The Backpack Who Was Nervous Too

The night before Mira's first day of school, her new backpack could not sleep. It hung on the hook by the front door, red and stiff and smelling of the shop. Mira had named it Captain. It had a zip pull shaped like a fox, two side pockets for water bottles, and absolutely no idea what school was.

"What if I'm too big?" Captain whispered into the dark hallway. "What if I'm too small? What if my zip sticks halfway and everybody stares at my lining?" Nobody answered. Then, from the shoe rack below, came a squeak of old rubber.

"First day?" said the left welly. "Thought so," said the right welly. They were green and scuffed, with a crust of dried mud round their ankles that they were very proud of. "We've done four winters," said the left one. "And a muddy wedding," said the right one.

"You get used to it," they said together. "Used to what, though?" said Captain. "I don't even know what happens. I've never had a single crumb in me."

On the kitchen counter, the new lunch box clicked its latch open and shut. Click-clack, click-clack. "I'm nervous too," it said. "Tomorrow I'm having a cheese sandwich in me. What if it's the wrong cheese?"

Just then, something soft fluttered in through the letterbox. It was a small grey moth in a tiny peaked cap, carrying a clipboard the size of a stamp. "Officer Dimity," she said, landing on the coat hook. "Night Desk, Office of Brave Deeds. I do the first-day rounds."

She looked at her clipboard. "Form FD-1, First Day Readiness, Equipment Section. Question one: are you nervous?" "Very nervous," said Captain, and its straps drooped. "Is that wrong?"

"Not at all," said the moth, and ticked a box. "Nervous is on the form. Look, there's a box for it." She held up the clipboard, and there it was, in very small writing: Nervous (this is normal).

"Question two," said Officer Dimity. "Can you carry one reading book, one water bottle, one cardigan and a painting that is still slightly wet?" Captain thought about it. "I have side pockets," it said. "I think so."

"Question three. Will you stay with Mira all day, even when you are hanging on a peg?" "Oh yes," said Captain at once. "That's the whole point of me." The moth ticked three times and gave a satisfied flutter.

"Then you are ready," she said. She took out a stamp no bigger than a lentil and pressed it, very gently, onto Captain's name label, where it left a tiny gold star. "Every first-day commendation has a line that says Accompanied by," she said. "Tomorrow, you'll be on it." And she fluttered out through the letterbox into the night.

In the morning, Mira's hands were cold and her tummy was fluttery, so Captain held on to her shoulders extra firmly. At school there was a long row of pegs, each with a picture above it. Mira's had a duck. Captain hung under the duck, next to a green backpack shaped like a dinosaur.

"First day?" whispered Captain. "First day," whispered the dinosaur. "Me too." They hung side by side all morning, and it was much better being nervous with someone else.

At lunchtime the lunch box came back from the hall, empty and very pleased with itself. "It was the right cheese," it reported. At home time, Mira came running across the playground with paint on her sleeve and a wet painting of the sun. Captain carried it home rolled up very gently in its biggest pocket.

That evening, a letter was waiting on the doormat. It was a first-day commendation from the Office of Brave Deeds, for Mira, for going to school even with a fluttery tummy. At the bottom, in very small handwriting, it said: Accompanied by Captain (backpack) and one lunch box (cheese).

Now Captain hung on the hook by the door again, light and empty, with a few crumbs in the bottom of its pocket at last. On the shoe rack, the wellies were snoring softly. In the kitchen, the lunch box had clicked itself shut for the night.

The hallway was dark and warm and still. Upstairs, Mira was asleep, with her commendation on the bedside table. Captain let its straps hang loose, and its little fox zip pull swung slowly, slower, and then stopped. It was not nervous any more, only tired in the good way that comes after a big day. And very soon, the backpack was asleep too.