The Hum in the Top Room

Dara pressed one flipper flat against the tower wall and put her ear right beside it. She listened with her whole face still, the way Amara had taught her. Nothing. Not one hum. Behind her, the clock as tall as a door went tick, tick, tick, and did not care.

Dara was a little penguin with a blue-grey back and a front as clean as a fresh tablecloth. Her feet were the color of apricots, and there was a small white line on her beak where she had once bumped a door. She lived in the castle on the cliff, where the sea breathed in and out below the windows and every corridor smelled of beeswax and old books.

Every evening, just after the lamps were lit, the tower hummed. It was a low, round sound, like a bee asleep inside a jar. Dara had heard it from the kitchen, sitting on the flour bin. She had heard it from the stairs, and from under her blanket with one flipper over her ear. Tonight she wanted to hear it from the very top room, with her ear against the stone and nobody talking.

"There you are," said Amara, coming along the corridor with a lamp in one flipper. Amara was Dara's grandmother. She smelled of beeswax too, and she never hurried, not even when there was hurrying to be done. "Are you coming up?"

"Sixty-two stairs," said Dara. "I counted them from the bottom."

"Then you know the way," said Amara.

Up they went, round and round like the inside of a shell. Amara counted out loud. "One, two, three." Dara counted inside her head, where the numbers were quieter. The lamp made a yellow oval on the wall, and the oval slid up the stairs with them.

"Amara," said Dara at the twenty-second step, "why does the tower hum?"

"Because everyone inside is settled," said Amara.

"That isn't a proper answer."

"It's the answer I've got," said Amara.

At the thirty-ninth step Dara tried a hum of her own. It came out squeaky, like a rubber boot on a wet floor.

"Small hums count," said Amara. "And mind the shutter up top. It's a rattle-brain when the wind is up. Hook it if you can reach it. That little hook likes a push from underneath, not a pull."

At the top of the stairs the door stood ajar, and something beyond it went clack. Clack-clack.

The top room was round and dim. The window was open, and the shutter swung on its hinge, clack, clack, clack, like a wooden heartbeat. Under the window stood a brass bowl with a cushion in it. The bowl was empty.

Amara set the lamp on the table, sat down on the stool, and said, "My legs are full of stairs."

Then Dara saw him. On the windowsill sat a dragon no bigger than a cat. He had a nose like a button and wings like wet leaves, and his tail was curled tight around his own feet. His eyes were wide open.

"Hello," said Dara. "Are you the little one?"

"I'm Tuck," said the dragon. "And I can't get to sleep." He sighed, and a puff of warm air came out of him, the way a kettle sighs when it decides not to boil.

"Why can't you sleep?" asked Dara.

"That shutter," said Tuck. "It goes clack, and my eyes go pop."

Clack, went the shutter. Tuck's eyes went pop.

"Every single time," he said.

"I'll hook it," said Dara. She climbed onto the footstool and reached up. The little brass hook sat above the shutter. She pulled at it. It slipped out of her flipper, and the shutter swung loose and went clack, right by her beak. Her heart went tap, tap, tap, quick as the clock.

She tried again, sideways this time. Slip.

"Try harder," said Tuck, helpfully.

"I am trying harder," said Dara.

She took off her scarf and wound it around the hook. It held for one whole breath, until the wind came in and shook it loose. Clack-clack.

"Let's hum," said Dara. "If we hum, we won't hear it." So they hummed. Dara's hum was squeaky. Tuck's hum was warm and rumbly, like a spoon in a honey pot. They hummed and hummed, and the shutter went clack and clack, right through the middle of their humming, and Tuck's eyes went pop.

Then Tuck decided to help. He flapped his wings at the shutter, fast as a moth, and the wind he made spun the cushion up out of the brass bowl and rolled it across the floor like a wheel. Then he sneezed. The sneeze was small and warm and it smelled of toast.

"Oh dear," said Tuck.

Dara fetched the cushion and put it back. Her flippers were tight. Her chest went hot and small, like a stone with a fire inside it. Her feet wanted to tap, fast, on the footstool. "I'm cross," she said, in a small tight voice. "I'm cross and the hook won't hook and my hum is squeaky and I climbed sixty-two stairs for nothing."

Amara didn't get up. She sat on the stool with her lamp and said, quiet as a lamp: "Four ticks in. Four ticks out. Like the sea."

Dara knew that one. It was the slow-breath game. She huffed once first, because she wanted to. Then she tried. One, two, three, four, in through her beak. One, two, three, four, out through her beak. Her flippers uncurled. She did it again, and her chest went cool, like a window opening in a warm room. One more time, and she could hear the sea again, breathing under all that clacking.

Then she looked at Tuck. His little wings were fluttering in time with the shutter. Tick, tick, clack.

"Tuck," she said. "Breathe with me. Four in. Four out. Like the sea."

They did it together. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Tuck's wings went still. His tail loosened its grip on his feet. He yawned, and the yawn was the size of a teacup.

"Oh," he said. "That's better."

Dara looked at the hook again, and this time she saw it properly. It was a push-up hook, the kind that wants lifting from underneath. Amara had told her that at the thirty-ninth step. She ducked her head, slid her beak under the little curve, and pushed up.

Click.

The shutter settled into its frame. The top room went quiet, all except the sea, breathing in and out below the window.

"You did it," said Tuck. He climbed into his brass bowl, turned around three times, and curled up like a comma.

And then it began. Low and round, up through the floorboards and into the walls. Hmmm. Hmmm, hmmm. The hum. Dara put her ear to the floor. She put her ear to the wall. Then she sat up so fast her beak nearly met her own foot.

It was Tuck. It was Tuck, snoring. The hum came out of his little chest and rolled down the hollow tower like a marble down a chute, out along every corridor, all the way to the kitchen and the flour bin.

"Amara," whispered Dara. "The tower hums because the dragon snores."

"Does it," said Amara, smiling into her lamp. "Well then. Everyone inside is settled."

Dara tried her own hum, soft this time. It was still squeaky, but it fit inside Tuck's hum the way a small spoon fits inside a big bowl. Amara hummed too, low and slow, and the lamp made a warm circle on the round wall.

The sea breathed in. The sea breathed out. The hum went on and on, round and low and slow, and Dara leaned against Amara's warm side, and the whole castle settled down for the night.