Juniper leans toward a tall attic window with a face as its cobalt-blue curtains billow in the wind.

A LITTLE WORLD AWAITS

Juniper and the Window That Whistled

Get comfy, come a little closer, and let a new adventure unfold.

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Juniper and the Window That Whistled

Juniper lived in a tall yellow house with three windows on every floor. Each morning, she opened them wide. The kitchen window smelled of toast. The bathroom window showed pigeons on the roof. From the attic window, Juniper could see the bakery, the bus stop, and nearly the whole street.

One windy afternoon, a sound came from upstairs. “Wheee-oo! Wheee-oo!”

Juniper climbed to the attic. The window was shut tight, but it whistled anyway. Its blue curtains puffed and flapped.

“Are you all right?” Juniper asked.

“I have a tickly gap,” the window whistled. “The wind slips through, and I cannot stop singing!”

Juniper crouches by the window frame and points at a dry brown leaf caught in a small crack.

Juniper looked around the frame. At the bottom was a tiny crack. A dry brown leaf was stuck inside it. Each gust made the leaf tremble. “Wheee-oo!”

Kneeling beside the window, Juniper uses a red yarn loop near the trapped leaf while a large spoon lies on the floor.

First Juniper fetched a soft paintbrush from her art box. She brushed the leaf gently, but it would not move. Then she tried a spoon from the kitchen. The spoon was too big. It bumped the glass. Clink!

Juniper pulled the spoon away. “No more clinking,” she said. “I need something small and soft.”

In the sewing basket, she found a short piece of red yarn. She tied a little loop at one end. She slid the loop beside the leaf and pulled very slowly.

Out came the leaf. The whistle stopped.

Juniper lifts a blue curtain and finds a tiny pale moth caught by a loose thread on the windowsill.

The attic was quiet at last. Juniper smiled—then heard a faint flutter behind the curtain.

A tiny moth rested on the windowsill. One pale wing was caught on a loose curtain thread.

“Oh,” said Juniper. “You were trying to leave.”

Juniper kneels at the open attic window with scissors in one hand as a small moth flies away from her other hand.

With child-safe scissors, Juniper snipped the loose thread. Then she opened the window just a finger-wide gap. The moth climbed onto her hand, light as a scrap of paper, and flew into the windy sky.

The attic window gave one small, happy whistle. “Whee!”

From outside the tall yellow house, Juniper is visible at the high attic window behind still blue curtains, above a street with a bus and bakery.

Juniper laughed and closed it snugly. Down on the street, the bakery bell rang and the bus rumbled past. High in the yellow house, the window held its blue curtains still.