The Bridge Between

Transcript

Bram: Right now, this very second, two round mayors are stuck in a cart halfway across a rope-bridge coming apart one strand at a time, over a long drop — and the only thing that can save them is two villages who won't even speak to each other. Come on — you won't want to miss this. Welcome to The Wanderstone — where an ordinary boy, a fearless girl and a little grey stone with a hole through it tumble out of a dusty attic into any world there ever was. I'm Bram, and it's in my Logbook. Today's page starts with a stone that wouldn't wake. Up in the map-room, Nia spun the brass compass, waiting for a turn. Theo had opened every door so far.

Theo: Here — you do it this time, Nee. Hold it, and mean something.

Bram: He dropped the grey stone in her hand. Nia held it tight and meant it with all she had. It stayed grey. Something green and horrible pulled tight behind her ribs, and she turned away so no one would see.

Grandpa: Funny thing, that stone. In eighty years it never cared whose hand it sat in. Only whether the hand was honest.

Bram: Nia gave it back. Theo held it up, murmured something true — and the stone heard him. It woke blue and bright, and a door opened between the beams. Nia went through first, as always. The attic fell away — and they dropped onto a bridge already falling to bits. A plank let go under Theo's foot and spun into a river far below — a river with no colour in it at all.

Theo: Go, go, GO — hand over hand!

Bram: They scrambled along the bucking ropes as the planks fell behind them. Biscuit skidded to the edge, paws everywhere — and Nia hooked his collar and swung him across. They landed on the grass in a heap. On each side of the valley sat a village, close enough to see the other's washing — staring across the wrecked bridge, not waving. Two men came puffing down, one from each village, so alike you couldn't tell them apart — same round faces, same moustaches, same gold chain. Cousins: Mayor Ash of the left bank, Mayor Fen of the right.

Ravi: Excuse me. Why has nobody mended the bridge?

Mayor_ash: We would be DELIGHTED to. The moment the Right bank apologises.

Mayor_fen: Apologises?! After YOU, cousin.

Mayor_ash: This is all YOUR fault—

Mayor_fen: This is all YOUR fault—

Mayor_ash: Stop copying me!

Mayor_fen: Stop copying ME!

Bram: They both swept into a bow at the very same second — and clonked their heads together.

Mayor_ash: ...Ow.

Nia: ...You two are going to be here a while.

Bram: Biscuit had a plan, too. He grabbed the big rope to drag the bridge shut by himself — and when the villagers heaved the other way, off he went backwards across the grass on his bottom, ears flying. Ravi looked up from both villages' record-books.

Ravi: Each book blames the OTHER bank for stopping the waving first. They're cross about the exact same thing.

Bram: So the left bank decided to mend it alone and be the bigger village. They heaved — and the span lurched up on their side and sagged worse on the other. A basket of washing slid toward the drop; Nia threw herself flat and caught it — — as a peg bounced off into the colourless river.

Nia: One side pulling only makes it worse! It needs both banks!

Bram: And in the right-bank tower, a bell rang for noon. At noon, the mayors' cart had to cross. Neither would go second — so, chins up, they squashed into one cart and rolled out onto the dying bridge. They got exactly halfway. The bridge groaned. A rope snapped like a guitar string, then another — and the span dropped and swung, the cart tipping out over the colourless water.

Mayor_ash: Right bank! DO something!

Mayor_fen: After YOU!

Bram: Both banks grabbed their ropes and pulled against each other — and it sagged deeper. Nobody would go first. And then a small girl on the right bank pointed at the two of them and asked the thing nobody dared: which of them was the magic one? The green thing behind Nia's ribs pulled so tight it hurt, the stone dead and dark in her fist. And Theo — first at everything, always — said the last thing she expected.

Theo: I've been jealous of YOU since forever, Nee. You're first through every door. Brave without even trying. I just never say it.

Bram: And Nia, who was never quiet, went very quiet. It came out small and shaking and true.

Nia: I'm jealous. Of my best friend. And I hate it. ...And I'm sorry.

Bram: The stone woke in her hand — blue and bright and hers — because she'd said the true thing at last. It only ever wanted somebody honest. Nia stood, the light blazing in her fist, and did what she does best — went first.

Nia: LEFT BANK, take the rope! RIGHT BANK, on my call! We say sorry with our HANDS! Now — HEAVE!

Bram: This time the left bank hauled, the right answered, and the two songs met and locked. Even the mayors dived for the same rope and landed in a heap, hauling together. And Biscuit, still skidding backwards on his bottom, was suddenly pulling the same way as everybody — the smallest puller on the bridge. Hand over hand the span climbed out of its shadow, the cart bumped onto solid ground, and green flooded back along the valley, bank to bank, chasing the ash away. Both villages wanted to keep Biscuit after that — a Left-bank dog! A Right-bank dog! — a much better argument to be having. Back in the attic, rain on the glass, Nia sat with the stone warm in her own hand.

Nia: It was never yours. Or mine. It just wanted one of us to be honest.

Grandpa: Aye. Some hands wait eighty years to hear that.

Bram: And Grandpa Otto turned to his kettle a shade too quickly, moved by something he wouldn't say. Then Ravi, at the window, went still. Past the far ridge, where the half-map ran out, a light stood on the horizon — not a star, not the sunset. A small, far-off flicker, like a lamp about to give out. He checked his chart twice.

Ravi: ...That's the centre. That's where it lives.

Bram: And that was the day the bridge came back — that adventure, done, home for tea. And somewhere in it, without any fuss, Nia found out the hardest thing to say out loud is often the thing that mends everything. But next time on The Wanderstone — the stone wakes on a wild black sea, at a lighthouse gone dark, a storm driving in and someone still out on the water. Come back, and we'll light it together. Until then — one small step first.