Pip and the Big Puddle

Pip and the Big Puddle

There are some puddles you can walk around. This was not one of them.

Pip pushed open the back door after the rain and stopped dead. There, by the gate, was a puddle. Not a small one. Not a normal one. It went from the fence post all the way to the gate, wide and brown and still.

It was the biggest puddle Pip had ever seen. And he was wearing brand new shoes.

"Gran!" he called. "Come and look!"

Gran came out, drying her hands on her apron. She looked at the puddle for a long moment.

"That," she said, "is a very good puddle."

Pip wanted to jump in it. He wanted to jump in it more than he had wanted anything all week. But then he looked down at his feet. His feet were wearing his new shoes. The white ones. The ones Gran had bought on Saturday.

"You could just look at it," said Gran.

So Pip looked at it.

He walked to the left side and looked. He walked to the right side and looked.

Then he put one toe in. Just one. The water went straight over the white leather and Pip snatched it back out again. That was not going to work.

He crouched down instead, and looked at the sky lying upside down in the water. One small cloud floated across it.

The puddle was still there. Still wide. Still waiting.

Then Biscuit came around the corner. Biscuit was a dog, and Biscuit did not care about new shoes.

He ran straight through the middle of the puddle, sending up a great brown spray. He came out the other side with muddy legs and a very pleased face.

"Biscuit!" said Pip.

Biscuit shook himself. Water flew everywhere.

Pip laughed so hard that he had to sit down on the step.

Biscuit did not have new shoes. Biscuit did not have any shoes at all.

And that was when Pip remembered the boots.

He ran inside. He went past Gran, up the stairs, and along to the cupboard at the end of the hall, where the family kept things that nobody used any more.

At the back, under a folded blanket, he found them. His old boots. Green, with a crack across one toe, and a bit of last summer's mud still stuck to the heel.

They were too small now. Pip pushed. They went on.

He came back out. Gran was still sitting on the step. She looked at the boots. Then she looked at Pip. She did not say anything at all, but the corner of her mouth moved.

Pip walked to the edge of the puddle. He stood up very straight. He began to count.

"One," said Pip.

Biscuit sat down to watch.

"Two."

The water was perfectly flat, holding its upside down sky.

"Three!"

SPLASH.

The puddle went up. It went up and over and everywhere, higher than the fence post, higher than Pip himself. For one whole second the air was full of water and light. Then it all came down again. On Pip. On Biscuit. On the gate, and on Gran's clean step.

Pip stood in the middle of the puddle with water running off the end of his nose.

"Well," said Gran.

Pip looked down. His old boots had a crack across one toe. The water had come in through the crack. His socks were wet. Completely wet. Wet all the way through.

Pip thought about it for a moment.

"It was worth it," he said.

Gran laughed. "Come on," she said. "Dry socks."

A small brown bird had been sitting on the fence the whole time. It had watched all of it. It decided that was quite enough excitement for one afternoon, and flew away.