The Wanderstone — The Longest Night

Transcript

Bram: Hold your breath. On a frozen lake, in a screaming blizzard, a boy named Theo kneels in the snow — not moving. Just out of reach, on ice so thin it groans, a frightened snow-pup shakes, too scared to come. Behind Theo, the only door home fades to a thin grey arch. One running step, and the ice cracks through. So the boy who can't wait five minutes for a biscuit must do the one thing he's worst at — hold dead still, and wait. How did a boy who can't even wait for his birthday end up HERE? Come on. Don't rush this bit. Welcome to The Wanderstone — where an ordinary boy and a little grey stone with a hole right through it can tumble out of a dusty attic into ANY world there's ever been. Monkey islands. Pirate seas. The longest night of the year. I'm Bram, and it's all in my Logbook. Today's page. It was the night before Theo's birthday, up in the attic, and Theo could not lie still.

Theo: Grandpa — is it morning yet if I shut my eyes really, really fast?

Bram: In the big armchair, cocoa in his hands, sat Grandpa — who'd lived in that house longer than the attic dust, and who, years ago, had quietly boxed a little grey stone away and tried to forget it.

Grandpa: Ha. Morning comes when it comes, lad. Some things you can only wait for.

Bram: But waiting, to Theo, felt like ants under the skin. So when his eye fell on the holed stone in its box, he decided he'd MAKE it wake. He squeezed it, and shook it.

Theo: Wake up. Wake UP. I want an adventure NOW — not whenever you feel like it.

Bram: The stone stayed cold and dead and grey. And up on the ceiling a thin green shimmer slid past from the frosty window — so Biscuit, Grandpa's daft old terrier, went stiff as a board, certain it was a sneaking sky-snake, and growled his bravest growl. Then Theo ran out of huff, slumped, and said the true thing instead.

Theo: …I can't STAND waiting. It's like ants, under my skin. I just want it to be NOW.

Bram: And the stone heard him. It went warm in his hand — a seed of light kindling in the hole, blooming gold, then turquoise, a little warm star alive in the cold.

Nia: It's doing it — Theo, it's DOING it!

Bram: That was Nia, already halfway across the attic.

Ravi: Hang on — we should note the exact time, for the log —

Bram: But Ravi was too late. The star swung wide into a door of light, and the attic floor tipped out from under three children and one very surprised dog. Grandpa did not fall. He stayed in his chair, blinking at the light spilling up off his own floorboards.

Grandpa: …Now where do I know that light from.

Bram: And then they were through — and the cold hit them like a wall. They landed deep in soft snow, breath puffing white. Close your eyes a moment. The sun has gone down — not just for tonight, but for the whole winter — so it's blue-dark, with stars close enough to touch, and a great ribbon of green-and-violet light beginning to dance. Can you picture it? A sky that dances, over snow that goes on forever. And that is exactly where they stood, mouths open — when they heard it: a small, lost cry, way out across the snow.

Ravi: That's an AURORA. Actually, it only comes out on the very coldest —

Nia: Ravi. Nobody is reading the log.

Bram: And Biscuit, certain the sky-snake had followed them through, galloped off barking up at the whole sky. But two things were wrong. Far across the white, the way home hung as a glowing arch, already fraying to grey. And out on the snow, alone, a snow-pup was crying for a family that wasn't there — and the moment it saw them, it froze with fright.

Theo: A puppy! It's lost — quick, I'll grab it —

Bram: And Theo bolted straight at it. The instant Theo charged, the pup shot away — a streak across the snow, then gone, only two paw-prints racing toward the lake.

Ravi: Theo, STOP — you're SCARING it!

Bram: But Nia was already gone, sprinting wide to head the pup off —

Theo: Nia, wait — you don't know what's under the —

Bram: Too late. Three flying steps, and the wind-crusted snow gave way beneath her — — and Nia dropped clean into a deep drift, right up to her armpits, stuck fast.

Nia: …Okay. OKAY. I am, in actual fact, extremely stuck.

Bram: And Biscuit, certain the sky-snake had crash-landed in that drift, dived in nose-first to fight it — and surfaced wearing a magnificent snow-beard.

Nia: …Biscuit. You have a beard.

Bram: So the first try hadn't just failed — it had made things worse. They hauled Nia out, but the pup was a far-off speck now, and a squall was rolling in to bury every track. Every ant under Theo's skin screamed RUN. But Ravi knelt by the prints, went very still, and read them.

Ravi: No. Look — they circle, and double back. It isn't running away. It's frightened, and it keeps creeping back. It WANTS to come. So we can't chase it — the faster you chase, the faster it runs. We have to let it come to us.

Bram: And Theo — his whole body shouting hurry, hurry, hurry — understood the impossible thing. To save the pup, the most impatient boy alive would have to wait. Then the squall hit, the world went white, and the pup scrambled out onto a stretch of thin, creaking lake-ice — where one running step would crack it straight through. Here's a thing to think about, before Theo does. What does the pup need most — somebody to run at it and grab it… or somebody to be still, and wait? What would you do? And Theo did the bravest thing he'd ever done. He knelt down in the snow, held out one mittened hand, and held perfectly still.

Theo: I feel impatient. It's ants, under my skin. So I choose… to wait. One small step first.

Bram: And he waited. The wind howled at him to hurry. He did not move. And up in the sky, the band of aurora that had gone ashen and grey — the colour guttering out of it like a candle burning thin — gave a small shiver, and one stripe of it flushed warm green-gold again, just from the stillness underneath. And beside him, Ravi quietly put his notebook away.

Ravi: …Right. Forget the log. Everyone — be a stone. I am NOT writing this down.

Bram: The pup took one shaking step closer. Theo stayed still as a stone. Another step. And then Biscuit flopped down beside him and gave the dancing sky-snake one last, enormous, booming BATTLE-woof — so the frightened pup could hear, loud and clear, that here were friends. And that did it. The pup ran the last steps and pressed itself, trembling, into Theo's arms.

Theo: I've got you. You're safe. I waited.

Bram: But the squall had swallowed the door home whole — Theo lost in the white, the pup against his chest, no way back. And then, in his fist, the stone did something brand new. It leaned — steady, certain, tugging at his palm, sending a thin column of warm-white light across the snow toward home.

Theo: It's the stone — it's LEANING! Follow the light!

Bram: And down that warm line, out of the whiteout, came big gentle shapes — the pup's own family, called home along the beam. The pup tumbled straight to them. And the moment nobody needed the way any more, the column went out, and the stone sat cool and tired. It had shown the way just once. And then, as if it had only waited for somebody patient enough, the whole aurora swelled and poured green and gold across the snow. Theo lifted the stone, and a door of light folded open. But just before they stepped through, he looked back — and saw that ashen, greyed-out edge of the sky, wider now than when they'd come, as if the dark were drinking the dancing light. Then the door pulled them home. Back in the attic, three children and one snow-bearded dog stepped down onto the floorboards — Biscuit dragging a stolen red kerchief, giving the now-dim ceiling one last warning woof, certain he'd seen the sky-snake off for good. And in his armchair, Grandpa was wide awake, watching the little stone glow and dim on Theo's chest. And Grandpa had gone very, very still. He set his cocoa down without looking at it, and when he spoke, his voice came out lower and softer than the children had ever heard it.

Grandpa: …I've seen that stone wake before. Once. A long, long time ago.

Theo: You — you have? Grandpa, when?

Grandpa: It belonged to my best friend, when I was a boy no bigger than you. It woke for him, all those years. It never once woke for me. So I boxed it away, and told myself I'd forgotten it.

Bram: He looked a long moment at Theo, and at the warm, tired little stone.

Grandpa: Come here, lad. It's time I told you about my friend. His name was Bram. And we'd best start drawing a map — for all the places that stone is going to take you.

Bram: So that — that was the night of the dancing sky. That adventure, done. And somewhere out on that ice, without making any fuss about it, the boy who couldn't wait for ANYTHING found out that some things you can only wait for — and that the bravest thing, when you're fizzing to go, is sometimes just to be still. But next time on The Wanderstone — the stone wakes high in the freezing Lantern Mountains, where the wind carries a deep, rumbling roar through the dark, and something the whole valley calls a monster is waiting in a cave. So come back soon, and we'll go through the door together. Until then — one small step first.