Odie and the Bell With No Clapper

"Tink." Odie tapped her goodnight bell with one thumbnail, and it made the smallest sound in the whole castle, a sound like a moth bumping into a window. Odie was a castle fairy, exactly as tall as a teacup, with wings thin as onion skin and a bell that was brass and shiny and completely empty inside.

The clapper had rolled under the dresser that morning and had not come out again. "We'll fish it out tomorrow," said Nana Wisp. "Bell first, then bed. Up you go." Nana Wisp was Odie's grandmother, and she lit the castle candles, all two hundred of them, though mostly they lit themselves as soon as she came near.

BONG, went the clock as tall as a door. One stroke. Odie counted it on her thumb, because Odie counted everything on her fingers.

Rafa was waiting on the bottom step. Rafa was a dragon no bigger than a cat, with warm grey scales and a tail that curled up at the end like a comma. "I'll come too," said Rafa. "The stairs are long and my legs are short, so we can be slow together."

Up they went. The velvet corridor smelled of beeswax and old books, and the candles lit themselves one by one along the wall, pop, pop, pop, like small gold flowers opening.

Rafa sneezed. "Pfft," went Rafa, and a small warm puff of breath came out smelling faintly of toast. "Sorry," said Rafa. "It's the beeswax." Odie giggled all the way up the next four steps.

"The tower only hums for somebody with good things to say," said Nana Wisp, climbing behind them, slow and steady. "Tell it five good things from your day and it will hum you all the way to sleep."

"We can help," said Rafa. "We'll go up slowly and look for the good bits on the way. Good bits don't run fast. I've noticed."

Odie's wings drooped down past her knees. "I can't remember any," she said. "Today I spilled the honey. Then I dropped the whole tray of acorn cups and they went clatter, clatter, clatter all the way down the stairs. And I got a cobweb in my hair and it took forever to comb out."

"Those are the spilled bits," said Rafa. "What about the other bits?"

They came to a little landing with a round window in the wall. Odie put her hand flat on the sill, and the sill was warm, like a plate just after toast. "Oh," she said. "The sun sat here this afternoon. I sat here too, and it was warm on my back, and I watched the swallows going home." She tapped her thumb. "One good thing. The warm window."

"Hmmm," went the tower. It was one low, round note, and it came up through the stones and into the soles of Odie's feet.

"One," said Odie, and she felt brave and small at the same time.

On the next landing the wall was painted all over with fat bees. Odie sniffed. "Beeswax," she said. "Nana made candles today, and the whole castle smelled like honey but none of it was sticky." She tapped her first finger. "Two good things. The beeswax smell."

"Hmmm, hmmm," went the tower, two notes, one after the other, like somebody patting a cushion twice.

"And the sneeze," said Odie. "You sneezed in the corridor and it smelled like toast, and I laughed so hard I had to sit down on a step." She tapped her middle finger. "Three good things. Rafa's toast sneeze."

Rafa's ears went pink at the tips. "Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm," went the tower, and the three notes ran up the stairs ahead of them like a cat going home.

BONG. The clock had got to seven. "Seven," said Odie. "Three more and the clock is done." "Then we had better hurry," said Rafa, "in a slow sort of way."

Higher up, the stairs got narrow and the castle got quiet. Between the bongs, Odie could hear the big clock ticking. Tick, tick, tick. "That's a good thing too," she said. "The clock says shh, shh, shh all night long, so the castle isn't lonely." She tapped her fourth finger. "Four good things. The ticking."

"Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm," went the tower, four warm notes, and the candles on the stairs leaned toward the sound as if they were listening.

The staircase turned and turned, and at the top of it was a small wooden door, and beyond the door was the tower room with one round window full of dark blue evening.

Odie flew up the last few steps. She took her bell out of her pocket and tapped it with her thumbnail. "Tink," said the bell. It was such a small sound. It did not fill the room at all.

Odie's chin went down. "It needs the clapper," she said. "It needs a good thing I can't find."

Nana Wisp came through the door behind them, one hand on the frame, a little out of breath. She had climbed the last stair backwards, which was how she always climbed the last one, and nobody had ever found out why. "You have got four," she said. "One more."

Odie thought about the day. She thought about the tray of acorn cups and the cobweb and the spilled honey. Then she thought about the castle right now, quiet and warm and humming, with Rafa's tail curled around her feet like a scarf somebody had left there on purpose.

"Five good things," she said. "This. Right here. Being up here with the two of you."

The tower hummed. It hummed so deep and so round that the little brass bell in Odie's hand began to hum too, and then, all by itself, it rang. "Bmmm," said the bell, one big, warm, proper ring, the kind that goes all the way down a staircase and out of the front door.

"Oh," said Odie. "It didn't need a clapper at all. It just needed the hum."

BONG, went the clock, far below them, the very last one. Ten strokes, and then it was done, and the whole castle let out a long, soft sigh.

They sat down on the floor of the tower room, the three of them. The window was blue and getting bluer. Rafa curled up and put his chin on Odie's knee, and his scales were warm as a stone that has been in the sun all afternoon. Nana Wisp hummed along with the tower, low and slow, and the candles leaned in to listen.

Odie held up her hand and tapped her fingers, one, two, three, four, five. "Warm window," she whispered. "Beeswax. Rafa's sneeze. The ticking. And this."

"You can keep five every night," said Nana Wisp. "It's a good number for a small fairy."

"Maybe tomorrow I'll keep six," said Odie, and she yawned a yawn as big as her whole face.

The tower hummed and hummed, the way it does when it is happy, and the sound went down the stairs and along the velvet corridors and into every quiet room, softer and softer, until it was only a warm feeling in the walls. Odie's eyes closed. Rafa's breath smelled of toast. Nana Wisp's hand was warm on her hair, and the last thing Odie heard was the clock saying shh, shh, shh, so the castle would not be lonely.