Speaker 1: The missing Metro poster. Nora's poster vanished at the bakery.
Speaker 1: She had set its cardboard tube beside the counter while Mr.
Speaker 1: Hammond boxed two pastries. Another long tube already stood there,
Speaker 1: and a man in a green cap was rolling up
Speaker 1: a blue concert poster. Beautiful blue elephant, he had said.
Speaker 1: It's a rain cloud, Nora had replied. Nora picked up
Speaker 1: the tube nearest the door. She did not discover it
Speaker 1: was empty until she and Mom reached the metro stairs.
Speaker 1: Nora stood beside Mom at the station entrance, holding only
Speaker 1: two strips of tape. The neighborhood art show opened in
Speaker 1: forty minutes. We can go home and print the photo,
Speaker 1: Mom said. Nora shook her head. The photo showed the
Speaker 1: painting before she had added the silver rooftops. Besides, She
Speaker 1: had spent a week getting the blue exactly right. A
Speaker 1: torn scrap of blue paper lay near the ticket machine.
Speaker 1: Nora picked it up. The color was almost the same
Speaker 1: as her painted sky. Mine! They followed another blue scrap
Speaker 1: down the stairs. On the platform, the station cleaner had
Speaker 1: found three more pieces stuck to his broom. Something large
Speaker 1: blew through when the train arrived, he said. It went
Speaker 1: that way. The next train rushed into the station. Wind
Speaker 1: pushed Nora's coat against her legs and sent an old
Speaker 1: receipt spinning along the tiles. She pictured her poster sailing
Speaker 1: down the tunnel. Then she noticed a blue rectangle inside
Speaker 1: the train. The doors closed before she could see more.
Speaker 1: That was it, Nora cried. Mom studied the departure board.
Speaker 1: That train stops at River Market. We can meet the
Speaker 1: next one there. At River Market, they searched every carriage
Speaker 1: of the arriving train. No poster. Nora checked the seats,
Speaker 1: the luggage spaces, and the floor beneath a folded newspaper.
Speaker 1: A passenger remembered seeing blue paper, but it had been
Speaker 1: a child's kite. Another pointed them toward the station office.
Speaker 1: where the lost property shelf held three umbrellas and a
Speaker 1: framed painting of a brown horse. Not yours? Mum asked.
Speaker 1: Mine has fewer legs, Nora said. A violinist near the
Speaker 1: exit remembered seeing a man carrying a large blue sheet.
Speaker 1: Green cap, she said. Long cardboard tube. He went toward
Speaker 1: the market hall. Nora and Mum hurried upstairs. The market
Speaker 1: was already crowded. Bakers arranged bread. Florists filled buckets. Artists
Speaker 1: leaned paintings against temporary walls. At the far end, a
Speaker 1: man in a green cap was taping up a blue poster.
Speaker 1: Nora ran toward him, then stopped. It was not her
Speaker 1: rain cloud. It advertised a jazz concert. I found it
Speaker 1: blowing around the metro, the man said. Mine escaped this morning.
Speaker 1: Nora showed him the torn blue corner He turned his
Speaker 1: poster over. The back was clean. There were two runaway
Speaker 1: blue posters, Mum asked. The man pointed to his cardboard tube.
Speaker 1: A sticker on it read, River Market Art Show. Nora
Speaker 1: held up the identical tube she had carried from the bakery.
Speaker 1: Aran remembered setting his concert poster beside Nora's painting while
Speaker 1: he paid. In a hurry, He had rolled both blue
Speaker 1: sheets together and slipped them into the fabric case on
Speaker 1: his shoulder. Nora had picked up his empty tube instead
Speaker 1: of her own. At the metro, Aaron's concert poster had
Speaker 1: slipped partly out of the case. He caught it on
Speaker 1: the train, but not before one edge tore and left
Speaker 1: the blue scraps Nora had followed. Then where is my painting?
Speaker 1: Nora asked. He checked the fabric case on his shoulder.
Speaker 1: Inside were two rolled posters, his concert notice and Nora's painting.
Speaker 1: I wondered why my jazz poster had silver buildings, he said.
Speaker 1: Nora unrolled her work across an empty table. The rain
Speaker 1: cloud was creased and one corner had torn where the
Speaker 1: two posters had been rolled together. The painted rooftops were safe.
Speaker 1: The man's name was Arun? He was due to play
Speaker 1: at the market that afternoon. Yes, but now one corner
Speaker 1: of his concert poster was missing, too. Nora found it
Speaker 1: clinging to the bottom of his shoe. The metro wind
Speaker 1: had been equally unkind to both artists. The green-capped man
Speaker 1: offered to flatten it beneath two boxes of concert programs
Speaker 1: while they found fresh backing paper. Nora wanted to hide
Speaker 1: the torn corner. Then she saw that the tear cut
Speaker 1: through empty sky. She trimmed the paper into a narrower shape.
Speaker 1: The rain cloud now appeared to hang just beyond the
Speaker 1: edge of the city. At the art show, visitors stopped
Speaker 1: in front of it. One person called it peaceful. Another
Speaker 1: called it stormy. Mr. Hamid arrived from the bakery and
Speaker 1: continued to believe it was an elephant. The jazz musician
Speaker 1: hung his constant poster beside Nora's painting until the show closed.
Speaker 1: During the afternoon, Arun played a short set near the entrance.
Speaker 1: Nora sat where she could see people stop before her painting.
Speaker 1: A small boy insisted the cloud was a whale. His
Speaker 1: sister said it was a spilled bottle of ink. Nora
Speaker 1: did not correct either of them. When they packed up,
Speaker 1: he held out the two identical cardboard tubes. Nora wrote
Speaker 1: RAIN CLOUD across hers in thick black letters. He wrote
Speaker 1: NOT A RAIN CLOUD across his. They checked the labels
Speaker 1: before leaving in opposite directions. The End. As always, visit
Speaker 1: us at redthetale.com for all your favorite tales and stories.