A story about confusion
Puzzly and the Question Nobody Asked
Everybody is nodding along and Puzzly has not understood a single word. A story about being confused, and the courage it takes to say so.
2 minutes to read aloud Β· π΅βπ« Wobbly
Zenny was explaining how the Candyfloss Wheel works.
There were words like rotation and spindle and counterweight. Everybody was nodding. Puzzly looked round the circle: nod, nod, nod, nod.
Puzzly had not understood one single word since the.
So Puzzly nodded too.
This is the thing about confusion. It is not the not-understanding that hurts. It is the sitting in a room full of nodding and thinking everyone else has got this and there is something wrong with me.
Puzzly's ears went hot. Puzzly practised saying "sorry, could you say that again?" inside Puzzly's head, and it sounded, inside Puzzly's head, like the stupidest sentence ever constructed.
Zenny carried on. It got worse. Now there was a word called fulcrum.
And Puzzly's paw went up, entirely on its own, before Puzzly could stop it.
"Wait. What?"
The room went quiet. Puzzly wanted to sink through the floor.
"Sorry," said Puzzly, in a rush. "Can you explain it again? I got lost at the spindle bit. Actually I got lost a bit before the spindle bit."
Zenny said, "Of course," and started again, slower, with a drawing.
And then the thing happened.
Wondy said, "Oh good, me too."
Humdy said, "I've been lost since the beginning."
Hushy said, quietly, "Me as well."
Four of them. Four fluffs, all nodding, all lost, all sitting in the same silent room being embarrassed on their own about exactly the same thing.
Zenny explained it again with a drawing, and this time everybody got it, including two fluffs who had thought they got it the first time and now realised they had not.
Walking home, Wondy said, "You're brave, you are."
Puzzly was baffled. "I said what. That's not brave."
But it is, rather.
Somebody always has to go first, and it is almost never the person who knows the most. It is usually Puzzly, ears hot, paw up, asking the question everybody else was afraid to ask.
