In the morning, heavy clouds hung over the blocks. Cocoa smelled in the kitchen, and new wellingtons were waiting on a chair by the window: blue, with tiny silver dots, like a sky full of tiny moons. Zosia touched their tips. They were cool and smooth, and as she slipped her feet in, she heard a quiet: plim. - Did you hear that, Mummy? - Zosia raised her eyebrows. - 'Probably the rubber band was happy to have someone inside,' her mum laughed, zipping up her jacket. - 'Cap over your ears, darling. The rain is playing a whole concert today. Petal the cat, white as icing sugar, jumped onto the windowsill and nudged the hood string with his paw. - 'Meow,' he said, as if he wanted to add: Don't forget me. - I'll be back in a minute! - promised Zosia and waved him through the glass. Her footsteps echoed in the stairwell: stomp, stomp, stomp. Outside, the air was fresh, cool and smelled of wet leaves. Drops drummed against the canopy above the entrance: kap, kap, kap. As Zosia stood on the pavement, her wellingtons responded: plim, plim, plum. The sounds matched the rain as if they knew the notes. The courtyard turned into a glittering world. The swing swayed quietly, the sandpit was as smooth as a cake covered in jelly, and the benches were crawling with paths of droplets that met and parted as if playing tag. Neighbour Mr Staszek was leading his dog Felka, who tried to catch the rain in his teeth, but the drops escaped him with a cheerful: tick! Zosia jumped over the first puddle. - Plim! - sang the wellingtons. As she landed on the other side, the rain stopped for a second on the nose of her shoe and slipped off like a pearl. - Plim! - added the other shoe, because he didn't want to be worse. - How do you guys do it? - whispered Zosia, looking at her feet. The drops answered her with a gentle clatter against the hood: kap-kap-kap, as if they were talking: We are listening. We are listening. Zosia began to walk along the path of tiny puddles that arched between the birch trees and the bench. She noticed something else: where she put her feet, the water did not simply splash. Instead of splashing out sideways, it drew thin circles, circles exactly like the circles on milk when her mother stirs cocoa with a spoon - only that these circles formed patterns. A circle, a heart, a crescent. And then a circle again. - Circle, heart, moon - repeated Zosia, laughing under her breath. - These are some kind of rain signs. By the swing, the rain began to fall more evenly, like a drum. Suddenly everything became quiet. It seemed that even the leaves were listening. Zosia raised her head. At the end of the path, by an old rowan bush, there was a puddle. It was not large, but somehow it looked different from all of them. Its edge was perfectly round and the water was so smooth that Zosia could see her eyes in it like two little skies. She looked at the canopy of the swing - drops were rolling lazily down it. She looked at the puddle - it wasn't dripping in the middle at all. It was as if she had her own quiet umbrella. - Oh dear - it slipped out of Zosia's mind. - How pretty... She crouched down and touched the surface with her finger. The water vibrated, and a thin blue shimmer appeared in the trembling. Her wellingtons murmured pleasantly, as if they sat on a warm blanket. From the other end of the puddle came a soft: plum, so soft that it was more felt than heard. - Plim - the left shoe replied. - Plum - added the right one. The puddle flashed a silver circle. Zosia leaned in more. Instead of pebbles at the bottom, she saw something completely unlike the yard: it looked like a tiny step of bright pebbles, widening downwards like a snail, and something that resembled a window - not a real window with glass, but a window of light, slightly open, like an eyelid just before morning. - 'Mum says I'm not supposed to sit in the wet,' whispered Zosia to the puddle, as she suddenly had the feeling it was necessary to speak quietly. - But I can look. Then the rain played three short notes on the hood: tik-tik-tik. A rowan bird leapt onto a lower branch and bowed its head. The leaves rustled as if to say: Come on. The edge of the puddle lit up very softly, like a strand of lights on a Christmas tree. Zosia felt a tickle in her ankles, as if someone was touching her skin through her socks with tiny feathers. Her wellingtons stood up more confidently, as if they knew where to go. - 'I think you guys are really leading me,' she said to her boots and took a step forward. Felk was gone and Mr Staszek had disappeared around the corner of the block. The courtyard seemed suddenly very quiet. Even the bell of a neighbour's bicycle somewhere far away sounded soft, as if it was reaching through the quilt. Zosia approached the edge of a round puddle. The water popped one round bubble and spilled circles so even that they looked like they had been drawn with a compass. The window of light at the bottom flared up a tad, literally as much as the wink of Petal's cat as he pretended to sleep. - Hello? - Zosia asked, as it seemed polite to say hello. Words did not answer her. What answered was the smell. It smelled of freshly cut grass, warm toast and that place in the park where the first daisies always appear in spring. It smelled in such a way that Zosia felt herself getting light-headed and her knees bending to crouch on their own. Then, quite quietly, as if someone had whispered straight into a puddle, the water said: shoo.... Zosia drew in a deep breath. Her wellingtons murmured to the rhythm of the rain. She pressed her fingers to the edge to keep her balance. The light at the bottom moved - not like a torch, but like the shadow of a cloud in a meadow - and formed a soft, bright line that started just below the surface. - If I go one step... - she thought aloud and lifted her foot over the first, luminous step, and the puddle twitched at the same instant and