Keep the Lid Loose, Ivo

"Pit. Pat. Pit-pat-pat." Rain tapped on Faye's bakery roof, and Ivo the rabbit sat on a flour sack, swinging his long back feet. He was a small rabbit with one ear that flopped over and one ear that stood straight up, and he smelled of rain and warm bread.

The bakery smelled of bread and wet pavement, and underneath it all, a little sharp and a little sour, like a lemon hiding in a breadbox. Every evening Ivo and his mama stopped here on the way home, and every evening Faye gave Ivo the end of a loaf, still warm enough to steam his whiskers.

Faye's window was full of bread. Loaves in rows, rolls in a heap, and one flat round loaf with a star cut into the top. Tonight, though, Faye wasn't slicing anything.

Faye was a badger with a wide flat apron and flour on her eyebrows, and she was holding a glass jar in both paws and looking at it the way Mama looked at a sock with a hole in it.

Inside the jar, something pale was breathing. It rose up and sank down. Little bubbles climbed the glass, slow and round, like tiny balloons going up through honey.

"What's it doing?" asked Ivo.

"Breathing," said Faye. "This is my starter. It's the oldest thing in this bakery, older than the oven, older than my chair. It's what makes the bread puff up and get friendly. And tonight it needs somewhere to sleep."

"In my house?" said Ivo. His floppy ear stood right up, which it always did when he was excited.

"If you'll have it," said Faye. "My sister lives two buses away and she wants birthday bread by morning, and I can't carry a jar of bubbles on my knee for two whole buses. But listen. There are three things you have to know."

She held up one floury paw. "One. Keep the lid loose. Only resting on top, like a hat that's a bit too big. It has to breathe, and if you screw it down tight, it sulks."

"Two. Keep it cool. Out of the warm. Not by the oven, not by the radiator, not by anything that tick-tick-ticks with heat."

"Three." She picked up a wooden spoon with a flat head and held it out. "At moonrise, give it one slow stir. One turn, nice and gentle, with this spoon. The flat head is kind to it."

Then Faye leaned down close, and her badger nose twitched. "And here's a secret. It climbs. If it gets too warm and too happy in there, it climbs right out of the jar and goes wandering. I've had it halfway across my counter before now. Slow, but determined."

Ivo looked at the jar. The dough huffed. "I'll look after it," he said. "I promise."

"Promise?" said Faye, and she held out her paw.

"Promise," said Ivo, and shook it. Then he lifted the jar and held it against his chest with both arms. It was cool through his fur, and it made a soft sound. Huff. Huff. Huff. Like a sleeper in the next room.

Mama was waiting at the door with the big umbrella up and the rain coming down past it in silver strings. She carried the bread, and Ivo carried the jar, and Mama walked beside him the whole way home with one paw resting just behind his shoulder.

On the stairs, Mama counted out loud the way she always did. Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three. She kept one paw out and ready beside Ivo, and Ivo held the jar level and watched a bubble climb the glass and slide back down again.

At home, the kitchen was warm and yellow, and the radiator in the corner ticked and clicked to itself, and the rain went pit, pat, pit-pat-pat on the window. Ivo set the jar down on the table and pulled up a chair to look at it.

The dough was quiet. It huffed once, small. Then it huffed again, smaller. Ivo put his ear right up next to the glass.

"You sound cold," he said. "You sound like a little puff of winter."

Now, Faye had said keep it cool. But cool and cold were different words, weren't they? And a jar that sounded that shivery surely wanted a bit of warm. So Ivo lifted it gently and set it on the little stool beside the radiator, which stood right next to the kitchen table, where the air was warm as a pocket.

"There," he said. "Now you'll be cozy."

From the front room, Mama called, "Windows, Ivo! The first one's going dark!"

The window game was Ivo's favorite thing in the whole evening. Every night they sat at the front window and counted the warm squares of the courtyard going out, one by one, until nothing was left but the moon and the rain. Ivo gave the jar a pat and hopped off to the front room.

"One," said Mama, as a square of light blinked out across the courtyard. "That's the shoemaker's."

"Two," said Ivo. "That's the one with the fern in the window." Then he hopped back to the kitchen to check. The dough was huffing faster now. Bubbles crowded the glass and went up, up, up, like a handful of pearls let go underwater.

"Stay," said Ivo, and he wiggled the loose lid. "Nice and cool. Nice and slow." The dough huffed at him, which could have meant anything.

"Three," said Mama. "Four."

And then, from the kitchen, a sound. "Plup."

Ivo's floppy ear turned first. Then the straight ear. Then all of Ivo.

The dough had grown. It was up near the rim of the jar, pale and shiny, breathing in big soft gulps. "Plup. Plup." The lid lifted and tapped down, lifted and tapped down. Tik. Tik. Tik.

And then a long pale ribbon of dough came over the rim. It hung there, wobbling. Then it slid down the outside of the glass, plipped onto the stool, and started to ooze across the table.

Ivo watched it go. It moved the way a cloud moves. If you stared at it, you could hardly see it going, and then you looked away and it was somewhere else.

"Oh," said Ivo. "Oh no. It's climbing."

He grabbed the flat wooden spoon and held it out like a little fence. The dough met the spoon, thought about it, and came on anyway. It wrapped around the flat head and stretched into a long pale string.

"You're very slow," Ivo told it, "but you're very determined."

He tried the lid for a wall. The dough climbed over it. He tried the mixing bowl upside down. The dough oozed around it and kept going, and now there was a small pale puddle on the floor as well. Ivo thought about Faye's three things as fast as he could. Loose lid, yes. Stir at moonrise, not yet. Cool, oh.

"Mama!" he called. "Mama, it's climbing, and I think I did it wrong!"

Mama came in with her glasses up on top of her head. She stood in the doorway and looked at the jar, and the spoon, and the long pale river on the table, and at Ivo's floppy ear, which had a blob of dough on the end of it.

"Well," she said. "That is a very busy friend you've brought home."

"I put it by the radiator," said Ivo. His whiskers drooped. "It sounded cold. Faye said keep it cool, but it sounded cold, and I thought, and now it's everywhere."

Mama didn't fuss. She pushed her glasses down her nose and said, "Hm. Now. What did Faye say about the lid?"

"Loose," said Ivo. "Only resting on top, like a hat that's a bit too big."

"And where's the coolest spot in this house?"

Ivo looked around the kitchen, slowly. Then he pointed at the windowsill above the sink, where the glass was cold to look at and the rain was huffing against it.

"There it is," said Mama. "Now. You scoop, and I'll hold."

So Ivo scooped with the flat spoon, gentle as he could, and Mama held the jar steady on the windowsill. The dough came away in long pale ribbons and heavy soft lumps. It got on Ivo's paws and on his nose and on the end of his floppy ear, where it stayed, cool and damp, like a little hat.

He laughed so hard he had to sit down on the floor for a moment. Then he got up and scooped the very last lump in.

Mama rested the lid on top with no screwing at all. "There," she said. "Now it can breathe, and it can be cool. That's all it ever wanted."

"Every bit of it?" said Ivo.

"Every bit," said Mama. "And tomorrow we'll walk it back to Faye and you can tell her the whole story."

Ivo didn't go anywhere. He pulled his chair up to the sink and sat down in front of the jar and watched. The dough sank. It settled. It huffed, slow and round, and the bubbles went up the glass in their sleepy way again.

The moon came up between the clouds and the chimney pots, pale and round as a saucer. "Moonrise," said Ivo. He picked up the flat spoon and gave the dough one slow stir, one turn, nice and gentle. It sighed and sank back down.

"You could come and count windows," said Mama from the doorway.

"I'm going to stay with it," said Ivo. "Just for a bit. It's had a big evening."

So Mama brought the window game to him. She sat on the floor with her cup of tea, and they counted from the kitchen instead, with the rain going pit, pat, pit-pat-pat and the jar going huff, huff, huff.

"Five," said Mama. "Six."

"Seven," said Ivo, quieter. "Eight."

The warm squares across the courtyard went dark one by one, like someone folding up the light and putting it away.

Mama took the blanket off the back of her chair and laid it over Ivo's shoulders. His head went down on his paws. His straight ear leaned over. His floppy ear, with the little blob of dough still on the end of it, drooped lower and lower.

"Nine," whispered Mama. "Ten." And the very last window in the courtyard, the one with the fern in it, blinked out, and the courtyard was nothing but rain and moonlight.

The jar on the windowsill breathed slow and cool and easy. Huff. Huff. Huff. Ivo fell asleep right there beside it, warm and small, while the rain went pit, pat, pit-pat-pat, all night long.