A story about hope
Hopsy and the Seed in the Frost
Hopsy plants a seed and nothing happens for a very long time. A story about hope on the days when there is no sign of it working.
3 minutes to read aloud Β· π Happy
Hopsy planted the seed in October.
"What is it going to be?" asked Pouty.
"Something good," said Hopsy.
Nothing happened in October. Nothing happened in November either. In December the ground went hard and white and Pouty said, kindly, that perhaps it had not worked.
And this is where it gets difficult, because Hopsy is the hopeful one, and on grey days even Hopsy loses hope.
In January, Hopsy stopped going to look. That was the worst bit. Hopsy did not announce it or decide it; Hopsy simply stopped walking down that end of the garden, because looking at a patch of frozen mud where nothing is happening is a hard thing to do every day for three months.
Sunny found Hopsy sitting inside with the curtains half shut.
"Not gone to see the seed?"
"There's nothing to see."
"No," Sunny agreed. "There isn't."
They sat.
"Tell me one thing you're looking forward to," said Sunny. "It doesn't have to be the seed. It can be tiny."
Hopsy thought for a long time, and at last said, "Toast."
"Toast is a good one."
"And it's a bit lighter in the evenings than it was. Only a few minutes. But it is."
That was all Hopsy could manage. It was enough to get Hopsy off the sofa, which is the only thing hope has to do on a bad day.
Hopsy went and looked at the mud. Still mud. Hopsy went the next day, and the next.
On the fourteenth of February there was a green thing. It was about the size of a fingernail and slightly bent and absolutely, definitely, a green thing.
Hopsy shouted so loudly that Mopsy came running in a panic.
Here is what Hopsy knows now, and tells everybody: the seed was doing something the whole time. All through October and the hard white December, under the mud, where nobody could see it.
That is why Hopsy keeps a tiny light on for everybody.
Not because Hopsy knows it will be alright. Because the work is going on where you cannot see it, and tomorrow is a new day.
