Please do not rush. A thing that is mended in a hurry is broken again by teatime."

She sat us all down for three slow breaths, even Mr Zhu and Mr Gong, who had been standing at the edge of the field looking at their feet. Even Ao breathed along, a very deep, very old breath that went all the way down his legs.

Part Fifteen. Slowly

Ms Wa put the five stones in a clay pot. "Mr Zhu," she said.

Mr Zhu looked up.

"I need your fire. The hottest you've got. It has to be gentle. Can you do that?"

"After what I did?"

"You did not break the sky," she said. "But you can help mend it."

His eyes filled up. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I boasted."

"Then show me."

He stepped forward and breathed out a long, steady stream of golden flame. It was not wild. It was not angry. It was warm and controlled. The stones began to glow, the red turned bright, the yellow bubbled, and the blue, the white and the black softened and swirled together like a rainbow in a pot.

"Mr Gong," said Ms Wa.

Mr Gong looked up, knee-deep in the flooded car park.

"Can you guide the water to the drains?"

"I broke it," he said.

"You did. And you can help fix it. Water knows where to go. Show it."

He wiped his eyes. He stood very straight and swept his arms through the floodwater. It parted like curtains, slid across the playground and down the drains, and out of the school gate into the river, where it belonged.

"I'm sorry," said Mr Gong.

"Me too," said Mr Zhu.

"Good," said Ms Wa. "Now, together."

The paste glowed. But the crack was far too high to reach, even for Mr Hanu.

Mr Heston limped forward. "Give me six minutes," he said. In six minutes, with Mr Thorley holding the planks and Mr Hanu holding the base, he built a tall wooden tower with rails on every side, set on four wheels, and nailed it to the ground so it could not move. Mrs Tibbs checked the knot on each twin's harness twice, and then once more.

"Nobody lets go of the rail," she said. "And I am standing at the bottom."

"We'll do it," said Alex.

"We'll do it together," said Felix.

Ms Wa filled two little pots with the paste and tied one to each of their belts. They climbed the tower, one rung after another, with the whole school watching from below and Dot peeking through her fingers.

At the top, the sky was just above their heads. The crack was jagged and black, and it hummed. Behind it, something enormous was swirling, and it did not feel angry. It felt very, very curious, as if it wanted to know who was there.

"Hello," Felix told it, politely.

Then they began.

Part Sixteen. The Mending

The first try went wrong at once.

Alex smeared paste along the edge of the crack. It hissed, and turned grey, and crumbled off in lumps onto Mr Zhu's head.

"Sorry!" called Alex.

"It's all right," said Mr Zhu, who had paste in his beard. "It's very warm."

The second try wobbled. Felix pasted a long stripe, and it held for one whole second. Then Ao breathed in, and the crack opened wide, and the stripe tore like paper.

"It won't stay," said Alex.

"It keeps going grey," said Felix. "Why does it go grey? Ms Wa, what are the three rules?"

"Keep it wet," called Ms Wa. "Keep it warm. Keep it moving."

Felix stared at the pot. It had been bubbling at the bottom when they left the ground. Now it was cold at the top.

"It's gone cold up here," he said. "It's too far from Mr Zhu. It's going hard before it gets there."

"Mr Zhu!" called Ms Wa. "A little fire, on the pot. All the way up!"

Mr Zhu aimed one thin gold flame at the pot, and the flame travelled up the tower like a golden thread, and the paste began to bubble again.

"And look," said Alex. He had been watching the crack all this time. "It's breathing. It opens when Ao breathes in. It closes when he breathes out. If we paste it when it's open, it squeezes out. We have to wait for the out-breath, and then press."

"Together," said Felix.

"Together," said Alex.

Below them, Ao groaned. His legs were shaking. A single tear rolled down his wrinkled cheek.

"Slow," he whispered. "Slow..."

They waited. They breathed in with him, and the crack opened. They breathed out, and the crack came together, and they spread the glowing paste along its edge, one on each side, working towards the middle.

The paste hissed, and turned into a shimmering rainbow. The black crack began to close. Slowly, slowly, the two edges crept together.

"Hold on, Ao!" called Ms Wa. "You are doing wonderfully!"

"Steady," whispered Ao. "Steady."

The two edges met in the middle. The twins pressed them together with both hands. There was a flash of coloured light.

And then, with a soft, sweet click, the sky was whole.

Part Seventeen. The Sky Stays Up

For a moment, nothing happened. Then a wide, warm, golden light spread across the playground, as the last of the sunset slid through the mended sky.

Ao let out a great, long, trembling sigh. His shell shrank. His legs steadied. He lowered himself gently to the grass, one slow leg at a time.

"It's holding," he said.

Ms Wa put her arms round his neck. "You were magnificent."

"I wobbled."

"You did. And you held on anyway. That is what strength is."

He looked up. A tiny sparkle of five colours was shining in the sky over the school, red, yellow, blue, white and black, like the faintest rainbow.

"Is that for me?" he said.

"It's for all of us."

The two gods stood side by side at the edge of the field, dripping and singed.

"Fire isn't the strongest," said Mr Zhu.

"Neither is water," said Mr Gong.

"What is?" said Ms Wa.

They thought about it. "Working together?" said Mr Zhu.

"It's the only thing that mended the sky," said Mr Gong.

They shook hands. There was a tiny hiss of steam where fire met water. Then they both started to laugh, and they couldn't stop. Mr Harris, who had come out with a mop, laughed too, because it seemed rude not to.

At home time we sat under the oak tree with Ao, who was by the pond again, with a duckling on his head and a very wet cat beside him. Ms Wa stood in front of us with the golden light on her face.

"I made all of you out of clay, a very long time ago," she said. "Not you yourselves, but people like you. I wanted to make something that could laugh and think and look after each other. And do you know, you still do."

"Like we did today," said Alex.

"We all did," said Felix.

"The sky broke because two people argued," said Ms Wa. "It was mended by a lot of people doing small things. A girl in a sparkly coat gave a pebble. A duckling gave a pebble. A girl with a lucky stone gave it away. A god gave a stone from the bottom of the world. A cat walked into a pond. A turtle stood very still."

She looked at Ao. "Slow and steady holds up the sky. Never think you are not important. Everyone holds up a bit of it."

"Even me?" said Dot.

"Especially you," said Ms Wa. "You held two hands very tightly when nobody else was holding anything."

Dot went pink.

"I came here thinking I was too slow, and too old, and not clever enough," said Ao, in his slow, creaky voice. "And I was wrong. I am exactly the right speed."

"So are we," said Felix, in his own words. "Even if it's a different speed."

"And that's allowed," said Alex.

"Slow and steady holds up the sky," said Ms Wa, and Ao nodded, and the sun went down behind the school.

Part Eighteen. The Ending (With a Spade)

On the way out, a single drop of rain fell through the new seam in the sky and landed on Ollie's nose.

"Rain," said Ollie.

"It's only the sky settling," said Ms Wa. "It might drizzle for a while."

At the school gate, there was a puddle, and in the middle of the puddle a long wooden spade was standing upright, as if somebody had planted it. Beyond it, in the mud, a line had been dug, straight and thin, running from the gate across the field towards the drain. It was freshly done. The water was already running along it.

There was nobody there. But down the lane, in the rain and the dusk, a tall shape was walking away, with its trousers rolled up to the knee, looking at the ground rather than at us. We could hear a tired voice, talking to nobody.

"Wherever it goes," it said, "it has to go somewhere."

Kenji whispered, "Who was that?"

Maya did not answer. She was already flicking through her notebook, to a page headed, in her neatest writing, RIVERS (CHINA).

Alex looked at Felix. Felix looked at Alex.

They said, together, "Monday."

The End.