The School That Changed Places

Mira tugs on her red boots and hurries up the hill to Willow School, but the building is no longer beside the village green. It now stands on a sandy beach with waves breaking close by, and her friend Toby can barely take it in. The classrooms inside look just as they always have, though the windows open onto a rolling blue sea, and Principal Oduya explains that the school has moved and that they will manage as best they can. Before long a small creature with sea-green feathers, golden eyes and a brass bell on a red ribbon waits at the window; Mira calls it Pip, and the children feel it is watching and waiting for something.

In the mornings that follow, the school leaves the beach for a snowy valley, an apple orchard, a windy hilltop, a quiet forest and a sunny meadow. At each stop the children build sandcastles, sled with a new friend, pick apples with a farmer, fly kites and sing around campfires. Principal Oduya worries that the restless enchantment must find what it seeks before it is too late, and when Mira learns the story of the woman who built the school and the charm that lets it travel, she starts to grasp what the wandering is for. Written by Yavuz DEMİRKIRAN, the tale can be read on Online Masal.