Down the Chimney Read online

  They all laugh.

  Once the blackbirds’ songs have been safely stored on their spaceship’s memory banks, Googol hands back Pippa’s tape recorder.

  “Thank you. Now I think we must go back to our Sunship,” Googol tells her.

  “Must you?” Troy asks. “You haven’t got half the things on your list yet.”

  “And you used up all your snowballs,” Pippa reminds them.

  “That is true,” Googol says. “We will have to stop at the North Pole on the way home and get some more.”

  Pippa and Troy are very sad when they realize that the robots really mean to leave.

  “Don’t worry,” Googolplex tells them. “Our scavenger hunt is not over. We are just going home to recharge our spaceship. Then we will be back.”

  “Soon?” Troy asks.

  “Oh, very soon,” Googolple says. “It doesn’t take too many of your earth hours to get to our Sunship and back again.”

  “I wish we could go with you,” Pippa says.

  “I think the father-who-is-not-king would miss you,” Googol says.

  “I think he would too,” Troy agrees. But Troy still dreams about how incredible it would be someday to visit the robot’s Sunship.

  “Good-bye, then,” Troy says, as the robots drop the ramp door to let them out of their spaceship.

  “Hold on! I’ve got to give you something before you go!” Pippa says.

  She runs back to her house. When she comes back she is carrying a bread and butter knife. “So you can make a square snowman!”

  Googol carefully puts the knife into the compartment in his chest. “Oh, thank you! We will have a great time at the North Pole now!”

  “Just remember to retract your wheels this time,” Troy tells them.

  “We will!” Googol promises.

  “We will!” Googolplex promises. And then they are off.

  Troy and Pippa wave for a few moments at the empty blue sky. Then they walk slowly back to the house.

  “What do you imagine a square snowman will look like?” Troy asks Pippa.

  “All lovely and smooth with lots of sharp corners and edges, I imagine,” Pippa says. “Just like Googol and Googolplex.”

  That night, Pippa and Troy look out of their bedroom window and watch for shooting stars.

  “You haven’t seen any, have you?” Troy asks Pippa.

  “Not one,” Pippa answers.

  Troy sighs. “I wish I knew where they were right now.”

  They snuggle down in their beds to go to sleep.

  “I’m sure glad Googol and Googolplex decided to come down our chimney,” Pippa says sleepily.

  “Me too,” Troy says.

  “I hope Santa Claus doesn’t mind someone else using it,” Pippa says.

  Troy laughs. “I don’t think he will, as long as Googol and Googolplex don’t get in his way on Christmas Eve. Now go to sleep.”

  That night, while Troy and Pippa lie sleeping, a tiny star shoots across the sky and stops above the earth to shine even more brightly upon it than it did before. And from somewhere far, far away comes the song of a blackbird.

  Nelly Kazenbroot is a published poet, a lyricist and an artist. When her children were younger, she built two tiny robots from Lego, gave them silly voices and characteristics and named them Googol and Googolplex. Now her characters live in print. She lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia.