Ten Drips for the Star Moss

The tower hummed. Zuri pressed one ear to the cold stone and listened. It was a low, round hum, like the sound a jar makes when you put your ear against it, and it came and went with the wind. Every morning the tower hummed, and every morning Zuri counted the drips.

Zuri was a little penguin, small and neat, with a black coat, a white front, and feet the color of wet slate. She lived at the bottom of the Humming Tower, where snow sat soft on the windowsill and the sea said shush, shush, a long way off. On the sill stood a chipped blue cup, and in the cup sat a pinch of star moss, small as a thumbnail and green as a pea.

"Morning," said Zuri to the moss. An icicle hung over the window, melting one drip at a time. Zuri counted ten drips into the cup every single morning. "Ten is the right number," she told it. "Not nine. Not eleven."

Vera, her grandmother, sat in the deep chair that smelled of beeswax and old books. "Talk to it kindly," Vera said. "Things that grow take their time." She nodded at the nest in the corner, where a smooth white egg rocked, slow as a boat. "Things that hatch take their time too."

"I found it on the rocks by the sea," said Zuri. "I carried it home in my beak. It's mine." "A small green thing that needs you," said Vera. "That's a good thing to have."

The clock in the corridor was as tall as a door, and it ticked so slowly that Zuri could hear each tick come and each tick go. All week, Mama and Papa hurried past it, carrying blankets and soft dry grass and a fish for supper that they forgot to eat themselves.

"Vera," said Zuri. "Will there be room?" "Room where, little flipper?" "Anywhere." Vera thought about it. "Room is a funny thing," she said. "It stretches." Zuri's tummy felt like it had a cold pebble in it.

Then one morning the egg was not an egg. It was a baby penguin, no bigger than a teacup, with a squeaky voice and a tuft of gray fluff on top like a small cloud that had lost its way. Everyone came to look. Vera came. The two aunts from the next rock came. The tower hummed, and nobody listened.

"I'll help," said Zuri. She brought the baby a fish. The fish was bigger than the baby. "Thank you, love," said Mama, and set the fish aside for later. "I'll sing," said Zuri. She sang the drip song. One drip, two drips, three. The baby cried louder. Zuri sang softer. The baby cried louder still.

So Zuri tried other jobs. She fetched dry grass. She stacked the tiny woolen socks in a pile, knocked them over, and stacked them again. She stood by the nest and told the baby all about the sea, which was three hundred waddles away and loud as a hundred kettles. The baby cried. The cold pebble in Zuri's tummy got colder.

So Zuri went to the window and sat with her back to the warm, busy room. Her cup was not on the sill.

Someone had moved it to the floor, behind the basket of socks, to make room. Nobody did it unkindly. It was just a busy day. But in all the busy, Zuri forgot the drips. One day went by, and then two.

On the third morning, Zuri found the cup behind the basket. The star moss had gone pale and thin, and its tiny leaves were curled up tight as fists. "Oh," said Zuri, very quietly. Her tummy did the cold pebble, and then something hotter behind it. "I forgot you. I'm sorry."

Vera came and sat beside her with a creak. "Something the matter, little flipper?" Zuri told her about the cup, and the forgotten drips, and how she'd wanted to be big enough to help and instead she'd been too small to remember. Vera smoothed down Zuri's fluff. "Ten drips tomorrow," she said. "That's all. Ten drips tomorrow."

So Zuri carried the cup back to the sill. It was heavier than it looked, and she had to hold it with both flippers and waddle slowly. She set it down. She put her ear to the stone. The tower hummed, and Zuri began to count out loud. One drip. Two drips. Three.

Behind her, the crying stopped. Zuri kept counting. Four drips. Five drips. Six. The crying did not start again. Zuri turned around. The baby was looking right at her, eyes wide and round, one small flipper lifting and falling like a wave.

"Keep going," whispered Mama. So Zuri went all the way to ten, and then she talked to the moss the way Vera did. "There now. Ten drips. Not nine. Not eleven." The baby made a small sound, like a tiny door opening. It might have been a laugh.

"She likes your voice," said Mama. "And she likes that green stuff in your cup." "It's star moss," said Zuri. "I've been growing it since the ice melted. It's going to be a whole green patch, and it only opens its leaves at night, when the tower hums." Mama moved the baby closer, and the baby's flipper found Zuri's flipper and held on tight.

"I could show her things," said Zuri. "Small things. Green things. She's very small, so she'll need someone to show her." "That's true," said Mama. "That's a big job." Zuri stood up as tall as she could, which for a little penguin was not very tall at all, but she stood.

So that is what Zuri did. Every morning she counted the ten drips, and every morning she told the baby what the moss was doing. "Today it's greener. Look, here's a new bit, right at the edge." The baby watched. The moss uncurled. By the end of the week it had spread across the cup and halfway up one side, and Vera said it was the finest star moss that windowsill had ever seen.

One evening, Papa lit the candles along the corridor, one by one, and their little flames walked away down the hall like a row of friendly dots. The tall clock ticked. The tower hummed. Zuri lay on the rug with her chin on her flippers, and the baby lay on Mama's chest, going up and down with Mama's breathing.

"Look," Zuri whispered. The room had gone dim and quiet, and the star moss had opened every tiny leaf at once. It glowed a soft, faint green, like a leaf with the sun behind it. "See?" said Zuri. "I told you it does that." The baby's eyes were very wide, and Zuri's eyes were wide too, because it still surprised her, every single time.

"One drip," Zuri whispered. "Two drips. Three." The baby's eyes went closed and open, closed and open, and then closed. "Tomorrow I'll teach you four," said Zuri. "And then we'll do the whole ten. You and me."

The tower hummed its low, round hum. The clock ticked, slow as honey. The star moss glowed, small and steady, in a chipped blue cup on the windowsill. And Zuri the penguin, big sister at last, curled up warm and slept.