A Library Card for a Cloud

Every afternoon a small cloud called Dollop drifted past the windows of the Bureau Library. Dollop was about the size of a sofa and the colour of a sheep that has just had a bath. Through the glass it could see the tall shelves, the green lamps and the children's corner with its beanbags and big picture books. More than anything, Dollop wanted a library card.

One Tuesday, the window was open. Dollop drifted in and floated up to the front desk, where Mr Ambrose Quill, the Bureau Librarian, sat stamping books. He wore a bow tie with tiny books on it, and he whispered everything, even when he was surprised. "Good afternoon," he whispered. "How may I help?"

"I would like a library card, please," said Dollop, in a soft, drizzly voice.

Mr Quill took out Form L-1, Application for a Library Card, and dipped his pen in the ink. "Name?" "Dollop." "Address?" Dollop thought about this. "Over the duck pond on Mondays," it said. "Over the hill on Tuesdays. The rest of the week, wherever the wind goes." Mr Quill wrote, in his neatest writing: Address, mostly up.

"Next," whispered Mr Quill, "I need your signature." He held out the pen. Dollop tried to take it, but the pen slipped straight through and clattered onto the desk. Dollop tried again. Clatter. "Oh, puddles," said Dollop, and one small raindrop fell on the form.

Mr Quill looked at the raindrop for a long time. "There is more than one way to sign a name," he whispered. So Dollop leaned over the form and breathed on it, very gently, and drew a curly D in the damp with the edge of itself. When the paper dried, the D stayed there, pale and wavy, like the mark on a very fancy envelope.

"Now," whispered Mr Quill, and he looked a little worried, "the last question. Rule Nine of the Bureau Library says that all books must be kept dry." Dollop looked down at itself. Dollop was, to be honest, quite damp. Most clouds are. That is rather the point of them.

Dollop thought so hard that it went a little grey around the edges. "What if I don't keep the book?" it said at last. "What if I just borrow it to read out loud, to someone who is nice and dry?"

Mr Quill took down the big blue book of Library Rules and turned to the very back, where the small print lives. He ran his finger down the page. Then he smiled. "Rule Ninety-Nine," he whispered. "A cloud may borrow any book, as long as it reads it to somebody, and holds it on its sunny side."

He stamped Form L-1, very softly, and handed over a small card. It said: Bureau Library, Member, Dollop. Address, mostly up. Dollop chose a picture book about a lighthouse, because it liked the idea of a light that stays on all night, and floated out of the window holding the book carefully on its sunny side.

In a house at the end of a lane, a girl called Priya was kneeling on her bed, looking out of her window at the evening sky. Dollop drifted up to the glass. "Excuse me," it said, in its soft, drizzly voice. "I have a library card. Would you like a story?" Priya opened the window a little way and nodded.

So Dollop read the lighthouse book in a voice like rain on a tent. It read about the keeper climbing the winding stairs, and the great lamp going round, and the ships sailing safely home. Priya climbed under her blanket while it read the last few pages, and her eyes grew heavier and heavier.

When the story was finished, Dollop closed the book very gently and kept it on its sunny side, although by now there was only moonlight. It stayed outside the window for a while, soft and quiet, the way clouds do.

Then it drifted away over the rooftops, slowly, slowly, past the sleeping houses, with the lighthouse book held carefully and its library card tucked safely somewhere in its fluffiest part.