The Noon Wish and the Faraway Sea

Once there was a small bright kingdom in the exact middle of the map. It was as far from the sea as a kingdom can be.

In the castle courtyard there was a wishing well, and it worked like this. At the stroke of noon, whoever dropped a button into it got one wish. The wish came true at once, in plain sight, while everybody watched. One button, one wish, once a day.

For hundreds of years the kings had kept the noon wish for themselves. One king wished for a taller tower, and up it went with a crunch. One wished for a hat that would never blow off, and it never did, not even when he wanted it to. Rosie’s father, the King, once wished the moat full of lemonade. It filled to the brim, and he was still a little proud of it. “You should have seen the swans,” he liked to say.

Rosie was the King’s daughter. When she was five, she found a picture of the sea in a book in the library. It was blue, then white, then blue again, all the way to the edge of the page and, she was sure, a good way past it. After that she talked about the sea at breakfast, in the bath and in the middle of other people’s sentences. She talked about it so much that the castle cook, who had never been farther than the market, could draw a wave from memory in the flour on the kitchen table. It had a curl at the top. The cook was very proud of the curl.

Rosie did not want to sail on the sea or live beside it. She only wanted to see it, once, with her own eyes.

But the sea was weeks and weeks away, over mountains so tall that the road went halfway up and then came back down again. Nobody from the kingdom had ever been.

* * *

On her seventh birthday the King asked Rosie what she would like, and she said, “The noon wish.”

“For today?” said the King.

“For always,” said Rosie.

The King thought about it. He had already had the lemonade. “All right,” he said.

Everyone was sure she would wish for the sea that very noon. But Rosie had been thinking. The kingdom had a great many towers and not much else to show for all those royal wishes. So she wrote the name of every person in the kingdom on a slip of paper. She put the slips in her left winter boot, which was the biggest thing she owned with a hole only at the top.

At noon she stood by the well and called across the courtyard, “Whose day is it today?”

She reached into the boot. The first name belonged to a farmer whose goat had been lost for three days. The farmer dropped a button into the well. Plink. And the goat walked in through the castle gate, looked about as if it had never been anywhere, and trotted home.

From then on, Rosie meant to keep her birthday noon for herself, which seemed fair. On her next birthday she would wish for the sea.

On her eighth birthday the baker’s oven went cold on the morning of the Spring Fair, with the whole kingdom waiting for buns. Rosie gave the baker her day. Plink. The oven roared.

On her ninth birthday a boy got his kite stuck on the very top of the very tall tower, the one that went up with a crunch. A kite is not as important as the sea, most people would say. Rosie looked at the boy’s face and did not say it. Plink. The kite came down into his hands as neatly as a letter through a door.

On her tenth birthday the farmer’s goat got lost again.

And so it went, birthday after birthday, for years and years. There was always someone who needed the day more than she did, and Rosie always seemed to be standing right next to them.

* * *

Now, a button can only go into a well once. Years of noons is a great many buttons, and the kingdom began to run short.

Mr. Tuck the tailor ran out first, because everybody came to him. He stood in his shop over an empty button tin and laughed out loud. He had always found buttons fiddly. He took a ball of string and tied a coat shut with a bow at the top, a knot in the middle and a loop at the bottom. He said it was the best coat he had ever made.

Soon every coat in the kingdom was held shut with string. Mr. Tuck tied bows and knots and plaits, and some fastenings so new they had no names yet. String became the height of fashion. Visiting kings went home and cut the buttons off their own coats.

Everybody kept one button back, in a teacup or under a pillow, for the day their name came out of the boot.

And this is the part Rosie did not know.

When the cook’s name came out of the boot, the cook carried the family button to the well, looked over one shoulder, leaned in and whispered, “I wish the sea would take one step nearer to Rosie.” Plink.

That evening the cook told the baker. The baker told the farmer. The farmer told the boy with the kite, and the boy with the kite told everybody else, which is what boys with kites are for. After that, everyone whose day it was dropped in their one button and whispered the very same wish. Nobody told Rosie. It was the best-kept secret the kingdom ever had, and the whole kingdom kept it at once.

You might think one step a day is no way to move an ocean. The kingdom thought so too, and did it anyway.

Far away, the sea began to come. Travellers told of it coming slowly over the passes, like a very patient visitor. Shepherds up there set their clocks by it: one step a day, at noon, and every one of the sea’s steps was exactly as long as a cow.

When Rosie heard the travellers’ tales, she said, “Oh, I should so like to see that.” And everybody in the courtyard suddenly became very busy with the string on their coats.

* * *

Rosie grew up, and still she never took her own day. At last the King said he would like a rest and a great deal of lemonade, and one bright morning Rosie was crowned queen.

Everybody cheered. Then, because it was nearly noon and because she was Rosie, she picked up her boot and went out to the well. “Whose day is it today?” she called.

The slip said The King. Rosie had never been able to write her father’s name any other way.

The King felt in his pocket. Out came a gold button, the last one off his best waistcoat, which he had been keeping for years. He dropped it in. Plink. Then he leaned over the well and whispered the same wish as everybody else.

From the back of the castle came a sound nobody in the kingdom had ever heard. It was a long, soft hush, then a splash, then the hush again.

The cook came running out with flour to the elbows. “Your Majesty,” said the cook, “there’s someone at the back step.”

Rosie went through the kitchen and opened the back door.

The sea was there.

It came right up to the back step: blue, then white, then blue again, all the way out to the edge of the sky and, she was sure, a good way past it. On the step sat a small grey seal, wet and pleased, as if it had been sent on ahead to knock. It knocked again, twice, with a flipper, to be sure.

Rosie turned around. The whole kingdom was crowded into the kitchen behind her, in their string coats, grinning.

“All of you?” said Rosie.

“Every one,” said the baker. “One step each.”

The cook watched the first wave curl over at the top and said, “I had the curl right.”

Then Queen Rosie hitched her coronation robe up to her knees and stepped off the back step into the sea. It was cold, and she said so, and she did not come out. The kingdom came in after her: the baker, the farmer and the goat. The boy with the kite came too. He was a grown man now, and he had the very same kite. Mr. Tuck came last but one, with his trousers tied up with string. Their string coats floated out around them.

The King came last, with his crown on crooked. He stood up to his ankles beside his daughter and looked at the sea for a long time.

“It’s better than the lemonade,” he said, which was the highest praise he had. Then he said, “A wish you give away comes home, Rosie. And it brings the ocean with it.”

From that day on, the small bright kingdom in the exact middle of the map had the sea at its back step, and a seal on the step most mornings. Queen Rosie paddled in it every day of her life. And every noon she still went out with her boot and called, “Whose day is it today?” And somebody’s button went plink, and the wish was theirs.

The end.