Pip claps beside the water bowl as the blue-sailed boat circles the water. The gray cat watches the puffed paper bag near its face.

A LITTLE WORLD AWAITS

Pip and the Pocket of Wind

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

3 min read6 pages

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Pip and the Pocket of Wind

Pip, a small brown mouse, watches a puffed gray paper bag scoot across a toy-shop floor. A blue toy train and red rocking horse stand nearby.

Pip was a small brown mouse who lived beneath the floor of a busy toy shop. Each night, when the shop was quiet, he collected dropped buttons, soft bits of string, and crumbs from the biscuit tin by the till.

One windy evening, Pip found something new: a little pocket of wind trapped inside a paper bag. The bag puffed up and scooted across the floor. “Whoosh!” it said.

Pip peers over a large bowl of water at a tiny boat with a drooping blue sail. A large gray shop cat watches from the other side.

Pip chased it past the toy train, under the red rocking horse, and behind a tall shelf of blocks. The bag bumped a stack of tiny wooden boats. Plop! One boat tumbled into the bowl of water for the shop cat.

The boat floated, but its paper sail grew wet and drooped. Pip’s ears fell. “That boat needs a dry sail,” he said.

Pip carefully ties a square blue cloth sail to the mast of a tiny wooden boat floating in a bowl of water.

He hurried home and picked his best treasure: a square of blue cloth from an old ribbon. He tied it to the little mast with two short pieces of string. Then Pip set the boat gently on the water.

Inside the paper bag, the pocket of wind gave a puff. Whoosh! The blue sail filled, and the boat skimmed around the bowl, past the cat’s whiskers, and safely back to the edge.

Pip clapped his tiny paws. “You are not a runaway wind,” he told the bag. “You are a sailing wind!”

Pip stands beside a large bowl filled with five tiny sailboats in blue, green, and rust. Ribbon and leaf scraps lie on the floor under a bright window.

All night, Pip made more little sails from ribbons and leaves. By morning, a bright fleet of boats waited beside the window. When the shop door opened, a soft breeze slipped in. Every sail fluttered, and the little boats bobbed in their bowl.

A shopkeeper bends over a bowl of tiny sailboats above the floor. Below the floor line, Pip sits beside a large puffed paper bag in his small nook.

The shopkeeper stopped and smiled at the tiny fleet. Beneath the floor, Pip listened as his pocket of wind gave one pleased, happy whoosh.