The Pearl Nobody Counted — After rain, the pond smelled like wet leaves and cool mud, and Kip tapped his toes on his lily pad. Read the full story →
After rain, the pond smelled like wet leaves and cool mud, and Kip tapped his toes on his lily pad. He wanted one smooth pebble to skip before supper, just once across the silver water. The best pebbles lay beyond the cattails, where dragonflies stitched blue sparks over the reeds, so Kip hopped out from his warm, familiar pad.
Plip, plop, he went past lilies and round leaves slick as soap. A snail asked, “Are you counting the lily pads?” Kip shook his head; he was counting splashes. On the far side, he found a pebble, but a tiny minnow shivered in a shallow cup of water beside it. Kip pushed the pebble under the cup’s rim until water trickled back to the pond. His perfect skipper sank with a soft glug.
On the way home, Kip rested on the smallest lily leaf, the one nobody used. Under its edge, something moon-pale winked: a pearl, smooth as a raindrop and too round to skip. Kip tucked it beside the minnow’s pool, where it glowed like a little lantern under the rainbow. If you visit the pond after rain, can you spot the place where Kip chose a glow instead of a splash?
