“The boy,” said the little girl. Her eyes still shone with tears that were more precious to me than all the stones men hold dear. Perhaps her knee flared with the scraping she had taken, for she grimaced. I rubbed some more FairyDust on the wound, and she smiled openly. “Tell me about the little boy.”

“And what of sleep, my jaan?” I kissed her tiny hand. A stray tear twinkled in the dimple between her thumb and index finger like a caught star. I touched it with the Dust, and it curled into a firefly, stretched its wings, and fluttered away.

“Sleep always comes tip-toeing in the night, Maula Mian.” She looked at me and wiped her nose with my shirt. Honk! “If I wait for it, it will never come.”

I laughed at her innocent, wise words. She grinned back. I hugged her to my chest. She pressed back, her arms going round my neck like a garland.

A gust of wind came and the FairyDust slipped away, riding its wave. Some of it swirled in the air and kissed our clothes.

Sleep came tip-toeing in the night and sang to us.

1

A little boy sat in his garden, twiddling his big toe. It was nighttime. The stars sat above him like golden sentinels, watching him read in the light from a bonfire blazing in a shallow pit. He was reading a book called “The Wishing Lantern” which was about this curious creature known as a Ferzohg who had to free this beautiful Shimmer Faerie from a lantern. As the boy read, a firefly came from nowhere and began to buzz around his face.??

“Hey, gerrooff,” said the little boy, irritated. His name was Bechain. In his language it meant “restless”, and like his name, he was restless and impatient at times. He had just reached the most interesting part of the story and was in no mood to be disturbed.

The firefly hovered in the air, shimmered a bit more brightly, and then darted again towards his face, shedding warm embers all over him.

“Get away, I said. Can’t you see I’m reading?” Bechain flailed his arms uselessly in the air, and the book slipped from his fingers and landed on the moist grass.

“Now, see what you’ve done,” said he crossly and bent down to retrieve the book.

Quick as lightning, the firefly shot forward and dove inside his t-shirt.

“Hey, HEY,” shouted Bechain, surprised. Forgetting the book, he grabbed his t-shirt and started slapping it. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

A tiny red light glowed inside the sky blue t-shirt for a moment and then flickered off.

“If I have to make you get out…owww…did you bite me?” The boy grimaced in pain, and with a quick flick and swish, he took his shirt off.

He stared at his own body in astonishment. The firefly had disappeared.

No, wait! There was something down there. A reddish speck disappearing inside his belly-button.

“What on earth…” he began, fascinated. A tingling sensation curved around his navel and dropped inside the tiny fleshy pit. He leaned forward a bit. “How did you get inside there? Hello, can you hear me?”

But that was silly, he thought. One can’t shout inside one’s own belly-button, can one?

“Hoo boy, mother’s gonna be so angry,” said he, flicking at his navel. Nothing moved inside it. He couldn’t even feel anything. “She’s always telling me I’m allergic to insects.”

He pressed his flesh a little harder. “Where does this hole go anyway?”

An owl hooted somewhere far off, and another nightbird fluttered across the garden, screeching.

He stared at his navel. “I’ve never really bothered to find out where this hole leads to, have I? Is it a doorway to Paristan, the land of fairies, or does it have snakes inside guarding some secret, old treasure? Who could tell me?

“I mean,” he said, still looking at the belly-button, “what would happen if I just get up and start walking? Walk right out of the garden, have strange adventures, find out what lives inside my tummy. How silly and strange would that be!”

But fun too. After all, mother also said that one should always seek the answers to one’s questions. That’s how one learns and becomes knowledgeable.

And as he thought more and more about this, his eyes began to shine. His mouth fell open.

“Belly-button, belly-button,” he sang. “What treasures are you guarding? Oh, I’m gonna go somewhere far off and meet somebody really really wise and find out your secrets. All of them.”

That was decided then. He would set off on his adventure. A whole world waited right in front of him. He needn’t tell anyone. He was a grown boy. He could jolly well take good care of himself.

Like I’ve already told you, Bechain was his name and he was a restless and impatient boy at times. This was one of those times.

So Bechain set off on his journey. Not to rescue a princess, not to kill a dragon or two, not to drink magic elixirs and gain immortal life.

Just to find out what lived inside his belly-button.

A bit silly, I know, but true. True as the sun is made of honey and chocolate.

2

Bechain walked with his head down. The night whispered around him like a mischievous invisible pixie as he crossed the hedges around his garden, stumbling a bit when a bush sneaked a bramble into his path. He pulled the harness of his backpack up his shoulder and leapt over the last of the bushes.

“See, nothing to it. I can take care of myself,” said he, and fell splat on the ground. A sleepy-eyed black cat, which he had fallen over, hissed at him angrily.

“Sorry, but I didn’t fancy tumbling over you either,” he replied in annoyance and got back up. “Haven’t even begun the journey, and I’m already half covered in mud.”

He got back up and began walking. The cat watched him leave, its tail swishing, then curled back to sleep. Silly idiot! What kind of people let their children roam at night alone? A troll eats him, serve them right!

Meanwhile, Bechain had managed to find a trail through the woods behind his neighbourhood. It was wide, perhaps made by woodcutters or hunters. Dark trees crowded on both sides of him, sighing their dreams aloud. Above him, through a net of branches, dozed a crescent moon like an inviting lap.

“If only,” he muttered, gazing above at it. “Cuddling to the moon itself. Wow, that would be something.”

He trudged along, and the moon floated above him like a big smile now.

The path twisted and turned in front of him, sometimes following the trees, sometimes cutting between them. It had started off as a muddy trail, but soon it flattened out, becoming smoother and cleaner. He realised that meant someone had worked on it, but who would waste time on a trail that probably ran nowhere? Also, the trees had begun to change. For one, they had begun to grow closer together, almost turning the woods into a forest. Also from tiny oaks and willows, they had now become tall and wide redwoods and sequoias. He recognised these from his geography textbook. The book claimed these trees rose three hundred feet high, sometimes even higher.

As high as the giants his storybooks had told him about.

And it was while he was wrestling with these thoughts that his gaze drifted sideways, and he saw the door of the house that was hidden in the trees.