Opal and the Star Pear Tree

Tick. Tick. Tick. The clock as tall as a door counted the evening out loud, and Opal counted along with it. Opal was a small helper robot, no taller than a teapot, with three rubber wheels, two round bright eyes, and a watering can where her left hand should have been. Every evening she rolled to the clock, hooked her little hook onto the winding key, and gave it a turn. The whole castle hummed, glad to be ticking.

The castle smelled of beeswax and old books. Down the velvet corridor, Nana Bree the castle keeper went from candle to candle with her long taper, and every flame woke up as she passed. "Good evening, Opal," she called. "Good evening, Nana Bree," said Opal, and her wheels squeaked twice, which was how she smiled.

But before the clock, before the candles, Opal always rolled out to the corner of the courtyard to see her tree. It was a star pear tree, small and bendy, growing in a stone pot, and it was the only green thing in the whole castle. "Good evening," said Opal. "Let's count." One leaf, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And right at the top, one tight white bud, hard as a bead. "Not tonight," Opal told it. "That's all right. Tomorrow is coming."

A yawn came out from under the bench. It was Iggy, a sleepy little dragon no bigger than a cat, with soft gray wings and a tail he kept tripping over. "Is it evening?" said Iggy. "It's evening," said Opal. Iggy uncurled himself, one wing at a time, and padded after her, because following Opal around was his favorite thing to do, after sleeping.

Tonight the tree looked wrong. Its leaves hung down, and the edges of them had curled up like little spoons. The bud on top seemed smaller than it had been yesterday. "Oh," said Opal. She held out her watering can hand and poured, slowly, the way she always did. The water ran over the soil and straight out through a crack in the pot and made a puddle on the stones.

"Look," said Iggy, blinking. "You made a puddle. The puddle is very happy." "The tree isn't," said Opal.

She poured again, and again, until the puddle turned into a small shiny lake and her wheels were wet through. The tree's leaves did not lift. So Opal rolled to Nana Bree's drawer and knocked on it twice with her hook.

Nana Bree opened the drawer. "May I have a lump of beeswax, please?" said Opal. "You may," said Nana Bree. Opal rolled back to the pot and pressed the wax into the crack, smoothing it with her thumb, until the crack wore a little gold smile. Then she poured. This time the water stayed. It sank down into the soil, and the soil went dark and soft.

"It'll want more than one drink," said Nana Bree from the doorway, where she sat with her mending, near enough to hear. "That corner hasn't seen the moon in a hundred years. It's under the eaves. No rain gets in, and no moonlight either." Opal looked up. The eaves leaned over the pot like a big gray hat.

"Then we'll move it," said Opal. Iggy stopped licking his own tail. "Move it where?" "To the middle," said Opal. "Where the moon falls." Iggy looked at the pot. The pot was bigger than Iggy. The pot was bigger than Opal. "All right," said Iggy, because he was a good friend.

Opal put her shoulder to the pot. Iggy put his head to the pot. Their wheels and their claws slipped on the stone, and nothing moved at all. "Hm," said Opal. She rolled around to the back, hooked her little hook onto the rim, and leaned with everything she had. "Now," she said. "Heave, hum, roll. Heave, hum, roll." The pot moved one inch. Then it moved another inch. The puddle went shivering across the stones.

At the edge of the flagstones the pot stopped with a clunk. One stone stood up higher than the rest, and the pot's round bottom would not climb it. Iggy pushed. Opal pulled. The pot sat as still as a sleeping toad. "It's stuck," said Iggy sadly. Opal's eyes went click, click, click, the way they did when she was thinking.

Then she remembered the smooth slate tiles stacked by the door, the ones Nana Bree used for the step. She carried one over, one slow wheel at a time, and leaned it against the raised stone to make a ramp. "Now," she said. "Heave, hum, roll." Up went the pot. Over went the pot. Down it came on the other side with a soft bump, and rolled, and rolled, right into the middle of the courtyard, where the moon lay on the stones like a spilled glass of milk.

"There," said Opal. The moonlight fell all over the little tree. She poured the last of her water, and the soil drank it up without a single drop getting away. Iggy gave a warm huff, soft as a kettle breathing out, and the leaves lifted. Only a little. But Opal saw it.

Every evening after that, Opal rolled out with her watering can and gave the tree a drink in its bright new spot. Some nights the rain got there first. Some nights the moon did. The leaves stopped curling into spoons and opened out flat and wide, and Opal counted them. Eight, nine, ten. But the bud at the top stayed shut, hard and white as a bead. "Not tonight," said Opal. "That's all right. Tomorrow is coming."

Then one evening, when the candles were lit and the clock had ticked eight slow ticks, Opal rolled out to the courtyard and stopped. Something smelled of honey. The bud was open. It had opened into a flower with five white petals and a small gold middle, and it glowed in the moonlight as if it had swallowed some. "Oh," said Opal, very quietly. She didn't want to wake it.

Iggy came yawning out from under the bench. He sneezed his small warm sneeze, and the flower wobbled, and one petal let go and floated down to the stones. "Look at that," said Iggy. "It did it." "It did," said Opal. "We only gave it a drink and a bit of moon." Nana Bree came to the doorway with her mending in her arms. "Well," she said. "Look at that." And the three of them stood there a while, and nobody said anything at all, which is what people do when something small and good has happened.

Later, when the castle had gone dim and the corridor smelled of warm wax, Opal wound the tall clock one last time. Tick. Tick. Tick. She rolled out to the courtyard to say goodnight. The star pear tree stood in the middle of the stones with its flower open and its leaves spread wide, and the moonlight lay over it like a blanket that had been tucked in. "Goodnight," whispered Opal. "Drink up. Sleep well." And the clock ticked, and the candles leaned, and the little tree stood in the moonlight, growing just a little, the way trees do when nobody is watching.