🏰 Older children · bedtime · English · 2 min
For Nikita, who is very good at telling the truth.
Page 1 of 6 · Nikita finds the way in
One evening, when the sky had gone soft and violet, Nikita found a drawbridge somebody had left down. On the other side was the cloud castle, waiting as though it had been expecting somebody all along. A clockwork owl came too, because a clockwork owl always did.
Use ← and → to turn pages. Read-aloud uses your device's own voices, so it works offline.
For Nikita, who is very good at telling the truth.
One evening, when the sky had gone soft and violet, Nikita found a drawbridge somebody had left down. On the other side was the cloud castle, waiting as though it had been expecting somebody all along. A clockwork owl came too, because a clockwork owl always did.
They had not gone far when they heard banners snapping in the wind — and underneath it, a small worried voice. Somebody had lost a key that was warm to hold, and without it nobody in the cloud castle could get to sleep. "We'll help," said Nikita, before quite knowing how.
The first place they looked was empty. So was the second. Nikita sat down and felt that hot, prickly feeling you get when a thing is harder than you thought. A clockwork owl sat down too, right alongside, and did not say a word.
Then Nikita had an idea — a small one, the useful kind. It was really an idea about telling the truth. "Let's try it slowly," said Nikita, "and together." a clockwork owl thought this was the best plan anyone had ever had.
And there it was: a key that was warm to hold, tucked exactly where nobody had thought to look. All of the cloud castle let out one long, happy breath. Somewhere behind them, the lights began going out one by one, the way lights do when everything is finally all right.
"Goodnight, the cloud castle," whispered Nikita. "Goodnight, a clockwork owl." And the cloud castle whispered it back, very softly, so as not to wake anybody. Then Nikita closed both eyes and was asleep before the end of this sentence.
The truth is lighter to carry than the story you build around it.