The Anger That Would Not Sit Down

But Bram pushed off hard with the tips of his toes.“One more!” he called. “Only one more!”Lotte’s hands went hot and her feet went stampand her turn slipped away like a door.

Then up from the grass came a crackle of redwith sparks in its hair and hot feet.It sat on her shoes and it tangled her fingersand stamped out a furious beat.

Pip bounced on the basket. “I’ll fix it!” he cried.“Perhaps,” answered Ponder, “but first—”and he climbed down slowly and sat on the grassbeside the red crackle at its loudest and worst.

He opened his ochre notebook and said,“You are hot. You are loud. I would like to know why.Who are you, red crackle? What brought you here?”The crackle stamped once in reply.

They fetched the small chair with the round yellow cushionand one leg that wobbled a bit.“Sit here, red crackle. Say what you came for.”But the crackle was far too hot to sit.

It stamped and it sparked and it kicked at the legtill the wobbly one rattled and rocked.“IT WASN’T FAIR!” roared the crackle at last—and nobody hushed it. Nobody mocked.

Lotte ran to the washing line. “Oma!” she called.“He swung and he swung, and my turn never came!”Oma put down the pegs and knelt on the grasstill their two pairs of eyes were the same.

She did not say “Hush.” She did not say, “Come,it is only a swing—go and play.”She said, “You waited a long time, my Lotte.That was not fair. Say it your way.”

Ponder turned to the crackle. “You’re loud,” he said kindly,“as loud as a drum in the sun.What is it you’re guarding so carefully, then?”“HER TURN!” said the crackle. “She counted to one hundred and one.”

“She counted a hundred. She waited. It went.”Ponder wrote it in ochre and read it aloud.“You are hot because something was taken from Lotte.”And the crackle sat down—and it sat there, proud.

Then Pip gave a hop. “One small thing,” he said,“not the whole afternoon in one go.”From his blue pocket he pulled a small pinwheeland he held it in front of the glow.

“Blow all of the hot out—right here, at the wheel.”Lotte blew, and it whirred, and it spun.The crackle blew too, and its sparks went to work,and its red cooled to orange, like sun.

“Now,” said Pip, “say the one thing that’s true.Not the whole speech. Just the true little bit.”Lotte walked to the swing with her orange warm cracklebeside her, still glowing, still lit.

“I waited a hundred. The next turn is mine.”Bram stopped the swing and slid to the ground.“I’m sorry, Lotte. I lost count of turns—I didn’t once notice you waiting around.”

“It comes when a thing isn’t fair,” Ponder said,“and it’s hot, and it’s loud, and it’s true.It is not to be put out. It cools when it’s heard.We call this one Anger. Now so can you.”

He wrote ANGER in big ochre letters and smiled.The crackle glowed steady and small:not spitting, not sparking, not stamping her shoes—just warm, like a coal, after all.

That night, on the rug by Lotte’s green iron bed,an ember glowed orange and small.“You didn’t put me out,” it said to Lotte.“You heard me. That’s all. That is all.”

Ponder shut the ochre notebook. Pip climbed to the shelf.Ponder followed him up to his place.The small ember rested warm on the rug by the bed,still warming the space.