Bobbin and the Rainy Day Voyage

Up on the shelf above the garden door, there lived a little wooden boat named Bobbin.

Bobbin had a round red sail and a smooth brown hull, worn soft from many loving hands. Every day he sat very still and looked out at the garden. He watched the butterflies. He watched the bees. And he watched the puddles after rain, shimmering and wide, and he thought — oh, how I would love to sail.

One blustery evening, the wind came whooshing through. It rattled the windows. It shook the roses. And with one great, warm, wild gust — whoooosh — it lifted little Bobbin right off his shelf.

Down he tumbled, soft as a leaf, and he landed — plop — right in the biggest puddle in the whole wide garden.

And then, Bobbin began to sail.

The rain tapped tap tap on his little red sail. The puddle was enormous — it stretched all the way past the flower pots, round the edge of the muddy grass, and right along the old stone path.

Bobbin floated past the yellow daisies, nodding their heads in the rain. Hello, hello, they seemed to say.

He floated past the tall green ferns, dripping and sparkly. They swished their soft fronds like waving arms.

He floated past a fat brown snail who blinked at him slowly and said nothing at all — but Bobbin smiled anyway.

The rain grew softer. Pitter. Patter. Pit.

The puddle grew calm and still, like a little silver mirror.

Bobbin rested there, quiet and warm, listening to the last few drops falling on the leaves around him. He had sailed the whole garden. He had seen every wonderful, dripping, glittering thing.

And then — crunch, crunch, crunch — came small boots on the wet path.

Two warm hands scooped him up, careful and gentle, and held him close.

Back through the door they went, into the golden light and the warm, dry smell of inside.

Bobbin was set back on his shelf, his red sail still damp, his hull gleaming with raindrops.

He looked out at the garden, quiet now, the puddles fading slowly into the earth.

He had sailed. He really, truly had.

And that, thought Bobbin, as the garden grew dark and soft and still, was everything.