The Pyjama Train

At nine o’clock the bedroom went quiet. The lamp clicked off. The rug became a country with soft hills, and around it ran a wooden track, and at the top of the track stood Tillo. He was a small butter-yellow toy train with a coral stripe and a brass key in his side. All day he had waited. Now he switched on his one headlight and rang his tiny bell.

Tillo had three turns left in his key. Three turns was not much. “One more run,” he said, “and I will make it a good one.” He looked along the track. The house was nearly asleep, but not quite. Up on the bookshelf, a knitted mouse sat with her chin in her paws. Beside the bed, a felt rabbit waited for the last story.

“All aboard,” said Tillo, softly, because it was night. The mouse climbed into the last carriage. “I lost my pillow,” she whispered. “Then we will find you one,” said Tillo. At the window stop, the wooden duck climbed in with a shiver. “My wing is cold,” said the duck. “Sit in the middle,” said the mouse. “It is warmer in the middle.”

At the rug hill, the track was blocked. A cushion had fallen across it, big and soft and impossible. Tillo pushed. His wheels spun. His key clicked down to two turns, then one. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, that is not very much.” Behind him, the mouse put her paws on the carriage roof, and the duck leaned his wing against the side.

“Push,” said the mouse. “Gently,” said the duck. So they pushed, and Tillo’s wheels found the rug, and the little train went up the cushion like a beetle climbing a slipper. It was slow. It was very slow. Halfway up, Tillo’s key made a small sad click and stopped. The train hung there in the dark with its nose in the air.

“We can wind him,” said the mouse. She climbed down and turned the brass key, one careful turn. The duck turned it too. “One for the hill,” said the mouse. “One for the window,” said the duck. “And one,” said the rabbit, who had come down from the bed, “for the last stop.” The key hummed. Tillo rolled over the cushion.

The last stop was the bed with the patchwork quilt. The mouse found a pillow there, small and square. The duck tucked his wing under the quilt. The rabbit climbed in last and held the corner up. “Come on, Tillo,” said the rabbit. So Tillo rolled in beside them, warm between the mouse and the duck, and nobody said another word.

The lamp made a small orange puddle on the rug. The track lay quiet, going nowhere, which is what tracks do at night. Three turns of a key, one cushion, four small sleepers. Outside the window the moon went behind a cloud and stayed there. Inside, the house breathed slowly, in and out, and the little train dreamed of a hill that was only a cushion.