Speaker 1: That morning. The sky was gray like a wool blanket,
Speaker 1: and a soft little rain was falling, making puddles in
Speaker 1: the garden. Dash jumped from one puddle to another in
Speaker 1: his yellow boots, and every jump went splash. Look how
Speaker 1: far I can jump? Shouted Dash, and he took a
Speaker 1: running start, but his boot slipped and Dash landed right
Speaker 1: on his bottom in the biggest puddle with a funny
Speaker 1: PLoP splosh. Ziggy, Lily and Sky burst out laughing. Let's
Speaker 1: have a race, said Dash, all wet but happy. Who
Speaker 1: can jump the farthest into the puddles. I'm in, said Ziggy,
Speaker 1: who loved to run and jump. Me too, said Lily,
Speaker 1: with her blue eyes, all set, Sky quiet as ever,
Speaker 1: clapped her hands. I'll be the judge. But just as
Speaker 1: Dash was taking his longest running start of all, a
Speaker 1: familiar sound came from far away. Chew, chew. It was
Speaker 1: Toby the Magic Train, popping out from the garden hedges
Speaker 1: with his shiny wheels and a smile painted on his front.
Speaker 1: He stopped and said, good morning, dear children. Such jumping,
Speaker 1: how sweet? Climb up here beside me with boots on
Speaker 1: your feet. I'll take you to meadows where grass loves
Speaker 1: to cheer, and maybe a silly new race will appear.
Speaker 1: The children laughed and clapped their hands. A race. What race?
Speaker 1: Toby never told the whole secret. They all climbed onto
Speaker 1: the little train, which set off slowly through the clouds.
Speaker 1: And as they traveled, the gray sky opened like a curtain,
Speaker 1: and a sky full of stars appeared, shining like a
Speaker 1: thousand little lights. Night had come, but a sweet night,
Speaker 1: a friendly dark, not scary at all. Toby stopped in
Speaker 1: the middle of a wood, inside a clearing, all lit
Speaker 1: up by the stars. As soon as the children climbed
Speaker 1: down and put their feet on the grass, a very
Speaker 1: funny thing happened. The grass went frush, frush, frush, like
Speaker 1: an audience clapping at the theater. It clapped, said dash,
Speaker 1: and he did a little hop, and the grass again, frush, frush.
Speaker 1: This is the meadow of applause, said a tiny voice.
Speaker 1: Every time someone jumps, the grass claps its hands. The
Speaker 1: children turned turned around. In front of them flew a
Speaker 1: little firefly with a tummy that glowed like a light bulb.
Speaker 1: But she flew in a strange, wobbly way, and zap.
Speaker 1: She bumped into a blade of grass and fell Plin.
Speaker 1: Her little light went out for a second, then flicked
Speaker 1: back on. Oops, said the firefly, getting back up. I'm Plin.
Speaker 1: I'm the clumsiest firefly in the wood. I even trip
Speaker 1: over the air, and to prove it, she tripped again.
Speaker 1: Plin dark for a second, then light. The children laughed.
Speaker 1: Plyin smelled of warm honey, and when she laughed with them,
Speaker 1: her little light blinked fast, fast, like the lights at
Speaker 1: a disco. You've arrived just in time, said Plyn. Tonight,
Speaker 1: it's the animal many Olympics, the rolling hedgehog race, the
Speaker 1: frog jump and the mole dive. But there's a teeny problem.
Speaker 1: What is it, asked Lily. Nobody understands the rules, sighed Plynn,
Speaker 1: because every animal talks in its own sound. The frog
Speaker 1: says ribb it, ribb it. The hedgehog says sniff sniff.
Speaker 1: The mole says nothing at all and just digs. It's
Speaker 1: a mess. Dash lit up even more than Plynn. A
Speaker 1: race a sport. It was the thing he loved most
Speaker 1: in the whole world. Leave it to me, said Dash,
Speaker 1: puffing out his chest. I'll be the fastest referee in history.
Speaker 1: Where's the whistle? Plynn gave him a whistle made from
Speaker 1: an acorn horn. Dash popped it in his mouth, took
Speaker 1: a big breath, and blew as hard as he could. Wee.
Speaker 1: But a disaster happened at the whistle. All the animals
Speaker 1: started at the wrong moment. The hedgehogs began rolling before
Speaker 1: the go and ended up one on top of another
Speaker 1: like a tower of wooly balls. The frogs all jump
Speaker 1: at once and bumped into each other in mid air.
Speaker 1: The mole frightened dug so fast that it popped out
Speaker 1: the other side of the clearing with a flower on
Speaker 1: its head. No, no, laughed Dash. Wait for my go.
Speaker 1: He blew again, but this time he blew so hard
Speaker 1: that he lost his balance, spun around three times, and
Speaker 1: landed flat on the grass. And the grass of course, frush, frush, frush.
Speaker 1: Applause for the top even falling gets applause, shouted Dash
Speaker 1: from the meadow, laughing his head off. Lily, meanwhile, was
Speaker 1: thinking it over. The problem is we don't understand what
Speaker 1: the animals say, she said. We have to learn their language.
Speaker 1: But how do we do that? Asked Ziggy. It was Sky,
Speaker 1: calm as always who found the idea. She went up
Speaker 1: to a little frog and tried to do just like her.
Speaker 1: She crouched down and jumped, saying ribb it, rib it,
Speaker 1: and the little frog happy jumped along with her in
Speaker 1: the same direction. I get it, said Sky with a smile.
Speaker 1: If we copy them with our bodies, they understand us.
Speaker 1: So the funniest game of all began. Ziggy started squeaking
Speaker 1: like a hedgehog sniff sniff, running in zigzags, and the
Speaker 1: hedgehogs followed him in a line. Lily rolled on the
Speaker 1: grass like a little ball, and the hedgehogs understood it
Speaker 1: was time for the rolling race. Dash croaked, jumped, squeaked,
Speaker 1: and rolled all at once, and every time he made
Speaker 1: a funnier mess. But little by little the animals began
Speaker 1: to understand. The many Olympics really began. The hedgehogs rolled
Speaker 1: down a little hill like furry marbles. The frogs made
Speaker 1: super long jumps. The mole dove into the soft earth
Speaker 1: and popped up farther away PLoP like a dolphin in
Speaker 1: a brown sea. And at every event, the grass clapped, frush, frush, frush.
Speaker 1: Dash wanted to try every race in the hedgehog race.
Speaker 1: He curled into a ball, but he went too fast
Speaker 1: and rolled down the hill until he tumbled into a bush,
Speaker 1: from which he popped out with three leaves on his
Speaker 1: head and a flower on his nose. I came in second,
Speaker 1: he said proudly, while a hedgehog rolled past him, going
Speaker 1: sniff sniff, as if to say, you came in last.
Speaker 1: In the frog jump, Dash took a super long running start,
Speaker 1: leaped the highest of all, but landed on his bottom
Speaker 1: on a soft mushroom that bounced him into the air
Speaker 1: like a trampoline. Bowing, he did a somersault and fell
Speaker 1: right into Lily's arms, and she laughed so hard she
Speaker 1: rolled over too, and the grass happy clapped for both
Speaker 1: of them. This is the funniest sport in the world,
Speaker 1: Dash shouted, out of breath from laughing. Plynn was the lighthouse.
Speaker 1: When she laughed, her little light blinked bright and marked
Speaker 1: the finish line. Every now and then she tripped Plin,
Speaker 1: and for a second it got dark, and everyone shouted
Speaker 1: Plin and laughed. But in a corner of the clearing,
Speaker 1: on the lowest branch of a tree, there was a
Speaker 1: little bird, all trembling. He had soft feathers and frightened
Speaker 1: little eyes, and he watched the others play without moving.
Speaker 1: Sky saw him first. She came closer slowly. Why don't
Speaker 1: you play with us? I'd really like to chirped the
Speaker 1: little bird. But there's the flying race, and I I'm
Speaker 1: afraid to fly. I've never managed to leave this branch.
Speaker 1: Dash stopped laughing. He came up to the tree and
Speaker 1: looked at the little bird. He knew exactly what it
Speaker 1: felt like to be a little scared before race. You
Speaker 1: know what, said Dash. You don't have to fly all
Speaker 1: at once. Let's have a new race. One I made up,
Speaker 1: the little hops race. How does it work, asked the
Speaker 1: little bird, trembling Just a bit less easy, said Dash.
Speaker 1: He stood right under the branch, just one step away,
Speaker 1: and opened his arms. You don't have to fly far,
Speaker 1: You just have to let go for a tiny little bit,
Speaker 1: right into my arms. I'm right here. The little bird
Speaker 1: looked down one teeny tiny step, he closed his little eyes,
Speaker 1: opened his wings, and let go. He glided for the
Speaker 1: briefest moment and landed right in Dash's arms. He who
Speaker 1: did it? Every one shouted, and the grass went wild.
Speaker 1: Fush fush, frush fhush. The little bird opened his eyes, surprised.
Speaker 1: Did I did I fly a little bit? Laughed Dash.
Speaker 1: Now a little bit more, Dash took a step back.
Speaker 1: Plynn flew a little farther and began to blink. Fly
Speaker 1: toward my light. I'm the finish line. The little bird
Speaker 1: tried again, a longer hop all the way to Dash,
Speaker 1: then another all the way to Plinn's little light. Then
Speaker 1: another one, and this time he laughed while he flew,
Speaker 1: because he discovered that flying one little bit at a
Speaker 1: time was the most wonderful thing in the world. Look
Speaker 1: at me, I'm flying, he chirped, doing a loop around
Speaker 1: the tree. Plynn was so happy that her little lights
Speaker 1: burst like tiny fireworks. Plin Plin Plynn, all colorful. At
Speaker 1: the end of the Many Olympics, the animals gathered for
Speaker 1: the prize giving, and who won. Every one won, because
Speaker 1: Dash said the best prize wasn't for whoever ran the fastest,
Speaker 1: but for whoever laughed the most and helped their friends.
Speaker 1: So each one got the Giggle Medal, a little daisy
Speaker 1: to tuck behind the ear. The little bird held his
Speaker 1: tight proud because he had earned that medal by flying
Speaker 1: for the very first time. Then it was heard again
Speaker 1: chew chew to Toby. The magic train had come back
Speaker 1: to get them. The children said goodbye to Plynn with
Speaker 1: a hug, and the firefly all touched tripped one last time.
Speaker 1: Out of joy, Plin they climbed onto the little train,
Speaker 1: and as the stars slipped away, Toby said, what fun,
Speaker 1: little friends, All those jumps and those flights. When you're
Speaker 1: scared in the dark, you'll have friends and warm lights.
Speaker 1: You learn as you play, as you tumble and fall,
Speaker 1: and a happy heart sings as it goes through it.
Speaker 1: All the children fell asleep happy while Toby carried them home,
Speaker 1: with the daisies still tucked behind their ears and the
Speaker 1: smell of Pyn's warm honey following them into their dreams.