The Lantern Song Start

Starring Dottie Threehorn

On the village lantern walk, Dottie Threehorn asks Tavi Pebbleback to begin the bedtime song he always starts with the help of his star-etched pebble. Tavi hides the loss at first, and his worried pretending tangles the walk and sends the lantern line the wrong way, much worse than the lopsided picnic mess on the garden hill. Remembering how Dottie once turned squashed berries and burst baskets into laughter, he finally tells the truth and lets her help. Together they find a new way to start the song, and by the end the missing pebble matters less than the brave first note they share.

Lanterns bobbed down the village lane like slow, golden pears. Dottie Threehorn trotted beside Tavi Pebbleback and hummed the bedtime song under her breath, the same soft tune she had used on the garden hill after his picnic baskets burst and the berries got squashed. Tavi rolled his star-etched pebble in one vest pocket and said, "I do the first note best when my lucky little star is right here. Steady as stone."

At the first bend, Dottie lifted her lantern stick and grinned. "Tavi, will you start us off? Your first note makes every sleepy head look up." Tavi tapped his pocket with a quick, sure pat, but his claws met a sagging hole instead of smooth stone.

Tavi sucked in a breath and shut his vest flap fast. "Yep. Fine. Starting now." He gave a note so tiny it sounded like a hiccup, then another one much too high. The lantern line wobbled, three walkers drifted toward the turn to the goat sheds, and hot waxy air puffed around Tavi's nose as he hurried after them.

He tried again at the next bend, louder this time. Tavi thumped his tail club to make a beat, but it came out clunk-clunk-clunk, so fast that two lanterns knocked together with a papery bump. Dottie caught one swaying stick before it tipped, and Tavi stared at the ground where he wished his pebble would be.

Dottie led him to the side of the lane where mint grew between the stones. She did not ask the question right away. She only sang one round, calm note, like she had beside the lopsided picnic blanket on the hill, and Tavi's tight shoulders dropped a little. "If the song feels prickly," she said, "we can hold it together."

Tavi pressed both claws over the torn pocket. "My star pebble fell out. I thought if I kept it secret, I could still sound steady. Instead I sent half the lantern walk toward the goats." Dottie let out a snorty little laugh, and Tavi did too, though his cheeks felt hot. Then he called down the lane, "Wrong turn was me. Sorry. I need a singing partner."

Dottie touched her horn to his shoulder. "We start together, then. One sleepy note each." This time Tavi did not reach for a pebble. He listened to Dottie's low hum, added his own rougher note beside it, and the two sounds fit like cups set carefully on a picnic blanket. Lanterns steadied. The whole line found the path and sang all the way to the hill.

At the top of the garden hill, after the last note floated thin into the dark, Tavi sat on the old picnic blanket Dottie had tucked under her lantern. There, caught in the blanket fold, lay the star-etched pebble with a smear of berry purple still in its nicked edge. Tavi set it between them and began the song again, softly, while the lanterns blinked over the village below.