one
Charlotte woke with a weather report above her head.
It was not rain, not snow, and not the flat gray fog that made the windows look sleepy. It was a bright little cloud made of dots: red as jam, blue as bathwater, green as the quiet parts of the garden, yellow as toast.
Every dot was a thought she had not said out loud yet.
two
At breakfast, the cloud bobbed when Charlotte reached for her spoon. At the front door, it squeezed itself politely through after her. On the sidewalk, it brushed the low branches and shook loose three tiny red hearts.
The hearts landed on the path, stretched their wings, and became birds.
"Oh," said Charlotte, because this seemed like the right size of word for a morning that had just learned to flap.
three
The first bird carried Charlotte's wish to be brave to the top of the slide.
The second carried her wish to be kind to the boy who had lost his mitten.
The third carried a wish she had not known she was wishing: that everyone could see the good ideas floating over their own heads, even when the ideas were still small and shy.
four
By afternoon, the parade had grown. Butterflies joined it. Leaves joined it. A paper scrap from Charlotte's pocket joined it and sailed along like a tiny boat.
People stopped looking at their shoes. They looked up. One person remembered to call her sister. One person apologized. One person bought strawberries because red suddenly seemed important.
Charlotte walked home underneath the whole bright commotion, feeling less like the keeper of a cloud and more like its friend.
five
That night, the cloud tucked itself around her pillow.
"Will you be here tomorrow?" Charlotte whispered.
The smallest dot, which was the color of warm honey, lifted from the cloud and tapped her nose.
And Charlotte understood: the cloud would come whenever she gave her wishes room to gather, and the birds would fly whenever she was ready to share them.