The Little Boat Who Waited

The morning is wide and blue. The tide is out. The sea has gone all the way down the beach, without asking anybody.

Pip Boat sits on the wet sand. A red rope ties her to the dock. She is small, and blue, and in a hurry. “I want to sail now!”

Tug. Tug. The rope goes tight. From far away, the sea calls, “Not yet, little boat. Not yet.”

Pip pushes. She wiggles her hull in the sand. Push, push, push. The sand holds on tight. Pip does not move one pebble.

The sea calls, “Not yet, little boat. Not yet.”

Pip paddles. She flaps her ropes like noodle arms. Slap, slap, slap. Not one inch. Her little flag begins to scrunch.

Pip tries being cross. She puffs out her sail until it looks like a blue bun. She frowns with every flag. Being cross does not move one single drop of sea. “Not yet, little boat. Not yet.”

Pip lets her sail go soft. Then she looks.

She counts the gulls on the dock post. One gull. Two gulls. Three gulls, all facing into the wind like tiny white weathervanes.

A crab draws sideways lines in the sand. Scritch, scritch. The harbor bell rocks slow. Ding… dong. Pip listens. The waiting, it turns out, is full of things.

Then — cool and quiet, the way it always comes — the sea slides back up the sand. It touches Pip’s toes. Then her belly. Then her red rope.

The water curls under her hull. It lifts her, gentle as a grown-up lifting a sleepy child. “Now, little boat,” says the sea. “Now.”

Pip floats. She rocks, soft and slow. One gull rides on her nose. Ding… dong. Ding… dong. All the way to evening.

The End