FALTER MACREE GAVE his doorstep another vigorous dusting. He wished for some rain to settle the dust so he could concentrate on staring at the door from behind the counter, just to see if someone might pass through it. Perhaps a rain shower would make passersby seek shelter and by some miracle choose his shop to shelter in.

Then they would be amazed at his display of toy goods, purchase stuff and actually help him make a living.

Grimly the man smiled to himself, for this was the only humour he could find right now in this splendid land of opportunity.

Miracles were not part of the Frangea dream, not for him anyway.

It seemed a good opportunity when he first set up shop. A trading unit with modest but adequate floor space between a used furniture store and a rag shop that seemed to take stuff in but never allow anyone to take it out again. A sort of horder shop it was, waiting perhaps to go bankrupt or meet some other dissolution. The worrying gossip among the neighbourhood suggested the owner was contemplating fire insurance and the occasional waft of strong spirits caused the Macrees sleepless nights.

It was a quiet street, ideal for contemplation on what might be wrong and Falter had plenty of time to discuss business matters with the more forthcoming furniture guy next door. The latter liked to polish three-legged tables on his high front steps for his property was oddly three feet above that of the toy shop. He explained it allowed him to look down on his customers.

"I for one would simply like to look them in the eye once in a while," Falter responded in his usual grim humour mood.

The quietness was a thing not mentioned in the optimistic brochure that had brought him west to Cherryball Flats. There were supposed to be no quiet streets in such a booming metropolis. Yet here was a quiet little forgotten corner between affluence, a dark pool of oblivion shunned by busy folk intent on spending and making money in equal measure.

Passing Lane it was called, a narrow passage between two larger streets occasionally used by those wishing to get from one place to another, a shortcut for those in a hurry, too busy to stop and look around.

Unless one were a wide-eyed girl trying to take in a new world all at once.

***

VETTA MINDAL managed to absorb some aspect of the last lesson of the morning before lunch, something about grid manifestations, where everything was located across the Face of the World. She felt happy that her homeland of Poldorama was flat and nice and simple with canals leading to wherever anyone might want to go, whether to Shivering or the windy lakes near Dampenwet up north.

"Don't need a grid locator map to find the Squeaky Tomato," Meresinth said as she tugged the dreamy Vetta along a corridor with Esper and Anthera in tow. The other Wonder dorm girls had already gone ahead, by the clever strategy of being nearest the door in Pirouette's case and the rapid departure by sheer exuberant energy of Dolly Bloomen. Like a surging river in flood she raced out of the main building and down the winding track to book places for the other girls in their now regular eatery in Cherryball Flats.

"This place is so full of strange things," Vetta said as she wandered along a walkway after the meal, lingering to look at shop fronts that advertised novelty cushions and fruit displays from Gloriosa and Frangea's own orchards to the south, though the cacti salad looked rather risky to her mind.

Esper paused, seeing the Poldorama girl lost in fascination once more.

"Leave her," Pirouette said. "She's on one of her pilgrimages."

"Yes," Esper agreed. "I think you are right. No harm will come to her."

Thus as she stood there trying to figure out the significance of inflatables hanging above the doorway to a strange, dimly lit entrance the others quietly departed. Vetta was in a kind of trance-like rapture amid the bustle of a busy city intent on the business of making money, or transferring already made money to other locations, sometimes without the owner's knowledge.

"This is," Vetta began, but realised she was alone. Not alone, for other foot traffic milled around her and three tried to ply her with flyers which she took politely before they disappeared. Placing them unread in her shoulder bag, a dull brown one with not a single shiny star upon it, Vetta moved along the sunlit street and sought shade in narrow alleyways leading off from the main thoroughfare. She repeated this process several times, always thrilled to see steps leading up or down for she was unused to such a varied level in the ground. Some buildings looked at times like they were built on top of others, yet when she investigated she found they were merely overlooking from a greater height.

"How strange to look out of a window and see someone's roof below you," she mused happily. A winding lane took her past tall warehouses that terrified her a little and a towering block ahead made her neck ache to stare up at such heights with windows in them.

"One builds mountains here," she gasped at times.

"Careful lady," a voice said as a cloud of dust wafted towards her, having been raised by some vigorous brushing by a shopkeeper.

Vetta looked down and saw a fine patina of grime now decorating her school shoes.

"I'm sorry," the man said, seeing the damage done. "It gets so dusty in this place I'm forever trying to fight it. People don't usually stand about in Passing Lane. The clue being in the name and all."

"These shoes can be cleaned," Vetta said calmly, wiping the dust away with quick gestures. "I am sorry for not passing. Everything here is so fascinating and new to me. I have never been down this way before." Then her eyes widened as she looked past the man with his broom.

"Is that a-?"

"Yes, a secondhand furniture shop," the man interrupted.

"No, I mean next to it."

With this the broom-wielding shopkeeper turned and looked to where she was pointing.

"You can see that?" he said doubtfully and stood next to her, as if assuring himself she could.

"It's a toy shop," Vetta confirmed pleasantly. "A toy shop must surely contain wonderful things, like toys."

"There is only one way to truly experience such marvels," the man said, seemingly inspired by the interest of this curious girl. "Please to enter."

He held open the dusty door for the small, bright-haired figure to pass through. She did so in eager fashion and his heart swelled so much at the display of unwonted interest that his humour took on a slightly less grim tone.

"Marthy," he declared, "we have a child."

***

THE GIRL WAS very much like a small child indeed as she explored the various items in the shop.

"You like toys?" Falter Macree said.

Vetta paused in her exploration.

"I am unsure," she replied.

"All children like toys." The man gulped as he said this for clearly not all children liked his toys. There they sat on various shelves. Untouched. Unwanted. Unloved.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Vetta looked at some blocks of wood. Building blocks supposedly, yet they appeared merely pieces of wood tidily placed upon a shelf, a miniature supply of builders' material. She held up a piece and smiled.

"When I was young I did not play with toys," she said, now all of eleven years old. "I learnt from them." She turned the block over in her fingers thoughtfully. "Some toys I ran with and threw and chased about so that I got the desired exercise papa wished me to have to stay healthy. And some I shared with others to help make friends."

"Was all that fun?"

There was a silence in the shop which seemed to linger. From the back room a slight sound could be heard and Marthy stepped softly into the show room. She glanced uneasily at her husband and then fixed her gaze on the girl, soft pale curls dancing in the light as she gathered more of the blocks in a curious embrace, almost like a hunger to acquire. Some she dropped and then picked up, and then she placed them on the counter in neat rows.

"See," she said. "What do these blocks tell you? They are all the same. To look from one to another is like gazing at one patch of blue sky and then at another. It is fascinating but doesn't make me think any more than that."

She added more blocks, slightly smaller ones.

"A little better," she sighed. Then abruptly she turned big blue eyes on the toymaker and smiled, her face shining with the light of inspiration.

"What if," she said, breathing in little shallow gasps, "what if you were to paint these blocks? Not just one colour, but different ones, like a rainbow? Each colour tells something about the one next to it. I am blue and you are almost blue. No I am green and you are almost green like me." It was comical the way she rehearsed these conversations, moving back and forth, and Marthy Macree smiled, a curious pain in her heart at variance with that smile. Vetta's own demeanour was one of rising excitement.

"You could number the colours too," she said in a burst of inspiration. "Anyone with a complete set might line the colours up by shade. This would line the numbers too and the blocks would have to admit their closeness to each other."

"There is fun in that?"

"It is a challenge. And the outcome would be like knowing things I think. Learning numbers and learning colours." Then she rolled a block over and over. "There are six sides," she said excitedly as if more ideas were coming to her. "Different colours, more numbers, multiples of numbers, lots and lots of them. And words too! Names of things." She sat down on the floor with some blocks and arranged them in imaginary ways, lost in her own experiments, reliving past joy, forgetting there was anyone else there.

Falter Macree and Marthy looked at each other, the one frowning and the other smiling softly. Then Vetta stood abruptly and the silent exchange of thoughts between the couple was interrupted by another surge of exploration.

The girl, having abandoned her blocks, went over to where small jigsaw pieces sat in boxes. She held up one between finger and thumb.

"You could make these bigger," she said brightly.

"Why?" the man mouthed, shaking his head.

"Exercise," his wife supplied the answer quickly, catching on to the girl's theme. "Moving things about. Stretching, twisting, reaching and grasping."

Vetta smiled, dropping the piece back into its box with a clatter. Then she went over to the dolls.

"How lovely these clothes are," she said, admiring the complex, colourful stitching of dainty frocks upon the wooden figures with their simple carved faces, blank staring eyes and woollen straggles of hair.

"I made them," Marthy said quietly.

"I am amazed," Vetta declared "They would look lovely on real children too."

She took a doll down, cradled it in a way that made Marthy Macree's heart ache, and then replaced the figure neatly where she had found it, positioned so that it appeared to be conversing with another doll sat in another splendid frock, like they were the best of friends having a gossip.

"I have found," Vetta said in that solemn explanatory way she had when trying to impart thoughts to others that were hard for her own self to grasp, "many people learn about things from others in all sorts of ways. They show things and display things and pass on little bits of information in things that fly."

"Flyers," Falter said grimly.

"They spread this good news far and wide so everyone can benefit from it."

"Advertising," Falter added more grimly.

"I know you must tell people about this lovely toy shop because all shops tell everyone they are there."

"Trade directory," Marthy said with a laugh.

"But," and Vetta paused.

"But what?"

"These clothes are not like toys. They could be real."

"They could," and Marthy's voice broke a little as she said this.

Vetta wondered if the couple had children of their own as her mind raced through ideas.

"And real children should be told about them."

"They might." There was another surge of pain in Marthy's Macree's side just then and she took a deep breath. Her husband went to her.

Vetta, not seeing the growing restlessness of the couple just then, raced out of the shop and into the dusty street where a number of passersby made their way to whatever destination they had in mind. Briefly Vetta scanned the figures in their various autumn costumes, which bore little difference in such a kind climate from those of summer. She espied a mother and young daughter walking side by side. The girl was clutching to herself what appeared to be a peach-coloured unburstable beach ball as a thing most precious. In fact she clutched it so tightly it looked almost ready to burst.

"Kind lady," Vetta said, simply knowing her to be so.

The mother paused a little uncertainly and the tiny girl, pressed against her mother's side, stared at the curly-haired creature standing there in a striped tie, bright blouse and grey plaited skirt.

"What is it child?" The woman was herself dressed in a simple woollen frock with a narrow belt that suggested casual affluence. Her daughter wore a similar garment in a faint shade of pink and upon her head was a rainbow hat that looked as if it had been knitted by a machine. There was something so precise and hard about the stitching.

"Kind lady," Vetta repeated and held up a garment she had borrowed from one of the dolls in the toy shop. "Have you seen this?"

"It is not my Deesie's," the woman said, mistaking Vetta's purpose.

"Do you not think it might be though?" Vetta said. "It is so lovely," and she looked at the shy girl with a smile of encouragement.

"Mama, can I see?" the girl squeaked.

"There you go again, chasing after things," her mother laughed. Then she smiled at Vetta. "She saw that ball tossing about in the waves one morning while we were at the beach, rescued it and then wandered up and down asking anyone if they had lost it. When no one claimed it she called it her own and I can't do anything to get it off her."

After these words the woman took the garment from Vetta's hand and looked more closely at it.

"This is very soft, and made by hand. My mother used to stitch like that, years ago. Over-priced Mapenza High Step stuff replaced it a while back. Did someone drop it and you are trying to find out who? That's very kind of you."

Vetta pointed at the glass-fronted shop opposite.

"It comes from there," she said.

"A cheap toy shop?" The lady frowned.

"They have clothes like this too, for girl dolls and perhaps even real girls," and Vetta smiled at Deesie who now had possession of the garment as well as the ball and was rubbing it against her face.

"Mama, this is nice. Can I have one?"

"We shall see." She took the garment from her daughter, whose face wore a look of tragic regret, and handed it back to Vetta. "So you are advertising for the shop owner over there are you?" she said, a little hardness entering her voice for the first time.

"Yes," Vetta replied briefly. "Only not really. He does not know. Only it seems such a shame these pretty frocks are not better known here in this place for they are so lovely and his wife makes them all the time because it seems something she really wants to do." This explanation came out all in a rush.

"Well," the lady laughed. "You are a funny one. Run along back to the knitting lady and tell her I like what you showed me. I have elsewhere to be at the moment so cannot go with you. Wait, here's my family business card." She handed a lilac-coloured rectangle with writing upon it which Vetta did not read for she did not understand what it was.

"Thank you," Vetta said and scampered away back to the shop, having done enough for the moment as far as she was concerned.

"What were you doing?" Falter Macree said gently as the girl came back into the shop and laid the garment on a shelf. "I saw you from the window talking to that rich woman and showing her one of my wife's knitted things."

"Rich woman?" Vetta paused. "Is everyone rich in Frangea?"

"No child, they are not."

Vetta then explained what she had done.

"She called me an advertiser," Vetta laughed, "though really I was trying to be a friend. Look, she gave me something too in a friendly way." She then handed the lilac-coloured card over to Falter, who glanced at it, then began blinking rapidly.

"What did she say?"

"She liked the garment."

Falter passed the card to his wife who read it wide-eyed.

"This says," she gasped.

"I know."

Vetta looked at the couple and for the first time felt there was a sense of happiness surrounding them, like a warm blanket on a cold harsh day.

"Toys," she said, "bring joy."

With that she departed the shop for it was time she should return to school and learn stuff like mathematical intuition and deep state metaphysics.

Her absence created a void of wonder, for she was in truth a Wonder girl.

Falter Macree took the business card from his wife again to gaze at it some more. His wife looked around at the contents of the shop, imagining things very differently, seeing colours and numbers and words everywhere. Fun with numbers.

"I think," she said, "we have just witnessed a miracle."

What she did not know at that time but would very soon was another kind of miracle. For new life stirred within her.