A Day in Candyfloss Land

05:20🧱Winky's step

Winky bounces out of the gate and clips the lantern box with one foot. It goes over with a clatter like a drawer of spoons; lanterns roll into the long grass, down the bank and under the bridge. Winky does not notice and is three gardens away. Zenny, sitting still in the dark, hears it and remembers the direction.

2 tell it:WinkyZenny

05:35🏠the bottom of Zenny's garden

Zenny tells Mossy something went over at Winky's, "that way, before the birds started." Mossy goes to look.

2 tell it:MossyZenny

06:10🏠the wall outside Shivvy's

Shivvy, awake all night as usual, names the four places on the path where the dark is worst: the hedge tunnel, the turn by the bridge, the long stretch past the orchard, and the three steps by the gate. Peeky counts them on both paws — four places nobody has thought of.

2 tell it:PeekyShivvy

06:20🏠Snoozy's bedroom

Squirmy wakes Snoozy far too early with the news. Snoozy is cranky, does three slow yawns before answering, and takes the job of getting Winky's house ready for the end of the night instead of going out on the path.

2 tell it:SnoozySquirmy

06:30🛤️the lane

Zippy runs the whole path before breakfast and comes back with two facts nobody had: it is far longer than anyone remembers, and there are iron hooks the entire way, far more than expected. Fizzy, already fighting a lantern hinge in the road, makes Zippy say it again slowly and goes to find somebody with a pencil.

2 tell it:FizzyZippy

07:00🧺the yard

Winky has told eleven fluffs, woken four more, and drawn a map of the path on the back of somebody's shopping list. At seven o'clock there is not one lantern hung anywhere, there is a box in a ditch, and nobody has any oil.

3 tell it:GladlyWinkyZenny

07:15🏠the garden

Tipsy asks Winky how many of them said yes, and then how many of them Winky actually asked. Winky shakes it out, freezes, and realises nobody was asked — they were told. Winky goes round again, slower.

2 tell it:TipsyWinky

07:30🧺the yard

Sunny is handed the long matches and the job of lighting the first lantern, because Sunny is the cheerful one, decided before breakfast and without being asked. Sunny woke up grey and says so to Mopsy on the wall, and asks for somebody to light it with.

2 tell it:MopsySunny

08:00🛤️the lane

Hushy listens to Chatty first, then says the hard half out loud: somebody needs swapping off the bank job and will not ask. Chatty takes it away at speed.

2 tell it:ChattyHushy

09:30🧺the yard

Lonny finally says no to being helped and asks for the orchard hooks instead — for Pinky, not with Pinky. Pinky nearly refuses out of habit; Handy, going past with rope, says "Pinky. Let them." Pinky accepts, and then sits down on an upturned bucket and does nothing for a count of ten.

3 tell it:HandyLonnyPinky

09:45🧺the yard

Huffy says three times that the carrying rope is frayed and is told not to spoil the day. Huffy does dragon breath, then holds the worn part out in silence until everybody looks. Nobody apologises. Huffy cuts the rope into short lengths, three lanterns to a length, so that if one goes only three go.

3 tell it:FizzyHuffyWinky

10:00🚪the gatepost

Tidy draws the day as nine pictures in order and pins the board to the gatepost, with the hanging done from the far end back towards Winky's house. Muddle arrives overwhelmed and is told to name the smallest job: wicks. Wobbly asks what if the wicks run out, and Tidy says then we are on the second picture instead of the third.

3 tell it:MuddleTidyWobbly

10:15🧺the yard

Buddy sorts the pairs, and gives Peeky and Lonny the orchard stretch before the counting gets as far as who is left over. Neither of them ever knows they were rescued.

3 tell it:BuddyLonnyPeeky

10:30⛰️the top of the bank

Bravo takes the bank job off the frightened fluff, stands at the top and says out loud "I'm scared of this bit" before going down sideways on the solid part. Four lanterns come up out of the nettles hand to hand. Shivvy, following, gets three steps down without noticing.

3 tell it:BravoPinkyShivvy

10:45⛰️the bottom of the bank

Muddle, holding on to the single word "wicks", takes the wrong turning, ends up lost in the nettles and finds the lost box on its side with twenty-two lanterns spilled into the ditch. Getting them up takes three trips and both knees. Puzzly meets Muddle at the top with a bucket.

2 tell it:MuddlePuzzly

11:00⛰️the hole in the bank

Wondy sees a hole in the bank, wants to climb in, and stops to look and listen instead — something inside is dripping. Puzzly asks dripping what. It is the oil can, gone over the edge that morning and wedged under a root, with about a third left. They get it out with a stick and Newby's scarf.

3 tell it:NewbyPuzzlyWondy

11:00🏚️the barn

Doodle draws the whole path on the big roll of paper — gate, three steps, lane, bridge, orchard, the long bend, Winky's house — with every hook as a dot, and pins it to the barn door. Humdy is given the job of colouring in a dot for every hook filled.

2 tell it:DoodleMuddle

11:00🛤️the lane and the yard

Handy has done eight jobs before sunrise and eleven hooks by mid-morning, and the arms start shaking. Lovey tells the yard that Handy is having a sit down. Handy sits for eleven minutes and lets the ninth job go to somebody else.

2 tell it:HandyLovey

11:30🚪the gatepost

Squirmy cannot sit through Tidy's briefing, does ten big jumps at the end of the lane twice, and is steered by Zenny towards the far-end carrying job. Squirmy runs the far end twice before lunch, singing.

2 tell it:SquirmyZenny

12:30🛤️the lane

The row. Jelly, stuck up the orchard where nobody can see, says it is not fair; Huffy answers; it goes up like dry grass. Dinky falls over a bucket on purpose and it stops — then Dinky makes Jelly say the real thing to Huffy, out loud: "I feel left out." Huffy says that is not the same as the rope at all. They do the orchard together after lunch. Tipsy watches the whole thing from the wall.

4 tell it:DinkyHuffyJellyTipsy

13:00🍎under the orchard tree

Sharey brings half a sandwich up the lane and gets Jelly to count three good things the orchard has that the bridge has not: shade, apples, and forty filled hooks in a line.

2 tell it:JellySharey

13:00🧺the yard

Sharey divides the third of a can of oil between fifty-five lanterns — not equally, but deep in the dark places and thin where the moon does half the work. It takes an hour, with Mello passing dishes. A spoonful is left over and goes to Jelly, for the orchard, which does not need it.

2 tell it:MelloSharey

13:00🏚️the shade by the barn

Mendy patches the nine lanterns that came up out of the ditch split at the seams, through the hottest hour, with Oopsy handing things over and gradually becoming less terrible. Nine bright crooked patches, one off a tea towel. Mopsy comes and sits for a while and says nothing.

3 tell it:MendyMopsyOopsy

13:30🏚️the barn

Humdy, bored on the barn floor, turns the dot-colouring into a race and notices that the gate end is going green fast and the middle is not going green at all. Cloudy works out why: everybody started at the ends. Tidy moves four fluffs into the middle.

3 tell it:CloudyDoodleHumdy

13:50🏚️the barn

Puzzly asks, at last, what time the sun actually goes down. Nobody answers. Muddle guesses seven, Wondy guesses half six, somebody at the back says eight with great confidence. Mossy says twenty past six — it has been getting earlier all month. It is ten to two. The whole land moves twice as fast for the rest of the afternoon.

3 tell it:MossyPuzzlyWinky

14:30🏚️the crate in the sun3h 50m to sundown

Yetty unpicks the season's knot in the spare rope, starting at one end and working for over an hour, and gets the last loop out at half past two: forty feet of good rope in one piece. Fizzy had said twice to cut it. Nobody makes a fuss, because by then everybody has forgotten it was a knot.

2 tell it:FizzyYetty

14:30⛰️the bank3h 50m to sundown

Boingy goes for the last lantern in the nettles, arrives at the bottom of the bank in a sitting position, and lies there a good while feeling flat while the day carries on above. Pouty sits at the top keeping company from a safe height. Then Boingy says "I can try again", bounces three times, and comes back up the solid way.

3 tell it:BoingyPoutyYetty

15:00🏚️the barn door3h 20m to sundown

Glowy stands up from the game, looks at something far away — Doodle's map — and sees that the tally is wrong: Humdy has been colouring filled hooks, but four fluffs filled hooks at the far end before the map existed. The path is eight ahead of the map. Nobody had known.

2 tell it:GlowyMossy

15:00🛤️the lane3h 20m to sundown

One lantern in the box is wrong — six-sided, punched tin, older, with star-shaped holes. Told it will look odd in the row, Spotty and Blushy hang it on its own at the turn by the bridge, where the light is genuinely needed. It is the one thing on the path everybody recognises in the dark.

3 tell it:BlushyLoveySpotty

15:00🧺the ladder queue3h 20m to sundown

For an hour and forty minutes Mello stands in the worst place in Candyfloss Land — the queue for the one ladder — holding things for whoever is next and saying "slow and steady" to Fizzy twice. Nothing goes wrong. There is no row all day.

3 tell it:FizzyMelloZippy

16:00🧺the yard2h 20m to sundown

The whole land goes wrong at once: snapping over the ladder, something unfair said about the orchard, a lantern dropped. Tipsy, whose voice does not carry, gets down off the wall, walks into the middle and stands there being still until everybody stops, then says "breathe in the fluff, breathe out the huff." Fifty-five fluffs take three balloon-belly breaths together. The last stretch is done properly after this.

5 tell it:GladlyMelloTipsyWinkyZenny

16:20🏚️the barn doorway2h 00m to sundown

Cloudy, drifting, arrives at the answer to the hedge tunnel, where there are no posts at all for thirty feet: you do not hang them, you stand them on the ground down each side, in the roots where the hedge is thick. It becomes the prettiest stretch of the path.

2 tell it:CloudyWobbly

16:30🧺the wall by the yard1h 50m to sundown

Neaty counts the lanterns and gets fifty-four, twice. Tidy says the map says fifty-five and that Neaty must have miscounted, and goes back to the board. Oopsy counts and also gets fifty-four.

2 tell it:NeatyTidy

16:40🧺the yard1h 40m to sundown

Peeky says "there's one missing" and it goes into the noise and out the other side as nothing. Peeky walks into the middle of the yard and says it again, louder, one word more: "There's one missing. I counted too. Fifty-four." Buddy stops. The yard stops.

6 tell it:MendyNeatyOopsyPeekyTidyWinky

16:50🧺the wall and Winky's front room1h 30m to sundown

Oopsy is certain the missing lantern is his fault and starts apologising. Mendy stops him and makes him find out first. Eleven minutes later: nine came up from the ditch and nine are on the wall. The fifty-fifth is the one Snoozy took indoors at six that morning, sitting cleaned on Winky's table. There never was a missing one.

3 tell it:MendyNeatyOopsy

16:50🧱the step1h 30m to sundown

Truly finally says the bridge hooks were done wrong and will open at about eight. Chatty goes up the lane at speed. They are redone before five, with Oopsy helping and never once mentioning whose fault it was.

3 tell it:ChattyOopsyTruly

17:00🧺the yard1h 20m to sundown

Beamy stops in the middle of the yard and asks loudly whether anybody has actually thanked Blushy, who has been on the ladder six hours. Blushy goes scarlet, wants to go home, and stays holding the ladder for the whole of the next eleven seconds and four more fluffs after that.

2 tell it:BeamyBlushy

17:00🌄the tall posts on the long bend1h 20m to sundown

Newby, who has never been above the third rung, does the four tall posts one rung at a time with a report from each, taking eleven minutes, with Shivvy holding the bottom. Comes down shaking and says "I still don't do ladders."

2 tell it:NewbyShivvy

17:30🛤️the whole path0h 50m to sundown

Tidy sends Wobbly to check every lantern, far end back, because Wobbly is the only one who would do it properly. Wobbly finds four things: one leaning on a dry twig, one near enough to scorch the hedge, two on soft ground that would tip. All four fixed before dark, with Shivvy along for the dark bits.

3 tell it:ShivvyTidyWobbly

18:00🛤️the lane0h 20m to sundown

Snuggs hands out the last eleven blankets along the path, comes back with nothing left to give and feels hollow. Lovey points out that Snuggs has hugged about thirty fluffs today and nobody has hugged Snuggs. It takes Snuggs three goes to ask. Lovey gives two; Mopsy comes over and makes it three.

2 tell it:LoveySnuggs

18:00🧺the wall0h 20m to sundown

At dusk everybody totals themselves up and decides they did nothing. Lovey says out loud, at ordinary volume, one true good thing about Lovey — and will not explain why anybody could not. By the time the path is lit there are four fluffs on that wall taking turns.

2 tell it:LoveyNeaty

18:00🌉the bridge wall0h 20m to sundown

Homey, tight-chested since four, sits on the wall by the bridge deciding to go home. Mopsy sits down and says nothing for a long while. Because they are the only two fluffs being silent, Mopsy hears the bridge lantern's glass ticking as the crack opens in the heat — it would have gone over the water within ten minutes. They swap it for Mendy's spare, the one with the flower off a tea towel.

2 tell it:HomeyMopsy

18:15🚪the gate0h 05m to sundown

The matches run out with the gate lantern unlit. Pouty has a proper minute of being fed up about it, then points out you do not need a match when there are forty-nine flames already lit up the lane. Hopsy carries a lit twig two hundred feet, slowly, cupped in both paws — it nearly goes out twice near the hedge — and the gate lantern catches from it.

3 tell it:HopsyPoutySunny

18:15🚪the gatepost0h 05m to sundown

The path lights from the far end back, stretch by stretch, coming down the lane towards the gate. Sparkly stands on the gatepost with Beamy's envelope and names whose bit each stretch is as it comes on — the orchard is Jelly's, the bridge is Truly's, the tunnel is Cloudy's, the rope is Yetty's. The lane cheers each one. Jelly cheers loudest of anybody at the orchard.

5 tell it:HopsyJellyMelloMemoSparkly

18:35🚪Winky's gate

Everybody is at the gate under the last lantern. Rainbow opens his mouth to ask who needs what — automatic, nine seasons of it — and Tipsy tells him to put the cloud down, Winky has a table for it. Then his arms start shaking and he cannot speak. Mopsy sits down on the wall next to him. Asked which colour it is today, Rainbow says grey, worn out, carried alone since the spring and never said. He sits on the wall a full five minutes before going in, and nobody hurries him.

4 tell it:MopsyRainbowTipsyWinky

19:00🏠Winky's front room

Fifty-five fluffs will not fit in Winky's front room. They get in anyway. Snoozy's work from the morning comes good: blankets down, cushions along the window seat, lamps turned low. By nine o'clock there is not a fluff in the room who has not sat in it.

26 tell it:BoingyBuddyChattyCloudyDoodleDreamyGlowyHandyHomeyHumdyHushyLonnyMemoMossyMuddleNopsyPinkyPuzzlyRainbowShareySnoozySnuggsSpottyTrulyYettyZippy

19:10🏠Winky's door

Blushy says the first line of the welcome at the door, in front of everybody and a chief, and gets it right.

2 tell it:BlushyRainbow

21:00🏠Winky's front room

Jitters sings the welcome song, note-perfect, twice, and is asked for it again.

5 tell it:JittersSquirmyTipsyWondyZippy

21:20🏠on Winky's bucket

Beamy climbs on the bucket with the envelope and reads all of it — eleven minutes, fifty-four names and then Beamy at the bottom in small letters. It is the first time anybody in the room learns that the day was one single piece of work passed from paw to paw.

41 tell it:BeamyBoingyBravoBuddyChattyCloudyDinkyDoodleFizzyGladlyGlowyHandyHuffyHumdyHushyJellyJittersLonnyMelloMossyMuddleNeatyNewbyNopsyOopsyPeekyPinkyPuzzlyRainbowShareySnoozySpottySquirmyTidyTrulyWinkyWobblyWondyYettyZennyZippy

21:35🏠Winky's front room

Rainbow stands up with a blanket round both shoulders and a cup going cold, and counts it off: the worried one checked twice, the cross one said the thing nobody wanted to hear, the muddled one got lost in exactly the right direction, the sad ones were the only two quiet enough to hear a crack in the glass, the shy one said it twice, the one who cannot sit still ran the far end before lunch, the one who cannot hurry held the queue together. "Not one of those is a comfortable feeling to have. Every one of them did a job today that nothing else could have done."

8 tell it:DinkyFizzyHuffyMelloPinkyRainbowShivvyWobbly

23:00🏠Winky's front room

Sparkly, who has cheered for everybody else all day, finally says one out loud for Sparkly. Peeky starts that cheer.

2 tell it:PeekySparkly

23:15🎡the Great Candyfloss Wheel

All fifty-five walk back out into the dark, up the lit lane, to the Wheel. Rainbow sets the new cloud on it. The Wheel turns for the first time since the spring.

5 tell it:GlowyMossyRainbowZennyZippy