The Bold Beasties Clubhouse

Pandora had planned the perfect welcome party.

At ten o'clock: open the gate. At five past ten: introduce the guests. At ten past ten: play the name game. At quarter past ten: biscuits.

She had made a spare plan in case they ran out of biscuits.

It said: MORE BISCUITS.

“What about rain?” asked Madge.

“Indoor party,” said Pandora, pointing to the back of her clipboard.

“What about wind?”

“Paperweights.”

“What about a very large puddle directly outside the gate?”

Pandora looked up.

Overnight, rainwater had collected in a dip in the path. A broad, shining puddle stretched from one gatepost to the other.

It was not on either plan.

Pandora put a neat blue tick beside OPEN THE GATE. She had opened it, after all.

Then she rubbed the tick out.

An open gate was not much use if the guests couldn't reach it.

“We'll make a stepping-stone path,” said Ford.

They found three flat stones. Ford placed them at the shallow edge.

Richie hopped across without getting a single toe wet.

“Perfect!” cried Pandora.

Then Connor tried.

He put one paw on the first stone. He put another paw on the second.

The stones disappeared.

“I seem to have brought the puddle with me,” he said.

They helped him back onto the dry path.

Pandora drew a line through STEPPING STONES.

“Perhaps everyone could jump,” said Richie.

He jumped from one side to the other, his tail flying behind him.

Madge looked at the distance.

“I would rather not.”

Pandora looked at her plan. Then she looked at Madge.

She drew a line through JUMPING too.

Ten o'clock arrived.

So did the first guest: a small hedgehog wearing a yellow hat. He stopped beside the puddle.

“Is this where the party is?”

“Yes,” said Pandora. “Welcome to the... to the...”

The next word had vanished.

She knew it. She had written it in blue ink. Now she could only hear her own beak opening and closing.

The hedgehog waited.

“Party,” whispered Kendrick beside her.

“Party,” said Pandora. “Almost.”

The hedgehog waited. His hat dripped.

Ten past ten arrived.

The name game hadn't started. Two more guests stood beside the hedgehog. One was carrying a carefully wrapped cake.

Pandora turned her clipboard over. The indoor plan assumed everyone was already indoors.

She turned it back.

The blue ink had run a little where Connor had dripped on it.

“I made a plan for everything,” she said quietly. “And I couldn't even remember the word party.”

“I forgot my own name when I met the librarian,” said Kendrick.

Pandora stared at him.

“Did it come back?”

“After she had asked me about my scarf.”

He stayed beside her while she put down the clipboard.

“What do your guests need?” he asked.

Pandora opened her beak to say NAME GAME AT TEN PAST TEN.

Instead, she looked at the hedgehog.

“Somewhere dry.”

She looked at the cake.

“And a table.”

Connor pointed along the fence. “There's a side gate by the herb garden.”

“But the welcome sign is here,” said Pandora.

“The sign can come too.”

Pandora considered the sign. It wasn't nailed down. It wasn't even particularly heavy.

“Oh,” she said.

She took a large purple pencil from her pencil case.

Under her neat blue timetable she wrote:

ASK THE GUESTS.

“Would you like to come round by the side gate?” she called. “There's a dry path.”

“Very much,” said the hedgehog.

Ford checked the route with her. Richie carried the welcome sign. Madge held the side gate open, and Connor brought a towel for anyone who wanted one.

Pandora led the guests into the Clubhouse.

The hedgehog took off his hat.

“I'm Pip,” he said.

“I'm Pandora.”

“I'm glad this is the party. For a moment, I thought it was a swimming lesson.”

Pandora laughed so suddenly that her pencil rolled off the table.

It was quarter past ten.

“Biscuits?” asked Connor.

Pandora looked at her list.

Then she looked at the new friends choosing places to sit.

“Yes. And while we eat, would everyone like to tell us their names?”

Pip told them his name, his favourite colour and the name of his hat.

The cake guest told them her name and confessed that she had already eaten one of the cake's cherries.

Richie told them his name with a very small drumroll.

Soon they were talking so much that Pandora forgot to check the clock.

After biscuits, she held up three cards.

“We could play a game, make a picture or hear a...”

She glanced at her card.

“Story. What would you like?”

Some guests chose the game. Some wanted the picture. Pip wanted to hear a story while he drew.

“We can do that,” said Pandora.

And they did.

At the end of the party, the puddle still shone outside the front gate.

Pandora went out to collect the abandoned stones. In the water, she saw the Clubhouse roof, a patch of sky and her own face looking back.

Then a raindrop landed on her reflection's beak.

Plip.

Her reflection wobbled.

Pandora laughed again.

Inside, she pinned her timetable to the noticeboard. There were blue ticks, purple arrows and several biscuit crumbs.

“Was it a perfect party?” asked Madge.

Pandora thought about wet hats, moving signs and the name game that happened over biscuits.

“It was a lovely party,” she said.

Below ASK THE GUESTS, she wrote one more thing:

LEAVE ROOM FOR AN IDEA YOU HAVEN'T HAD YET.

Then she made tomorrow's list.

The first line was very neat.

The second line was blank.