Ivo Packs the Creak

Tik. Tik. Tik. The sound came from the loose board above Ivo's sleeping spot, and Ivo, who was a small gray kitten with one white ear, opened one eye. The wind pushed at the barn wall. The board answered, polite as ever. Ivo yawned and tucked his nose back under his tail.

The barn at Sleepy Farm was settling down for the night. Hay bales sat in gold stacks along the wall. In the corner the hens muttered themselves to sleep, one soft grumble at a time. A lantern hung from a hook by the door and swung a little, so the shadows leaned over and then sat up straight again. Everything smelled of warm hay and apples.

Then Yara came over the hay with her tail held high. Yara was Ivo's mother, and she had a way of saying things plainly, as if she had practiced them in her head first.

"Ivo," she said. "We're moving tonight. Up through the orchard, to the apple shed. The farmer cleared it out for us. There's a shelf for sitting on and a window with real glass in it."

"Tonight?" Ivo's tail went still. He looked up at the loose board. "But what about the tik?"

"The tik belongs to the barn," Yara said. "It'll stay here and keep the spiders company." She licked the top of his head and went to fetch the crate for the hens.

Ivo did not think that was fair at all. He climbed onto the nearest bale and took out his best acorn cup, smooth as a spoon, and held it up under the gap in the boards. Tik. Tik. Tik. He waited through all three, then pressed the acorn to his ear. It was quiet as a teacup. He tried once more, in case the sound needed time to settle. Nothing.

A slow shuffle came along the barn floor. Bramble the sheepdog came out of the corner where he always slept, gray around the muzzle, his big feet rolling as he walked. He had looked after the barn animals for eleven years, and he knew a worried kitten when he saw one.

"What's that you've got?" said Bramble.

"A creak," said Ivo. "I'm trying to pack it. Only it won't go in."

Bramble sat down heavily. "You can't pack a creak," he said. "I tried it once with the dinner bell. Had a biscuit tin and everything. The sound got out before I'd gone ten steps."

"Are you coming with us?" Ivo asked.

"I am," said Bramble. "I slept in that apple shed when I was a pup, before the farmer built me this barn. My legs are slower now, so I'll walk behind and you'll hear me puffing."

"Are you scared of the dark path?" said Ivo. Bramble thought it over, the way he thought over everything, slowly, with his ears. "A little," he said. "Old dogs are allowed." Ivo looked at his own paws. "I'm scared too," he said, very quietly. "Then we'll be scared together," said Bramble, "and walk up anyway. That's my plan."

Before they left, Ivo climbed the hay one last time and put his nose against the loose board. "Goodbye, barn," he said. "Thank you for the tik." Then he climbed down and stood close to Yara's side.

When the sky over the orchard turned soft gray, they set off. Yara lit the lantern, because grown-ups light lanterns, and she hung it from a stick so it swung ahead of them like a small warm moon.

The hens went into a wide crate lined with straw and muttered about it the whole way up the path. Moss came too. Moss was the smallest kitten, gray all over with no white anywhere, and he walked so close to Yara that his nose kept bumping the back of her leg.

The orchard path ran uphill between the trees. Above them the branches crossed and crossed again, and the lantern swung through the gaps, and the shadows swung with it. Ivo's heart went fast, like a moth in a jar. The path did not smell like the barn floor.

Halfway up, Moss sat down in the middle of the path. "It's too dark," he whispered. "I can't see the tik. It's gone."

Ivo wanted to sit down too. His own heart was flapping. But he walked back to his brother and pressed his shoulder against him, and he made his voice steady even though his tail was not. "The tik is right here," he said. "Listen. Tik. Tik. Now walk to the next one. I'll say it, and you walk."

So they did. Tik, four paws. Tik, four more. Bramble puffed along behind them, and Yara held the lantern high, and the apple shed came up out of the dark at the top of the hill, small and crooked, with its door standing open.

Something went thump in the dark. Ivo stopped with one paw in the air. "That," said Bramble, "is an apple falling off a tree. Apples do that about forty times a night, and then they lie there being apples." Behind Ivo, Moss giggled, a small wet giggle, and the dark felt thinner.

The apple shed smelled before it was properly seen. Apples first, sharper and sweeter than the smell in the barn, and underneath, the same warm hay. The floor was swept. There was a shelf along one wall, a window with real glass, and a nail by the door, waiting, it seemed, for a lantern.

Yara hung the lantern on the nail, and the light went round the little room once and settled. The hens were set down in their corner, where they muttered themselves to sleep in the new spot, one soft grumble at a time, as if nothing had ever been different.

Ivo chose a place right under the shelf, on a heap of hay. Bramble turned around three times on the mat by the door and lay down with his chin on his paws. Moss tucked in against Yara and was asleep almost at once, the way small kittens are.

Then the wind came up the orchard and pushed at the wall of the shed. Tik. Tik. Tik.

Ivo sat up so fast that hay went flying off his back. "That's the same creak," he said. "It followed us. It followed us the whole way up the path."

Yara laughed, low and warm. "It's a new board," she said. "The wind finds every loose board there is and says the same thing to each one. Your creak was never in the barn, Ivo. It was in the wind. The wind only needed somewhere to knock."

Ivo took his acorn cup out of the hay and set it on the shelf. "I didn't have to pack it," he said.

"No," said Yara. "You only had to listen for it. That's a different job."

Bramble lifted his head. "I'd forgotten that board," he said. "It creaked when I was a pup, my first night in this shed. It's how I learned the wind was out there and I was in here." He let out a long breath and put his head back down.

"Were you brave tonight?" Ivo asked.

"I puffed the whole way up," said Bramble, "and here I am, warm, by a door. Ask me again tomorrow." His yawn was enormous, and it made Ivo yawn too, which made Moss yawn in his sleep.

The lantern swung on its nail, slower now, and the light went soft in the corners. The hens had stopped muttering and lay folded in the straw like small brown parcels. Outside, the orchard let go of a few more apples, and each one made the same soft sound.

Ivo curled in his new heap of hay, nose to tail, and looked up. Tik. Tik. Tik. The wind pushed, the board answered, and the space between the sounds grew longer, the way the last words of a song do. The apple shed was small and warm, it smelled of apples, and the creak was right above his head, keeping time. It was the sound of being inside on a night when the wind was out. Ivo closed his eyes and let his home say goodnight to him, one soft tik at a time.