Wells Finds His Tune

Wells had been making the same plink for a hundred wishes—until one night he heard a squeak.

I stood in a little clearing in the fairy-tale forest, tucked beneath a willow whose long branches brushed my stone sides. All day, rabbits, foxes, and children came to whisper wishes into my cool, round opening. I sent each wish a cheerful echo.

“Plink!” I would call.

“Plink!” the forest would answer.

I liked that sound. It was clear as a spoon tapping a glass, and it made my stones feel proud.

Then, one evening, a girl named Maya came to visit with her dad. He stayed close beside her. Maya carried a little wooden bucket and wore a red scarf with tiny yellow stars. Standing safely beside her dad, she whispered, “I wish I could hear the frogs sing tonight.”

I took aim at my usual note.

“Pli—”

“Squeak!” came a tiny sound from deep inside me.

My echo wobbled. The frogs, who had been warming up by the ferns, stopped mid-croak.

Maya looked toward my opening. “Was that you, Wells?”

“I’m trying to sound like myself,” I said. My voice rumbled around the stones. “Plink! PLINK!”

The loud clunks bounced down my well and back up again. But instead of a fine, clear note, all I heard was another small squeak.

Maya frowned. “Maybe something is stuck down there.”

I felt embarrassed. Wells the Wishing Well was supposed to make wishes sound lovely, not rumble like a cart rolling over rocks. I clunked once more, hoping to drown out the squeak.

“Squeak!”

The frogs covered their ears with their little green paws. Maya’s scarf fluttered as the willow leaves swayed overhead.

“Please stop,” Maya said kindly. “You’re making it hard to hear.”

I stopped. The clearing grew quiet. Somewhere far below, water gave a sleepy plip.

Maya set down her bucket. She tapped its wooden rim with one finger.

“Tap… tap.”

From deep in my stones came a tiny answer.

“Squeak… squeak.”

Maya looked up at me. “It heard me!”

I listened closely. The squeak had not answered my clunks at all. It had answered Maya’s quiet taps. Perhaps, I thought, I had been trying too hard to be loud.

Maya tapped the bucket again, just as softly as before.

“Tap… tap.”

“Squeak… squeak,” answered the little sound inside me.

I felt a shiver travel through my old stones. Not a cold shiver—a hopeful one. What if my echo did not have to be the same plink it had always been? What if I could make room for the squeak?

I tried a quieter note.

“Ding,” I whispered.

The sound slipped down the well and floated back, small and clear.

“Squeak,” came the answer.

Maya smiled. “Try another one, Wells.”

I listened to the water in my depths. It made a gentle, round plip. I added a second note, higher than the first.

“Ding… dong.”

The two notes traveled down among my stones. They came back to me like a tiny song.

“Squeak… chirp!”

The sound was not a squeak anymore. It was a bright little chirp.

“Someone’s in there,” Maya said. “A little bird, maybe?”

I sent my new tune down again, softer this time. The chirp answered right away. I could almost feel the little creature shifting far below me.

Maya looked at her dad. “I can’t reach it with my hand. But I have my bucket and a rope.”

“Good idea,” Dad said. “I’ll lower it. You stay back with me.”

He tied the rope to the bucket’s handle and held the rope securely from the path. Maya stood beside him, well back from my rim, and helped guide the bucket as he lowered it slowly. It brushed the inside of my stones with a quiet scrape.

“Down you go,” Maya whispered. “Easy does it.”

I held my new tune ready, but I did not call out. I listened instead. The bucket reached the water with a tiny splash.

A moment passed.

Then the bird chirped. It was perched on a broad stone ledge just above the water. Dad lowered the bucket until its open side rested against the ledge. Then he gently tipped the bucket toward the bird. The little wind-up bird slid off the ledge and into the bucket.

“Got it!” Maya said.

Dad carefully lifted the rope, hand over hand. I felt the rope tug against my rim, and I kept perfectly still. Up came the bucket, carrying a small wind-up bird with blue wings and a little brass key on its back.

The bird shook off a drop of water.

“Chirp!” it said.

Maya laughed with relief. “There you are! You must have slipped in.”

I offered my two-note tune.

“Ding… dong.”

The bird chirped back, bright and proud. My old echo had returned—but it had brought a new friend with it.

Maya wrapped the little bird in the corner of her red scarf, leaving its beak uncovered. It shook its blue wings, then perched on the edge of her wooden bucket.

“Thank you, Wells,” Maya said. “Your song helped me find it.”

I felt warm all the way down to my deepest stones. “And your tapping helped me listen,” I told her.

The frogs tried their voices again. One went, “Ribbit.” Another answered, “Ribbit-ribbit.” Soon their pond-side chorus filled the clearing, low and pleasant, like a blanket being shaken out.

I joined in with my two notes.

“Ding… dong.”

The little bird answered, “Chirp!”

Maya wound the brass key on its back with careful fingers. The bird’s head bobbed, and it gave one more happy chirp. Then she tucked it safely into her scarf and lifted her bucket.

“I’ll take you home, little friend,” she said. “You can sit on my windowsill.”

The bird chirped once toward me before Maya and her dad walked along the moonlit path. I called after them, not with a clunk, but with my soft two-note tune. The bird’s reply traveled back through the trees.

After they were gone, the clearing settled into its nighttime sounds. The willow leaves whispered above me. A moth rested on my rim. The frogs sang a slower song, and the water below me made one quiet plip.

I listened to every sound. None of them needed to be louder than the others. My notes could be clear without being big. My echo could change and still be mine.

The moon rose over the treetops and laid a pale path across the clearing. I sent one last “ding… dong” into the night.

From somewhere beyond the willow, the little bird answered, “Chirp!”

I smiled in my stony way and let the quiet hold the rest of the song.