Speaker 1: That morning, the garden was all white. The snow had
Speaker 1: settled on the tree branches like whipped cream, and every
Speaker 1: branch looked like a freshly decorated slice of cake. Ziggy
Speaker 1: ran outside with his coat on a little crooked followed
Speaker 1: by his four cats, Sophia the little black kitten who
Speaker 1: rubbed her nose on his ankles, Dora the brave tabby,
Speaker 1: and the two brothers pol Do, fat and chunky and
Speaker 1: Milo nimble and leaping. Look, said Ziggy, and with one
Speaker 1: finger he scooped a bit of snow off the branch.
Speaker 1: It looks just like cream. Lily came running, determined as
Speaker 1: always behind her sky Calm walked slowly watching the flakes
Speaker 1: come down. Dash overtook them all with a slide on
Speaker 1: the snow and ended up sitting on the ground laughing.
Speaker 1: The four children started building a snow man, but right
Speaker 1: at that moment they heard a sound they knew well,
Speaker 1: Cheo choo, choo choo. Among the white trees appeared Toby
Speaker 1: the Magic train, with smoke puffing out in round little clouds.
Speaker 1: He stopped in front of them and said in rhyme, Hello,
Speaker 1: dear children, with noses so cold to day A sweet
Speaker 1: new world. I hold a land that dangles upside down,
Speaker 1: where candy grows all over town. The children clapped their hands.
Speaker 1: They all climbed aboard, cats included, and Toby set off
Speaker 1: whistling through the snow. When the doors opened, Ziggy's eyes
Speaker 1: went wide. They had arrived in Meringa Longa, the land
Speaker 1: of sweets. But something was wrong. Why is everyone so sad,
Speaker 1: asked Lily. In Meringolonga, usually everything lived upside down. The
Speaker 1: houses hung from the sky like sugar chandeliers. The rivers
Speaker 1: of syrup flowed upward, and the townsfolk, the little marzipan
Speaker 1: men called sweetlings, walked happily on the ceiling, which for
Speaker 1: them was the floor. But that day the town had
Speaker 1: suddenly turned right side up. Now everything was straight like
Speaker 1: in normal towns, and the sweetlings didn't understand anything any more.
Speaker 1: One tried to pour his chocolate upward and spilled it
Speaker 1: on his feet. Another waved with his feet instead of
Speaker 1: his hands. Another still walked backwards and bumped his nose
Speaker 1: on a lamp post made of cotton. Candy. Ouch ouch,
Speaker 1: ouch went the sweetlings spinning around dizzy. Just then, in
Speaker 1: front of the children, something marvelous appeared a giant soap
Speaker 1: bubble as big as a little house, all shiny and colorful,
Speaker 1: floating in the air without ever popping. Why why, said
Speaker 1: the bubble in a curious little voice. Why is everything straight?
Speaker 1: Why is no one laughing? Why did you come here?
Speaker 1: Why do you have four cats? Why is that one
Speaker 1: so fat? Poldo? The fat cat gave an offended meow. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Ziggy, said the boy, laughing, who are you. I'm
Speaker 1: the Bubble and I want to know everything, everything, everything,
Speaker 1: she answered, bouncing happily. But now I have a big problem.
Speaker 1: The town turned right side up and the sweetlings don't
Speaker 1: know how to live any more. We have to flip
Speaker 1: it upside down again. And how do we do that?
Speaker 1: Asked Sky in her sweet voice. The bubble grew serious.
Speaker 1: At the bottom of the licorice tunnels, there's the upside
Speaker 1: down bell. If someone rings it, the town goes back
Speaker 1: to its place, but no one manages to get there.
Speaker 1: The tunnels are a dark maze, and every path seems wrong.
Speaker 1: Dash swallowed dark? How dark? Very dark? Said the bubble.
Speaker 1: Dark dark, I mean really dark. The children looked at
Speaker 1: each other. Then Ziggy, who could never sit still, took
Speaker 1: a step forward. Let's go and see. The entrance to
Speaker 1: the tunnels was a great arch of shiny licorice. Inside
Speaker 1: the tunnels opened in many directions, like the arms of
Speaker 1: an octopus. The walls were black and glossy, and every
Speaker 1: now and then they glittered faintly, as if they had
Speaker 1: little sleeping stars inside. Ziggy went in first. He took
Speaker 1: three steps, turned right, then left, then right again, and
Speaker 1: found himself exactly back at the starting point. Ah, he huffed.
Speaker 1: We went in circles. He tried another way and another,
Speaker 1: but every time the maize brought him back, as if
Speaker 1: it were teasing him. Lily tried to memorize the turns,
Speaker 1: but there were too many. Sky stroked Sophia to give
Speaker 1: herself courage. Dash stayed close to Milo. I don't understand,
Speaker 1: said Ziggy, sitting down on a sugar step. It's as
Speaker 1: if the tunnels were made on purpose to confuse us.
Speaker 1: The bubble floated beside him. Why why doesn't it work?
Speaker 1: Why do we always take the wrong path? And it
Speaker 1: was that very why that made something click in Ziggy's head. Wait,
Speaker 1: he said quietly. The town lives upside down right. Everything
Speaker 1: here is backwards. The river flows upward. The sweetlings walk
Speaker 1: on the ceiling, so maybe the tunnels are backwards too.
Speaker 1: When I think I should go right, the right path
Speaker 1: is left. When it seems wrong, that's the right one.
Speaker 1: He jumped up, his eyes shining. It was his AHA moment.
Speaker 1: But how do I see things backwards? He asked himself aloud.
Speaker 1: Then he looked at the bubble, all shiny and clear,
Speaker 1: and he smiled the bubble. He shouted. When I look
Speaker 1: inside the bubble from below, I see everything flipped like
Speaker 1: in a mirror. If I go inside and look at
Speaker 1: the reflection, the bubble shows me the path backwards, which
Speaker 1: means the right one. Why how show me? Said the bubble,
Speaker 1: super excited, and she slowly opened to let Ziggy in.
Speaker 1: Ziggy jumped inside. In there, it was soft and glowing,
Speaker 1: like being in a balloon of light, and he was right.
Speaker 1: Looking at the tunnel walls. Through the bubble, everything appeared
Speaker 1: upside down. The paths that seemed wrong reflected seemed right.
Speaker 1: I'll go inside the bubble and roll it along. Ziggy
Speaker 1: told his friends, you follow me with the cats, trust me,
Speaker 1: and so began the funniest adventure of all Ziggy inside
Speaker 1: the bubble leaned to one side and the bubble rolled
Speaker 1: to the right. He jumped to the other side, and
Speaker 1: the bubble turned left. He did somersaults, and the bubble
Speaker 1: zoomed ahead through the tunnel like a big, glowing ball.
Speaker 1: The cats ran behind, Milo made huge jumps, Poldo rolled
Speaker 1: along two because he was too heavy to jump, and
Speaker 1: Dora led bravely at every fork. Ziggy looked at the
Speaker 1: reflection in the bubble and chose the path that seemed wrong,
Speaker 1: and every time it was the right one. The walls
Speaker 1: glittered more, the tunnel grew more beautiful, and the children
Speaker 1: laughed watching Ziggy bounce like a marble inside his mirror bubble.
Speaker 1: But then they reached the deepest tunnel, and there the
Speaker 1: darkness was truly deep. The walls barely glittered any more.
Speaker 1: Even the bubble, which usually gave off a little light,
Speaker 1: grew pale. The bubble, for the first time, stopped asking questions.
Speaker 1: She stopped trembling. I'm I'm a little scared, she whispered,
Speaker 1: it's too dark. Ziggy felt his heart pounding hard in
Speaker 1: his chest. He was scared too. His legs trembled a
Speaker 1: little bit. He stopped. He took a breath, and then
Speaker 1: he said something true. I'm scared too, Bubble, he said quietly.
Speaker 1: My heart goes thump, thump, thump. But you know what,
Speaker 1: We're not alone. There's me, you, Lily, Sky, Dash, and
Speaker 1: four brave cats. Let's go slowly, I mean, let's go
Speaker 1: calmly together, one step at a time. Sky came close
Speaker 1: and took his hand. Let's go together, she said sweetly.
Speaker 1: Lily stood on the other side. Determined. Dash scooped Milo
Speaker 1: into his arms, and Sophia climbed onto Ziggy's shoulder, purring,
Speaker 1: and so all together, with hearts pounding but feet moving forward,
Speaker 1: they took that step into the dark one, two, three,
Speaker 1: and after the third step, at the end of the tunnel,
Speaker 1: a golden glow appeared. It was the upside down bell,
Speaker 1: hanging from the ceiling and shining like a star that
Speaker 1: had fallen there by chance we made it, cried the bubble,
Speaker 1: turning bright and cheerful again. Why because we were scared,
Speaker 1: But we went on anyway, how wonderful. But the bell
Speaker 1: was up high, upside down, hard to reach. Ziggy didn't
Speaker 1: think twice. He rolled the bubble right under the bell,
Speaker 1: took a running start, jumped, grabbed onto a branch of sugar,
Speaker 1: and with a perfect somersault, struck the bell with his feet.
Speaker 1: Ding Dong, Ding dong. The sound spread through all the tunnels.
Speaker 1: The walls glittered all at once again, like a thousand
Speaker 1: little stars lighting up, and then with a soft rumble,
Speaker 1: the whole town of Meringa Longa flipped over once more.
Speaker 1: The houses went back to hanging from the sky. The
Speaker 1: rivers began flowing upward again, and the sweetlings, one after another,
Speaker 1: took a big tumble and found themselves walking happily on
Speaker 1: the ceiling, just the way they liked, back to upside down. Hooray,
Speaker 1: laughed the sweetlings, pouring their chocolate the right way and
Speaker 1: waving with their hands. One of them even did a
Speaker 1: somersault of joy and landed face first in a cake.
Speaker 1: The children came out of the tunnels, laughing, covered in
Speaker 1: sparkling sugar. The bubble walked them all the way to
Speaker 1: the surface, asking a thousand happy questions. Why did you win,
Speaker 1: Why were you brave? Why will you come back to
Speaker 1: see me? We'll come back, promise, said Ziggy, Hugging the
Speaker 1: soft bubble outside, waited Toby the magic train with smoke
Speaker 1: in little clouds. The children climbed aboard, waving to the
Speaker 1: sweetlings hanging from the sky and Toby, before setting off
Speaker 1: set in rime in the dark. Your hearts were beating fast,
Speaker 1: but side by side you made it at last. Being
Speaker 1: brave won't chase the shivers away. It's feeling afraid and
Speaker 1: going anyway. The little train whistled and set off among
Speaker 1: the sugar clouds, carrying the children home to the snow
Speaker 1: white garden. And that night, before falling asleep, Ziggy looked
Speaker 1: out the window at the branches covered in cream and smiled,
Speaker 1: thinking of the bubble that saw everything backwards, because he
Speaker 1: had learned something important. Being brave doesn't mean not being afraid.
Speaker 1: It means being afraid, taking each other by the hand
Speaker 1: and taking that step anyway.