Olivia Follows the Hum
Olivia lay on her tummy in Grandma Amelia's garden, notebook open, when a dandelion clock blew itself away. Nobody had touched it.
— That wasn't wind, — she whispered, and wrote: Clue number one.
Something tickled her nose. A moth no bigger than a button sat there, its wings glowing like tiny lamps.
— Finally, a scientist who takes notes! — it said. — Follow me. The strange hum under the pear tree starts at nine, and it's nearly nine.
Olivia grabbed her magnifying glass and ran. The garden was white with Christmas Eve frost, but around the pear tree the grass was green, and a dandelion stood in it, as if it had never heard of December.
Olivia wrote: Clue number two.
Then the hum began. It was low and wobbly, like a bumblebee asleep in a teapot.
— I am Wick, — said the moth, landing on her notebook. — I am in charge of noticing. You are in charge of finding out. Don't just guess. Test!
— You're a bit bossy, — said Olivia.
— Cheerfully bossy, — said Wick. — There's a difference.
Olivia pressed her ear to the trunk. The hum wasn't in the tree. It was in the ground.
Just then she heard footsteps on the frosty grass. Wick tucked himself into the fold of the notebook and glowed so softly that nobody could see him.
Dad was hanging yellow lights on the fence, and his football lay by the bench. Olivia fetched it and gave it a gentle kick. It bumped a root, and the hum jumped up one note, like a hiccup.
— Nice pass! — called Dad.
— Dad, can you hear a hum?
Dad stopped and listened, the lights dangling from his hands.
— Only the wind in the wires, I think.
— Or the oven, — said Mom, coming out with a tray of gingerbread rabbits. Her pink dress flapped in the cold. — Olivia, what are you up to?
— Research, — said Olivia seriously.
She tapped the root three times with her knuckle. The ground thought about it. Then it tapped back: one, two, three.
Olivia's heart skipped. She wrote: The hum can hear me.
Between the roots, a round door slowly opened. It was no bigger than a dinner plate, and a purple glow spilled out of it.
— Oh, — breathed Olivia. Then she remembered the rule of every good explorer: tell a grown-up where you are going. She ran to the kitchen window, where Grandma Amelia was stirring cocoa.
— Grandma, may I go into a hole under the pear tree? Wick will come with me.
I think it's important.
Grandma looked at her for a long, twinkling moment.
— A scientist needs a base camp, — she said. — I'll be yours. Come back when the cocoa is ready.
— Take this, — said Mom, wrapping a yellow scarf around Olivia's neck, and Dad gave her a thumbs-up over the fence.
Olivia took a deep breath. Wick zipped out of the notebook, and the little round door seemed to grow to fit her.
The Song Under the Pear Tree She slid down a smooth root like a slide, with Wick glowing ahead of her, and landed on something soft as a cushion.
It was a burrow full of purple lanterns. Rabbits sat everywhere in rows, with yellow scarves just like hers and their ears up, and every one of them was looking at the same thing.
In the middle stood a foal no bigger than a cat. It was silvery-lilac, with a long thin horn that was dark, like a candle nobody had lit. It opened its mouth and hummed one wobbly note.
— A unicorn! — whispered Olivia.
An old rabbit with white whiskers hopped forward.
— Every Christmas Eve a foal is born under the pear tree, — she said. — When its horn lights, the whole garden fills with stars.
But the horn only lights when the foal sings its first song. And all it knows is one note.
The foal hummed again and looked at Olivia with big brown eyes. It did not look sad. It looked like it was waiting for a friend to arrive.
Olivia opened her notebook.
— Observation one, — she said. — The note went up when the football hit the root. So the hum listens to what happens above.
— Good, — said Wick, glowing proudly.
— Observation two. It tapped back three times. So it likes rhythm.
The old rabbit thumped her back foot, boom, boom-boom, and the foal's note wobbled into a little bounce.
But it was still only one note.
Olivia chewed her pencil. Then she smiled.
— A song isn't one note, — she said slowly. — A song is lots of notes together. And the people who know the best songs in this garden are up there. They're my family.
— Hypothesis! — cried Wick. — Now test it!
Olivia scrambled up the root slide. At the top, her scooter was leaning against the pear tree. She jumped on it and whizzed along the path to the kitchen door.
— Everyone, please, quickly! — she called. — I need your voices. Bring the football!
They came as they were.
Mom had flour on her hands, Dad had tinsel on his shoulders, and Grandma Amelia had the ladle. Olivia led them to the pear tree.
— I can't explain it all, — she said, a little out of breath. — But please make music. Just here, by the roots.
And they did not ask a single question.
Grandma began first, with the old Christmas carol she had sung to Olivia since she was tiny. Mom joined in, soft and clear. Dad whistled the tune and bounced the football on the frosty ground, thump, thump-thump, just like the old rabbit's foot.
Under their feet, the hum shivered. Then it rose, higher and higher, and turned into a second note, and a third. Out of the little round door floated a silvery, shining tune, the foal's very first song, sung along with the carol.
Suddenly the dark horn blazed with light, and out of the pear tree's branches flew hundreds of tiny stars, purple and yellow. They hung in the air over the garden like a ceiling of lanterns.
— Oh! — said Mom.
— Oh, my, — said Dad, and the football rolled away, forgotten.
Grandma Amelia said nothing at all. She only winked at Olivia.
— Time for cocoa, — she said at last, her voice a little shaky.
— I'll be right there, — said Olivia. — I just need to write something down.
Mom squeezed her shoulder, and the three grown-ups walked slowly toward the house, looking back at the stars every few steps.
The little round door opened again, just a crack. The foal peeked out and touched its glowing nose to Olivia's palm. It felt warm, like a mug of cocoa. Then it was gone, and the door closed softly among the roots.
Wick landed on the pear tree's lowest branch.
— Go on, — he said.
— I'll stay and count the stars. Somebody has to note them down.
Olivia ran across the frosty grass and caught up with Mom and Dad. She took Mom's hand and Dad's hand, and Grandma Amelia walked ahead, carrying the ladle like a torch.
That night, with the stars still shining in the pear tree, Olivia sat on the windowsill, and Wick sat on the corner of her notebook, glowing. She wrote: Conclusion: One note is just a hum. Three voices and a football make a song.
And under it, in yellow pencil, she drew one small unicorn with a horn like a star.
