The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

The ferry horn blew once. Gullwick came out of the autumn fog. Three spans of the bridge stood over the water now: FAIR, LIKELY and ENOUGH. Only one gap was left.

"Eight planks, and not one fewer," said Poppa Pike. "That's the last span. Then she's a whole bridge again."

"Where are the planks?" asked Beto.

Poppa Pike sighed. "In people's sheds."

Ambo unlocked the Commons store. Lan remembered it from the first span: a stone room full of ladders, lanterns, rope and planks that belonged to everybody.

Now it was empty. The shelves were bare. One lantern hung on a hook with no candle in it.

"All summer, things went out," said Ambo quietly. "Ladders for roofs. Rope for boats. Planks for fences. Nothing came back."

"Why not?" asked Lan.

"Nobody said it should," said Ambo.

So the spares were in people's sheds, and people were holding on to them. If you give your spare to an empty room, how do you know you'll ever see one back?

"I know what to do," said Lan. "I'll do it!"

She borrowed a pencil and a sheet of paper from the bakery. In big letters she wrote:

EVERYBODY MUST GIVE TWO PLANKS.

She pinned it to the Commons door and stood back. It looked very official.

Then Vera came down the path and read it. Her whiskers drooped.

"I'd love to help," said Vera. "But it's my only one. It holds my door shut when the wind blows. Ask me for a spare."

One by one, the islanders read Lan's notice. One by one, they went home and shut their doors. Nobody gave two planks. Nobody gave any.

Lan stood by the door on her own. Her ears were hot. Her rule was perfectly clear. Why didn't it work?

A gull in a striped apron came down the lane, ringing a brass hand bell.

"Gather round, gather round!" said Gully. "Ring the bell, hear the island!"

Doors opened again. Islanders came out, curious. They followed Gully down to the beach, where everyone could stand in a big circle.

"A rule nobody helped make is just a sign on a door," said Gully. "So we'll make one together. Everyone gets a turn to talk. One voice at a time, please."

They went round the circle. Gilly talked. The baker talked. A heron talked. Beto talked about how a bridge holds up.

"Who hasn't had a turn yet?" said Gully. Lan said she was sorry about the notice.

A builder in a canvas apron stepped forward with a trowel tucked in his belt. His name was Mason.

"Fair for the giver too, mind," said Mason. "I've got spare wood, and I'll give it gladly. But I'll give my spare wood, not my tools. Nobody should give till it hurts."

"So the rule says spares," said Gully. "Never your last."

Vera's ears pricked up. "Never your last?" she said.

"A rule has to work for me as well," said Mason. "And for you."

Ambo came down the beach carrying a big old book with a leather cover.

"This was the Commons book," said Ambo. "Long ago, people wrote in it. What they took, and what they put back. Then they stopped."

Lan turned to the very first page. The writing was round and careful, a child's writing. The corner had been torn and sewn back with blue thread, and beside the stitches was a tiny hammer, drawn in pencil.

"Who was here before us?" asked Lan.

Beto looked at the hammer for a long time. "Children," he said. "Children who mended things. They didn't sign their names."

"Why does it matter?" asked Lan.

"Because then everyone can see the room is fair," said Ambo. "Nobody has to wonder whether they're the only one giving."

Gully asked Lan to write the rule down, but only what everybody said. Lan wrote it on the first clean page of the book:

Take what you need. Put back what you can spare. Never your last. Write it in the book.

"Hands up if this is our rule," said Gully.

Eleven households put their hands up straight away. Then Vera put her paw up too.

"Twelve of twelve," said Gully.

"Spares! Who's got spares?" said Gilly.

This time people went home and came back with planks. Mason brought two. The baker brought one. The heron brought three. Gilly brought two from her boat shed.

This time Lan counted before anybody said it was enough. She touched each plank. "Two, one, three, two," said Lan. "Eight!"

Ambo wrote every one in the book.

"Everybody lays one," said Poppa Pike.

Mason laid one. Vera laid one. Ambo laid one. Gilly, Gully, the baker and the heron laid one each. Lan laid the last.

The bridge was whole. The baker walked from one side to the other with a tray of hot bread, and nobody had to swim.

Lan turned the last plank over. A word was carved on the end. It said OURS.

"Fair. Likely. Enough. Ours," read Beto, walking along the four spans.

"Ours means everyone wrote it," said Lan.

The ferry horn blew twice. Home.

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

Back on the Green

At home, the biscuit tin kept going empty, and everybody blamed everybody. So Lan called a meeting at the kitchen table. Everybody had a turn, even Tí.

Their rule was: one biscuit after school, and whoever takes the last one tells Grandmother. Tí drew the rule, because he couldn't write yet.

Tell the story back to someone in your own words. Then guess: why did the second rule work when the first one didn't?