The Longest Night

Transcript

Bram: Right now, this very second, Theo is flat on his back in a house made of snow, the roof caving in, a wind outside howling like a wolf — and somewhere in the dark, a small white creature has just bolted, ready to give up for good. How does an ordinary boy end up HERE? Through a door no bigger than a coin. Come on. 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. Pirate seas. Monkey islands. Nights that last half a winter. My name's Bram, and I set every word of it down in my old Logbook. So — tonight's page. For three whole days the stone had done nothing at all.

Nia: Is it warm YET? Theo — what are we WAITING for?!

Bram: Theo turned the pebble over, and said the true thing.

Theo: I hate waiting. It's like ants under my skin, all the way up my arms.

Bram: And the stone heard him. It went warm as a held hand, and through the little hole shone a whole night sky — and the attic floor tipped open. And then they tumbled out the far side of the door — into a cold so sharp it stole the breath right out of them. They stood on a hill of snow under a sky that went up forever. No sun, no moon — only stars, thick as spilled sugar, and snow glowing blue-white to the dark rim of the world. When Nia turned a slow circle, her own boots were the only sound for a hundred miles. Ravi breathed out a long cloud.

Ravi: ...oh. It's the polar night. The sun goes down for the whole winter, and just — stays down.

Nia: For how LONG?

Ravi: Months.

Bram: Even Nia had nothing to say — the hush of that place sat right inside your chest. That was when they saw her: a little white hare, no bigger than a loaf of bread, by a guttering fire on the crown of the hill — watching one stripe of the dark the way you watch for someone late. Every night, said the Logbook, she climbs up here to see the sky-lights come, the green-and-rose curtains that unroll across the dark. Only this year they hadn't — not for weeks — and where they should have been hung a long, dead stripe of grey. By the way she kept glancing down the path, Theo understood with a lurch: she was about to give up for good.

Theo: Then we keep her fire going. We keep the whole hill warm till the lights come. That's the job.

Bram: Easier said. The wind came off the ice in long shoves, and every shove dragged the warmth straight out of the snow-den behind the fire. They packed one wall — the wind punched the next. Ravi patched the roof — it sagged like a wet hat. Nia packed snow so fast her arms blurred, and it cracked just as fast.

Nia: Why. Won't. It. STAY?!

Bram: And Biscuit — Grandpa's scruffy old dog, first through every door — met snow for the very first time in his life. He put his nose to it, suspicious. He decided, on the evidence, it was an enemy. He went in face-first, ploughed a trench across the den, and came up in a fat moustache of snow. Then, thrilled with himself, he ploughed straight back out through the wall they'd only just built. The whole den went floomph.

Nia: BISCUIT—!

Bram: But she was laughing. They were all laughing, while the daft old dog barked at the snow like it might bark back.

Theo: New plan. Somebody hold the DOG.

Bram: Ravi read the way of it off the Logbook.

Ravi: It says the lights come to the ones who WAIT. You can't hurry them. And don't go rushing about up here, or you'll — hm — scare the quiet.

Nia: Scare the QUIET. Ravi. It's a HILL.

Ravi: I'm only reading what it says!

Bram: They built the fire back up. And then came the part Nia was worst at in all the world: the waiting. It went wrong all at once. A gust roared down off the ice — the biggest yet — and snatched everything loose: the spare kindling, Ravi's chart, the hare's heap of dry moss, all cartwheeling into the dark. The fire flattened, nearly out.

Nia: Oh no you DON'T—!

Bram: And Nia did what Nia always does. She ran — tore after the flying kindling, snow spraying, straight past the fire, hollering into the wind. And the little hare, who'd held so still for so long, took one look at the girl thundering across her hill — and bolted. A streak of white, over the edge, gone toward the empty ice.

Theo: Nia — STOP!

Bram: Nia stopped. The kindling scattered into the night. And the watch-hill sat empty — just the four of them, and a fire down to one orange coal. Nia stood in the wreck of it.

Nia: ...I scared her off. I was only trying to HELP.

Bram: Ravi turned his chart in his mittens. Three grey patches, one from each world — and he tilted the page sideways.

Ravi: Theo. They line up. They point, off the edge of the paper. At something.

Bram: And Theo felt the ants come roaring back — chase her, fix it, NOW. And for the first time all night, he didn't.

Theo: ...okay. You can't chase a scared thing in the dark. So we do the other thing. We keep the hill warm, and we wait, and we don't move.

Nia: Theo, I have never once in my whole LIFE—

Theo: I know. Me neither. So do it with me.

Bram: So they did the hardest thing there is: nothing. They banked the fire and held still. Theo sat with the ants screaming under his skin and did not get up. Nia jammed in beside him, hissing —

Nia: My legs have opinions. So MANY opinions —

Bram: — and stayed anyway. And Biscuit, who has waited on more cold docks than all of them, lay down warm where the hare might come back to. The cold hour passed. And out of the dark, on soft feet, the hare came back and tucked against Biscuit's side. Because someone had stayed. And then the sky moved. One thread of green, high in the grey. Then another. Then the whole sky unrolled in slow curtains of green and rose, end to end. The hare didn't cheer; she just breathed out, one small cloud. And where the grey had hung, a band of sky burned green — and the stone glowed a shade warmer in Theo's fist. And then — because the world has a sense of humour — the drift beside them burst, and Biscuit came up with the whole thing on his head like a great white wig, one ear straight up.

Nia: BISCUIT'S GOT A WIG—!

Bram: And they all fell about laughing, while the hare thumped her foot in applause. Only — at the far edge — one stripe stayed grey, where the curtains rolled up and stopped. The hare gave a small sniff, and without a word, they understood: that edge gets bigger every winter. Theo closed his hand round the stone and thought of home. And the attic floor was under them again, the rain still tapping, the kettle beginning to sing. So they'd kept the hill warm and watched the longest night light up at last — and THAT adventure was done. And somewhere in all that sitting still, without making a fuss about it, Theo found out the waiting had been the brave part all along. But next time on The Wanderstone — the stone wakes on a storm-dark night, at a lighthouse that won't light, the fishing boats still out. So come back, and we'll go through the door together. Until then — one small step first.