The Little Lantern

The little hedgehog could not fall asleep. The house was very quiet. Even the floorboards had stopped creaking.

Your child“I am not sleepy,”

said the little hedgehog to the ceiling.

Your child“I am not sleepy at all.”

Outside the window the moon had gone behind a cloud, and the garden was as dark as deep water. The hedgehog counted to twenty, then counted backwards, and was still wide awake.

Then something small and golden floated in through the gap in the window. It went up, and it went down, and it landed on the end of the bed like a lamp the size of a pea. The hedgehog sat very still and whispered so as not to frighten it.

Your child“Hello,”

said the hedgehog. The little light wobbled twice, the way you nod when you are too tired to nod properly.

The light“Hello,”

it said back.

The light“I have lost my way home,”

said the light, in a voice no bigger than a pin. Its lantern was somewhere out in the dark garden, and without it the light was getting dimmer and dimmer.

The light“Please help me find it.”

The hedgehog thought about the dark garden, and about slippers, and about how cold the grass would be. Then the little hedgehog pushed back the blanket.

Your child“We will go and find it,”

said the hedgehog.

So the hedgehog put on the old slippers. Then the hedgehog cupped both paws around the little light, so the wind could not get at it.

Your child“Ready?”

said the hedgehog.

The light“Ready,”

said the light. The back door opened slowly, and then all at once, with a creak. At night it sounded much louder than it ever did in the daytime.

The garden at night was full of shapes that were not there in the daytime. The watering can had become a small animal, curled up and waiting. The washing line had become a road for spiders.

The light“Do not look at the shapes,”

said the light.

The light“Look at the path.”

So the hedgehog looked at the path. The path stayed a path, and the shapes stayed where they were. That is what shapes do when you stop looking at them.

Past the bushes, past the wet stones, past the place where the fence leans over, they came to the old apple tree. Something was hanging in the branches, dark and empty, swinging a little in the wind.

The light“Look!”

said the light, and it shot up like a spark and came back down again, brighter than before.

The light“That one. That one is mine.”

The little light lifted off the hedgehog’s paws, wobbled once, and then grew bright inside the lantern until the whole tree turned gold. Every leaf had an edge of fire on it.

The light“Thank you,”

the light called down, and its voice was bigger now, the way voices get when somebody is home.

The light“Goodnight, little hedgehog.”

Your child“Goodnight,”

said the hedgehog, and the garden stopped being frightening and went back to being a garden.

The hedgehog walked home along the same wet path, closed the creaky door the slow way, and climbed back into a bed that had gone cold at the edges. The window was full of gold from the tree.

Your child“I am still not sleepy,”

said the little hedgehog, and was asleep before the end of the sentence. Out in the apple tree the little lantern kept its light on all night, in case anybody else needed finding.