Pia Rolls the Doorstep Home

Pffft. Pia's trunk made a small, wet trumpet. She was a baby elephant with knees like little dumplings and a trunk that still got tangled when she tried to wave. Today the trunk felt extra tangled, because today her family was moving.

All morning the elephant family carried bundles of soft moss and sweet hay along the path. Now the old home under the big fern stood empty.

Pia looked at the leaf roof. It used to go tap-tap-tap when rain came. She looked at the mossy wall where she leaned her head. 'Goodbye, wall,' she whispered. 'Goodbye, leaf.' Then she looked at the stone by the door.

The doorstep was round and blue-gray, with a smooth top. Pia sat on it every evening while Mama combed pine needles out of her tail. The stone had a little dent in the middle, just the shape of a small elephant's bottom. It was warm as a pancake from the afternoon sun.

Pia put her trunk on the stone. 'Mama,' she said, 'can we take the doorstep?' Mama came over with a bundle of hay on her back. 'That stone is much too heavy, and the new den has a doorstep already, a nice flat root,' she said gently. Pia's ears drooped. The root would not be warm as a pancake, and it would not have a dent.

Kemi the weaver bird landed on Pia's ear. Kemi was small and brown with a beak like a tiny pair of scissors. 'Why the long face?' asked Kemi. 'It's not long,' said Pia. 'It's just sad.'

'We could roll it,' said Kemi. 'You push, I'll tie vines, and we'll pull.' Pia looked at the stone. 'It's too big for one trunk,' she said. 'Good thing you have more than one friend,' said Kemi.

Kemi flew to the vine bush and snipped two long vines. She looped them around the stone and tied three knots.

Pia put her trunk against the stone and pushed. Nnnngh. The stone rocked, then it rolled a little, and then it rolled a lot. 'Whoa!' said Pia. 'Steer!' chirped Kemi.

At the bend by the pine trees, the stone rolled into a nest of roots and stuck fast. Pia pushed, but nothing happened. Kemi pulled the vines, and the knots held, but the stone didn't budge. 'It's no good,' said Pia. 'We need help.'

A soft hoo came from above. 'Hoo. You are pushing into a hill,' said Turl the owl. Turl was round and gray with eyes like two tea saucers. 'There is a flat path past the fireflies. It goes around the hill.'

'I know the path by heart,' said Turl, 'but I can't push.' 'I can tie,' said Kemi, 'but I can't push.' 'I can push,' said Pia, 'but I can't see over the hill.'

'Then we'll do it together,' said Kemi. Turl flew ahead. 'This way, past the fireflies.' Kemi tied a vine to each side, and Pia pushed while Kemi tugged and Turl hooted, 'Left a bit. Right a bit. Straight now.' The stone rolled out of the roots, over the moss, past a drift of fireflies that blinked like tiny lanterns.

At the top of the little slope, the stone got away and rolled, bump-bump, toward the new den. Pia ran after it with her ears flapping. Kemi flew above. Turl sailed behind. The stone rolled right up to the new den and stopped, soft as a sigh, beside the flat root.

Mama was there, setting down the last bundle. 'Oh!' she said. 'Where did that come from?' Pia was puffing. 'We rolled it,' she said. 'All of us.'

Kemi landed on the stone. Turl perched on the root. Mama looked at the dent in the stone. 'That dent is just the right size,' she said.

That evening, the new den smelled of pine needles and rain. Fireflies drifted between the ferns, turning the dark soft and gold. Pia sat on her blue stone doorstep. It was warm from her bottom already. Kemi tucked her head under her wing on the flat root. Turl blinked slow, slow eyes from the branch above.

Mama curled her trunk around Pia. 'Does it feel like home?' she asked. Pia wiggled her toes. The leaf roof above the new den went tap-tap-tap in the breeze. 'Almost,' she said. 'It just needed the right doorstep.'

Then she listened to the leaves turn over in their sleep, and the fireflies blink, and her family breathe. Her trunk made one small, happy trumpet. Pffft.