Rowan peers at a blue-and-white teacup with a tiny open door. Pip, a beetle in a yellow cap, stands inside before a leafy green tunnel.

A PICTURE BOOK

The Teacup That Grew a Door

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The Teacup That Grew a Door

In a bright greenhouse, Rowan kneels by a wooden shelf and drops a green pea into soil in a blue-and-white teacup while Aunt May smiles among tomato plants.

On a windy afternoon, Rowan found a blue-and-white teacup behind the flowerpots in Aunt May’s greenhouse. Inside was one bright green pea.

“May I plant it?” Rowan asked.

Aunt May smiled. “You may. But that cup has never grown anything ordinary.”

Rowan filled the cup with dark soil, tucked in the pea, and gave it three drops of water. Then he set it on a warm shelf beside the tomatoes.

The next morning, a curly sprout pushed through the soil. By lunchtime, it climbed over the rim. By supper, a tiny round door had appeared in the side of the teacup.

Tap, tap, tap.

Rowan bent close. “Who is there?”

The little door opened. A beetle in a yellow cap stood inside. Behind him stretched a long green tunnel, with pea-shaped lamps hanging from the ceiling.

Tiny Rowan and Pip walk through a leafy green tunnel beneath hanging pea-shaped lamps. Rowan points toward a small grey cloud and a green sparkle ahead.

“I’m Pip, the cup keeper,” said the beetle. “My lamps have gone out. The wind blew their glow away.”

“Where did it go?” Rowan asked.

Pip pointed down the tunnel. At the far end, a little grey cloud was hiccuping. Each hiccup puffed a green sparkle from its side.

Rowan crawled through the door. Inside the teacup, he was as small as Pip. Together, they walked toward the cloud.

Rowan crouches in the green tunnel and gently holds a rolled leaf beneath a puffy grey cloud’s nose while Pip watches nearby.

“Hic! I can’t stop!” said the cloud. “I swallowed too many tickly pollen grains.”

Rowan spotted a soft leaf on the floor. He rolled it into a little tube and held it under the cloud’s nose.

“Sniff this gently,” he said.

The cloud sniffed. Then it sneezed one enormous sneeze. “CHOO!”

Green sparks flew through the tunnel and popped into every pea-shaped lamp. The lamps glowed bright green.

In the glowing green tunnel, Pip in his yellow cap offers Rowan a small shining pea lamp while a happy little cloud floats farther down the path.

Pip cheered. He gave Rowan a pea lamp no bigger than a marble.

Rowan crawled back through the tiny door just as Aunt May came in with her watering can. The teacup was small again. Its sprout curled around the handle, and the little door was gone.

Rowan sleeps under a dark teal quilt in a moonlit bedroom while a small green pea lamp glows on the bedside table.

That night, Rowan put the pea lamp beside his bed. It shone softly until morning, green as a new leaf.