Mira and the Missing Bedtime Bell

At seven o’clock exactly, the Bellweather family did not ring the bedtime bell. Instead, the house fell apart.

Mira heard it first: a crash from the kitchen, then a splash, then Bo yelling, “I didn’t do it!” which meant he probably did.

She found her little brother standing in a puddle of milk, holding an empty cup and wearing his pajama top on his legs. “Where’s the bell?” she asked.

Bo looked at the ceiling. “What bell?”

“The bedtime bell. The one Mom rings every night. The one that makes the whole house go quiet.”

“Oh, that bell.” Bo bit his lip. “I might have lost it.”

Mira’s stomach dropped. Without the bell, bedtime never started. Dad kept reading the same page of his book. Mom wandered room to room, folding the same towel. The cat sat on the piano and howled.

“You lost the bell?” Mira whispered. “The actual bell?”

“I was being a pirate,” said Bo. “I needed treasure. I put it somewhere safe.”

“Safe where?”

Bo shrugged. “Somewhere.”

Mira took a deep breath. The house was getting louder. Dad had started singing. Mom was now folding a lampshade.

“Okay,” Mira said. “We find it. Before Mom folds the sofa.”

***

They searched the living room first, because that was where Bo had been a pirate. Mira checked under the couch cushions and found three crumbs, a button, and a very old raisin.

“Not it,” she said.

Bo crawled behind the armchair and pulled out a sock. “Not it.”

“What does the bell look like again?” Bo asked.

Mira stared at him. “It’s gold. It’s round. It has a handle. It goes ding.”

“Right,” said Bo. “I knew that.”

Mira checked the bookshelf. She checked the plant pot. She checked inside Dad’s slipper, which was warm and horrible. No bell.

Then she saw something. A trail of small, brown, muddy paw prints crossed the rug. They went behind the couch, past the TV, and stopped at the dog bed.

“Bo,” Mira said slowly. “Were you a pirate with Pickles?”

Bo’s face went pale. “Maybe.”

“Did Pickles help you bury the treasure?”

Bo nodded. “He’s a very good digger.”

Mira looked at the dog bed. Pickles was lying in it, chewing something that went clink.

“Pickles,” Mira said. “Drop it.”

Pickles wagged his tail and chewed faster.

“Give it back,” Mira said, kneeling on the rug. Pickles rolled onto his back, all four legs in the air, and kept chewing. The clink turned into a slobbery jingle.

“He’s not going to give it back,” Bo said. “He never gives anything back. Remember the sock?”

“That was a sock. This is the bedtime bell. Without it, nobody sleeps. Dad’s already read the same page three times.”

From the kitchen came Dad’s voice. “Has anyone seen my other slipper?”

“No!” Mira and Bo shouted together.

Pickles stood up. He trotted to the back door and scratched it once. Then he looked over his shoulder, bell in his mouth, and wagged his tail very slowly. Mira knew that wag. It was the wag that said, follow me, I have done something clever and terrible.

“He buried it,” she said. “Didn’t he? He buried the bell.”

Bo opened the back door. Pickles shot out into the dark yard like a furry rocket. The grass was wet and cold under Mira’s bare feet. The moon was a thin white smile over the fence.

“Where?” Bo whispered.

Pickles stood in the middle of the flower bed, paws planted, tail high. Right between the tulips was a fresh mound of dirt. A little gold handle poked out of the top.

“There it is,” Mira said. “Okay. New plan. We dig.”

She took one step. Pickles growled, a low rumbly growl that meant absolutely not.

“Or we don’t dig,” said Bo.

***

Mira tried bribery first. She ran inside and came back with a piece of cheese, the good orange kind. Pickles loved cheese. Pickles once ate a whole block of cheese and burped for an hour.

“Here, boy,” she sang. “Cheese. Lovely cheese. Drop the bell for cheese.”

Pickles looked at the cheese. He looked at the bell. He lay down on top of the dirt mound and put his chin on his paws, bell tucked under his chest. He closed his eyes.

“He’s guarding it,” Bo said. “Like a dragon.”

“He’s a dog, Bo.”

“A dragon dog.”

Next Mira tried distraction. She threw a tennis ball across the yard. Pickles did not move. She threw a stick. Nothing. She ran to the fence and pretended to see a cat. Pickles opened one eye, unimpressed.

“He’s smarter than us,” Bo said.

“Don’t say that.”

“He is, though. He’s outsmarting us right now.”

Mira went inside again and came back with the squeaky toy. It was a rubber chicken with a cracked beak and one of its squeaks missing. Pickles loved the chicken. The chicken was his favourite thing in the whole world, after cheese and the bell.

She held it up. She squeezed it. Squeak.

Pickles lifted his head. His ears came up. His tail gave one small, hopeful thump.

“Yes,” Mira whispered. “You want the chicken. Come get the chicken.”

She squeezed again. Squeak. Pickles stood. The bell rolled off his chest and sat on the dirt, shining.

“Almost,” Bo breathed.

Mira backed away slowly, squeaking the chicken. Pickles took one step. Then another. His eyes were locked on the rubber beak. Mira’s hand reached for the bell.

Pickles spun around, grabbed the bell, and lay back down.

“No!” Mira groaned. She threw the chicken across the yard. Pickles did not chase it. He watched it land in the bushes and stayed exactly where he was.

Bo sat down on the grass. “He’s won,” he said. “The dog has won.”

Bo sat on the grass and something went SQUAWK.

It was the loudest squawk Mira had ever heard, and it came from right under Bo. He leaped up like the grass had bitten him. The rubber chicken lay in the grass, its one good squeaker going off again as it wobbled.

Pickles dropped the bell. He bolted three steps sideways, ears flat, eyes wide.

“The chicken!” Bo shouted. “It’s alive!”

The bell rolled free, winking in the porch light. Mira pounced on it and held it against her chest with both hands. It was cold and round and hers.

“Got it,” she said.

Pickles crept back, head low. He sniffed the chicken, then looked at Mira. His tail did one hopeful wag. He seemed to be deciding whether the bell was worth the risk of that terrible squawk.

“Good boy,” Mira told him, and she meant it. “You can keep the chicken.”

Bo stood up, rubbing his backside. “The chicken kept me,” he said. “Right on the tail bone.”

“You saved bedtime,” Mira said. “Sort of. By sitting.”

“I’m a hero,” Bo said, without much joy.

***

Inside, the house was still a mess. Dad was trying to read a book with a flashlight because the lamp bulb had blown. Mom was hunting for her slippers under the couch. Grandma was in the kitchen making cocoa she did not need, and the kettle was screaming.

Mira stood in the doorway and rang the bell.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

The sound went through the house like a hand smoothing a blanket. The kettle clicked off. Dad put down the flashlight. Grandma came out of the kitchen with three mugs and a look on her face like she had just remembered what she was doing.

“Bedtime,” Mira said.

Nobody argued. That was the whole point of the bell. It had been Great-Grandma’s, and it had rung bedtime for four generations. One ding and everyone remembered they were tired.

Bo was last up the stairs. He stopped on the landing and looked at Mira.

“You did it,” he said. “You got the bell back from a dog.”

“You did it,” Mira said. “You sat on a chicken in the dark.”

Bo grinned. “That was the bravest thing I ever did on accident.”

Mira rang the bell once more, softly, for the two of them. The house settled. She lay in bed and listened to Pickles snoring in the yard, and the rubber chicken squeaking one last time as he rolled over on it.