The Rainy Saturday

It rained so hard that Saturday that the cooking class was full and the Playroom was packed. Twelve little kids, five Sidekicks, one soggy umbrella stand and a smell of wet coats.

Sola stood in the doorway and took a deep breath. “Right,” she said to the others. “Lots of different kids. Lots of different moments. Pick the move that fits.”

Trailby went first, because he always went first. He found Rosa in the corner, lining up cars along the edge of the rug, exactly like she always did. He didn’t suggest a race. He sat down beside her line and held up a car.

“Can this one go next?”

Rosa pointed to the end. Follow. The line began to grow toward the rainy window.

Tarry found Kit at the block basket, putting blocks down one at a time and looking at them. Tarry put down a single block, then counted to five in her head. It still felt like ages.

“It’s a road,” said Kit. “For the rain to go down.”

Tarry added one block to the road and waited again. Kit started explaining where the rain would go, and which houses would get wet, and how the drain worked. Wait. The gaps filled up with his ideas.

Over by the dressing-up box, a girl called Tali was walking a horse round and round in a circle, looking a bit bored. Bumpus put on his crumpled paper crown and lay across the horse’s path.

“Who’s that walking on my bridge?”

Tali giggled. “You want a sandwich!”

“Not today,” said Bumpus. “Today I want an umbrella.”

Tali looked at the soggy umbrella stand, then at the toy box, and came back with a leaf-shaped plate to hold over his head. Obstacle. The circle game had become a quest.

Mo, the quiet drummer, was sitting under the table banging two spoons together. Nobody else could hear it over the noise, but Copley could. She crawled under the table too, found two spoons and copied his rhythm. Tap-tap, tap.

Mo stopped. Then he did it again, with an extra tap. Copley copied that too. Echo. Under the table, a drum conversation started.

Ana was at the water bowl, swishing, as usual. Leif sat down and swished with her for a while. Then he folded one small paper boat and put it on the water. Just one.

“It’s raining on the boat,” said Ana, flicking water drops at it. “It needs a roof.”

Leif waited to see what she’d do. She put a plastic cup upside down over the boat. “Now it’s dry,” she said, pleased. Stretch. One small idea had grown into a rainproof boat.

For a while, the Playroom was five separate games. Then something odd happened.

Kit’s rain road reached the edge of Rosa’s car line, and Rosa decided the cars needed to drive along it. Tali’s horse, still looking for an umbrella for the troll, wandered over and wanted a ride on Kit’s road too. Bumpus the troll followed, of course, wanting a toll. Mo came out from under the table to see what the fuss was, still tapping his spoons, and Copley came with him, tapping too. Then Ana carried her rainproof boat over carefully with both hands and announced that it was the ferry.

Suddenly there was one huge game across the whole rug: a rainy town with a road, a traffic jam, a troll bridge, a drummer band and a ferry with a roof.

The Sidekicks looked at each other.

Nobody had planned it. Nobody had told the kids what to play. Each Sidekick had just picked the move that fitted their kid’s moment, and the games had grown on their own until they joined up.

At the end, Finley gave a five-minute warning, and the town closed down for the night. The cars went to bed. The troll went back to sleep under his bridge. The ferry parked by the window. Everyone helped tidy up.

Afterwards, the five Sidekicks sat on the steps outside, watching the rain stop.

“I didn’t use the troll at all,” said Trailby. “Rosa didn’t want a troll.”

“I didn’t use waiting much,” said Bumpus. “Tali wanted a problem.”

“Echo wouldn’t have worked for Kit,” said Copley. “He wanted space.”

“And my boat wouldn’t have worked for Mo,” said Leif. “He wanted someone to copy him.”

Tarry laughed. “So the answer is there isn’t one answer.”

Sola sat down with them. “That’s the whole thing,” she said. “Five moves, and each one fits a different moment. Sometimes two or three would work. Sometimes none does, and you try another. You don’t have to get it perfect. You just have to watch, pick one and see.”

Inside, the Playroom was quiet and tidy. On the windowsill, Ana’s paper boat was still under its cup, dry.