Suki Holds the Corners

Rumi woke up so fast that a wisp of hay landed on his head. His heart was going tap, tap, tap, like rain on a bucket. He was a small dinosaur, the youngest of the long-necked ones on Sleepy Farm, and his neck was still short enough that when he tipped his head back, the barn roof looked a long way up.

He had been dreaming. In the dream, the path home kept rolling up behind him like a rug, and every time he turned around there was less path and more grass. Nothing chased him. Nothing called. The path just kept rolling, and when he tried to shout for someone, his voice came out folded, like a sheet.

The barn was doing its night noises. The lantern by the door swung on its hook, one small creak at a time. The hens up in the rafters muttered themselves to sleep, mutter, mutter, mutter. It smelled of warm hay and apples, which was the smell of every good night Rumi had ever had.

His grandmother was asleep in the far stall, her long neck folded down like a fern. She liked to say that dreams were the only stories you were allowed to argue with. Rumi had never tried it.

Tonight his chest felt like a cup with a chip in it. And there was the other thing, the thing from yesterday, which was still sitting in the barn like a bale nobody had moved.

He and Suki had quarreled over the apple crate. The apple crate was the best seat in the barn, because from up there you could watch the lantern being lit. Suki had it first. Rumi said it was his turn. Suki said, "You never listen," and Rumi said, "You never share," and they went to sleep on opposite sides of the hay bale without saying goodnight.

So when the path rolled up, there was nobody to tell. Suki's tail was on the far side of the bale, and Rumi was not going to walk around it. Not tonight.

He tried counting the hens' mutters. He got to seven and the hens stopped all at once, as if they had agreed on it. He tried tucking his head under his own tail, but his tail was too short and his neck was too long, and he ended up with hay in his ear.

He tried humming the lantern song backward. It was hard, and it made him yawn twice, and it did not make the rolling feeling go away.

Then something warm and heavy leaned against his side.

"Trouble sleeping, small one?" said Old Pepper. The old sheepdog had a voice like a door closing gently. She lay down with her chin on her paws, and her tail went thump, once, and rested.

"My dream rolled up," said Rumi. "The path. It rolled up behind me and I couldn't find the end of it."

Pepper nodded as if rolling dreams were ordinary. "When my flock gets restless," she said, "I don't tell them to hush. I walk a slow circle around them. One step, one good thought. One step, one good thought. Sheep can feel a slow walk from a long way off, and they settle down inside it."

"Would that work for a dinosaur?" asked Rumi.

"It works for feet," said Pepper. "Feet don't much care whose they are." She closed her eyes, and before long she was breathing the slow in-and-out of an old dog who has decided the night is fine.

So Rumi stood up and began to walk. A slow circle around the hay bale. One step, one good thought.

Warm hay, he thought, step. The apple crate, he thought, step. The lantern swinging on its hook like a slow gold bell, step.

The dream crept in sideways at the fourth step, and his feet stopped, and there he was.

Because a slow circle around a hay bale brings you around to the other side of it eventually. And on the other side was Suki.

She was wide awake. She sat up with her blanket spread between her two front claws, holding the corners tight, staring at the barn door.

"What are you doing?" Rumi whispered.

"Catching it," said Suki. "My dream rolled up. I thought if I held the blanket open, it would come back and I could shake it out the door."

Rumi's mouth came open. "Mine rolled up too," he said.

Suki looked at him, and then at her blanket, and then at him again. "I thought you were still mad," she said.

"I was," said Rumi. "Then I got sleepy, and being mad turned out to be too heavy to hold."

"Me too," said Suki. "I'm sorry I said you never listen."

"I'm sorry I said you never share," said Rumi. "You do share. You're sharing your blanket right now."

Suki looked down at the blanket in her claws and gave a soft honking laugh. "It isn't doing anything," she said. "I've been holding it up for ages and nothing came in."

Rumi thought about what his grandmother said, that dreams were the only stories you were allowed to argue with. "What if we hold it open," he said slowly, "and tell the dream all the way to the end, and then give it a better ending?"

Suki tilted her head. "Can you do that?"

"Only one way to find out," said Rumi.

So they did it. Suki held the corners of the blanket, and Rumi told his dream all the way through, the path rolling up like a rug, his voice coming back folded. Then he said, "And then a hen came and sat on the rug."

"Two hens," said Suki. "No, four. Four hens, and they sat down on the rug and refused to move."

"The path was so surprised it unrolled itself," said Rumi. "It unrolled all the way to the barn door and waited there."

"And the rug was a path," said Suki, "and the path was a doorstep, and the doorstep was..." Her voice went small. "Mine was the same dream," she said. "Only mine had nobody in it."

"It has me in it now," said Rumi. He set one claw on the blanket next to hers. "Now tell yours."

So Suki told hers, the rolling path, the folded voice, and Rumi put the hens in it. Suki added an apple crate that rolled along beside the path. Rumi said the crate was big enough for two.

When they got to the end, they shook the blanket out the barn door. It flapped once, and a small puff of hay dust went out into the night and did not come back.

"There," said Suki. "Shaken out."

Old Pepper opened one eye from her spot by the door, looked at the two small dinosaurs, and let out a long, pleased sigh through her nose. Then she went back to sleep.

They climbed onto the apple crate together, which was a tight fit and exactly right. Suki's tail flopped over Rumi's tail. The hens muttered themselves to sleep, mutter, mutter, mutter. The lantern swung on its hook, creak, creak, creak, back and forth, like a slow gold bell.

"One more good thought," said Suki, "and then I'm done."

"Only one?" said Rumi.

"Only one," said Suki. "The smell of the apple crate." That was a private joke between Suki and herself, because the apple crate had no smell of apples in it at all. Rumi laughed, very quietly, and thought his one good thought too: warm hay, a swinging lantern, and a friend on the other side of the bale, holding the corners.

Outside, the field went hush. The barn grew dim as the lantern settled on its hook, and the creaks came further and further apart, until they were not creaks at all but the sound of a big old building breathing. Rumi's eyes closed slowly, slowly. His last thought was a good one, and it got smaller and smaller, like a lantern turned down low, until it was just a warm spot in the middle of him, and then it was sleep.