The Last One to Bed
Tumble was a young rabbit who could fall asleep in the middle of anything. She had fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence, which happens to everybody, and in the middle of her supper with the spoon still in her paw, which happens to fewer. Once she fell asleep in the middle of a hop. She went up awake and came down asleep, and Prickle the hedgehog had to fetch a pillow and slide it under her head where she landed.
She lived in a big burrow under a meadow, in one long low room with a row of little beds along the wall. Prickle slept at the far end. Then came three voles, Pip and Dot and Button. Then the two rabbit cousins, Hazel and Bun. Then Tumble. And in the last bed, nearest the door and the lamp, slept Mr. Pellow, an old mole, slow and kind, who had been last to bed every night for forty years.
That was because of the rule. The burrow had only one rule, and everybody knew it: “The last one to bed sings everyone down.”
Every night, when the others were under their blankets, Mr. Pellow sat on the stool by the lamp with a long knotted string across his knees. There was a knot on it for every name in the burrow, in the order of the beds. A mole’s eyes are not much use, so Mr. Pellow read with his fingers. He found the first knot, and he sang, in a voice as low and slow as he was, “Down goes Prickle, warm and deep, ears and toes and off to sleep.”
And at the far end of the room, Prickle’s blanket lifted itself off the foot of his bed. It gave one good shake, like a tablecloth being shaken out after breakfast, and tucked itself in around him. Prickle curled up so tight at bedtime that his blanket had to go round him like paper round a parcel, and it did, with the corners folded under.
Then Mr. Pellow’s fingers moved along to the next knot.
Tumble had seen Prickle tucked in more times than she could count. She had seen Pip’s blanket shake out twice. She had seen Dot’s once, on her own birthday, when she was allowed to sit up on three pillows. She had never seen her own, because most nights she was asleep before the soup bowls were cleared. Nobody she knew, except Mr. Pellow, had ever heard the burrow song to the end. That was rather the point of it.
But Tumble wanted to. Just once, she wanted to be last to bed and sing the song herself, every name, all the way down the row, and find out how it finished.
Then one evening Mr. Pellow came in from the meadow with a cold. He sneezed twice at the door and once at the soup. When he opened his mouth to say good evening, all that came out was a small creak, like a gate that wants oil.
Everyone looked at the knotted string on its hook.
“Who’s going to sing us down?” said Dot.
Hazel didn’t know the tune. Bun knew the tune but not the words. Prickle said he was very sorry, but a sleepy hedgehog curls up, and a curled-up hedgehog cannot hold a string.
Tumble put up her paw. “I’ll do it,” she said.
There was a pause round the table.
“Tumble,” said Prickle kindly, “you’ve never once been awake past Dot.”
“I know,” said Tumble. “That’s why I’d like to.”
Mr. Pellow felt along the table until he found her paw. Then he took the string down and ran it through his fingers. For forty years the last knot had been his own. Now he picked two knots loose with his long claws and tied them again the other way round. He put the string in Tumble’s paw and patted it.
“Singer’s knot goes last,” he said. It came out as a whisper, and it cost him a cough.
Tumble had a plan, and it had three parts.
First, she went to the washing basket and took out two wooden clothes pegs. Tumble’s ears always went to sleep before the rest of her. So she pegged the tips of them together over the top of her head, where they could not droop at all. It did not hurt. It only made her look extremely awake.
Second, while the others washed their faces and argued over who got the dry end of the towel, she went up the tunnel and sat on the front step. The moon was up over the meadow and the air was blue. A small wind came across the grass and went straight through her fur. Tumble sat there until her nose was cold and her tail was cold and her head felt as clear as a window.
Mr. Pellow came up the tunnel with a cup of warm milk for her. Tumble looked at the milk, and then looked quickly away from it, as if it were a pillow.
“Not tonight,” she said. “But thank you.”
Mr. Pellow nodded and drank it himself, which was better for his throat anyway.
Third, when everyone was in bed, she sat on the stool by the lamp with the string across her knees and counted the knots out loud. “One,” she said. “Two. Three. Four.”
Now, you may be thinking that counting is a poor way to stay awake. Tumble thought so too, at about five. At six her chin went down. She caught it, and shouted “SEVEN, EIGHT!” so loudly that Button sat straight up and said, “Is it morning?”
“No,” said Tumble. “Sorry. Go back to sleep. Actually, wait. I’ll do it properly.”
She found the first knot with her fingers, the way Mr. Pellow did, and she sang. “Down goes Prickle, warm and deep, ears and toes and off to sleep.”
At the far end of the room, Prickle’s blanket lifted itself off the foot of his bed. It gave one good shake and wrapped itself round him like a parcel, corners and all.
It worked. It worked for her.
“Down goes Pip,” sang Tumble, and Pip’s blanket lifted, shook, and tucked. “Down goes Dot.” Up, shake, tuck. “Down goes Button.” Button had sat up to watch, and was tucked in so smartly that there was nothing to do but lie down, looking surprised. One, then the next, then the next, all down the long row.
With every verse, Tumble’s eyes got heavier. She sang Hazel through a yawn and Bun through a bigger one. The clothes pegs held her ears up nicely, but there was nothing holding up her eyelids.
Then came Mr. Pellow’s knot. He was lying in the last bed with a hanky, wide awake, listening. Tumble sang his name, and his blanket lifted, gave its shake, and tucked itself round his pink nose and his big digging paws. Mr. Pellow made a small surprised creak. Nobody had sung him down in forty years.
Then came the last knot.
“Down goes Tumble,” sang Tumble, “warm and deep.”
Her blanket stayed folded at the foot of her bed. She sang it again. It did not lift, or shake, or tuck.
And Tumble understood. The last verse was for the singer, and nobody can sing themselves down. She looked along the row. Every blanket was tucked, and every eye she could see was shut. As far as she could tell, there was nobody left awake to sing it for her.
So that was how the song ended. Every night for forty years, Mr. Pellow had sung this verse to a blanket that did not move, and then tucked himself in. Tumble thought she had better do the same. She climbed into bed, which took a long time, and felt about for the edge of her blanket, and could not find it.
Then a paw found it for her.
Mr. Pellow had climbed out of his beautifully tucked bed, which is harder than it sounds. He could not sing a note. But he had stayed awake, and he could tuck. He tucked the blanket round her ears, clothes pegs and all, and patted it down along her sides, the way a mole pats the earth smooth over a new tunnel.
“That’s the last verse,” he said, in his whisper. “It’s done by hand.” Then, though it cost him another cough, he said the rest. “Last one to bed sees everyone in. Even the singer.”
She was asleep before he got to her toes. Mr. Pellow tucked them in anyway, both feet, because a verse is a verse. Then he went back to his own bed. His blanket was still tucked in the shape of him from Tumble’s singing, and he slid into it like a letter into an envelope. He was last to bed after all, as he had been for forty years. But this time somebody had sung him down first, and he lay there perfectly tucked, too pleased to sleep for nearly a whole minute.
As for Tumble, she slept all night with two clothes pegs on her ears. She had fallen asleep in the middle of being tucked in, and of all the middles she had ever fallen asleep in, that was the best one.
