Bixby’s Button Bluff — Under the tick-tick of icy branches, Bixby pressed a black pebble into the snowman’s belly and whispered the rules of her brand-new game: every button must make a face without becoming a face. Read the full story →
Under the tick-tick of icy branches, Bixby pressed a black pebble into the snowman’s belly and whispered the rules of her brand-new game: every button must make a face without becoming a face. One pebble looked surprised. One looked snooty. The last one, she decided, looked like it had just smelled cabbage soup. Her mittens squeaked on the packed snow. “No laughing, Mr. Brisk,” she told the snowman, though his carrot nose seemed aimed at trouble.
She added two more pebbles, then stepped back on one boot, brave enough to try the hardest rule: the secret button had to go exactly where the moon would guess it. The village below glittered with windowlight, and from the church steeple came a soft bong. Then another. Bong-bong…pause…bong. Bixby froze. The bells were copying her buttons.
That made the whole game different. She wasn’t decorating Mr. Brisk; she was writing a silly song for the steeple to play over the roofs. Bixby planted the final pebble with a grand mitten tap, and the bells answered with the cabbage-soup rhythm. Next time you spot those round buttons, try tapping them in order and see if the moon starts grinning too.
