The bell was silent. Not because it wanted to be but because no one came to ring it.
The building was old. For generations it had marked the edge of a small lake. There was a time when the Bell would sing its glorious note across the water every day. Over time the people had moved away and no one came to ring the bell.
The Bell had tried to ring by itself. It had concentrated its energy in the hope it could move the brass clapper but it was much too heavy. Other times it would catch the glint of the morning sun and reflect it across the water in the hope it would entice someone to come and visit.
Now that the lake and surrounding forests no longer provided enough work, there was only one family left living there. They lived in one of the only remaining inhabitable houses. The children did not go to school. They had learned to read and write with help from their parents and by taking books from the abandoned library.
This was a small room behind what had once been the Post Office, General Store and school room. They had started with dusting off the ABC books, worked their way through learner readers, comics, encyclopedias and now they were methodically going around the shelves, section by section, one book at a time.
They had got as far as the romance novels. Having read a couple, they felt that although these books were fairly boring they did seem to always have happy endings.
Now with Christmas only a few days away they were reading all the Christmas stories. The tales of Christmas trees, twinkling lights, snow and cosy fires seemed impossible to imagine as it was summer in their part of the world. There would be no snow and only a few small gifts on Christmas Day.
In the past they had given their parents books taken from the old library wrapped in old newspapers but this year they wanted to do something special ... but had run out of ideas.
Two days before Christmas they had walked along the lake and up the steps to the bell tower. It was a favourite place to sit and read books full of tales of knights, castles, kings and queens.
Looking straight up the inside of the tower they could see the dull gleam of the bell. They went outside and sat in the sun on the steps and thought about what they could give their parents for Christmas. Then it struck them. If they could ring the bell early on Christmas morning their parents would be amazed to hear it chime. It would be a wonderful surprise.
The children had often wondered if the bell still worked but the bell rope was broken, the end high up and well beyond their reach. The question was how to reach that high and then have enough weight to pull the rope and make the bell swing and ring.
They pondered the notion of one standing on the shoulders of the other - and made one attempt - but found it was very difficult to balance without anything to hold on to.
Perhaps the answer might be found in a book. They headed straight to the abandoned library and searched the shelves for a book that might have ideas. They looked through dozens of science books, encyclopedias and builders' manuals.
The pile of books grew higher and higher but there seemed to be nothing helpful. They climbed on to the pile of discarded books and sat glumly on the top, lost in thought. Suddenly, at exactly the same moment, they looked down from the tower of books and looked at each other and started laughing. The answer to their problem was right there beneath them.
They rushed home, got the wheelbarrow from the shed and trundled it to the library. All that afternoon they went back and forth between the bell tower and the library taking loads of the biggest, fattest books they could find.
They went home to dinner thatevening completely worn outbut with triumphant grins on their faces. Their parents asked what they had been doing all day but the children just said: "Oh, nothing much" and giggled.
Early Christmas morning when it was still dark, the children crept out of the house and headed to the bell tower. As the sun's first light hit the sky, they started stacking the books, making a ladder of them up one side as the pile grew.
The books were heavy and as they got higher, the climb became harder and steeper. Just as the sun began to shine on the lake, the tower of books was high enough to reach to the bell rope.
Together they clambered up and, holding on to each other with one hand, they reached for the rope with the other and gave it mighty tug. The rope dipped and then pulled them up into the air.
As it lowered them on to the tower of books they heard the bell ring out. The sound was loud and pure, filled with joy and it rang across the water and echoed off the hills. The rope swept them up again and again as the bell chimed its greeting for a Christmas morning.
With tired arms they let go of the rope and steadied themselves on the tower of books. Their parents appeared puffed from running, and in their pyjamas. The children called down to them as they stood astonished at the bottom of the tower of books - "Merry Christmas" - as the echo of the last chime rang across the lake.
The Bell Terry Sarten 18/12/2013
Terry Sarten is a father, grandfather, writer, musician and social worker - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz or www.telsarten.com/
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