Anna and Pietro were the best of friends. The sort of friends who would do anything for eachother, even if it wasn’t their favorite thing to do.
There was one day, for example, that Anna wanted to swim in White Star Lake - but Pietro thought it was waaaaay too cold. But he didn’t say anything, because it’s what she wanted to do, and in the end - when they’d got up Lomberstack Mountain and got in the lake and got used to the water - they had one of the best days ever. In fact, Pietro was having so much fun, that he didn’t want to get out.
And then there was that one day when Pietro wanted to know how many trees there were in the forest. Well Anna thought it was impossible to count them - and a bit boring. But it was what he wanted to do, and so she pretended she was interested and excited, and then in the end when they got to the forest and tried to count all the trees they soon found it so difficult that they started laughing at how silly the whole thing was and had ANOTHER of one of their best days.
They did things for each other because they were best friends, and so as long as they were in each other’s company - it didn’t really matter who wanted to do what. It would always be good fun.
But they weren’t always together. They lived in different houses on different streets. And sometimes, they only got to see each other at weekends.
So Anna and Pietro had a clever system. During the days that they couldn’t play, they’d draw pictures for each other or write letters, and when they met up, they’d swap the drawing and letters or gifts into each other’s bags at the end of the day. Then, when Anna got back to her house, and Pietro got back to his house, they would find all the new letters and pictures and gifts and pretend that they were still playing together. It was the perfect system.
Now one day, the two friends had been spending the whole afternoon storing pine cones up a tree. It involved a lot of running around, a lot of searching for pine cones, a lot of climbing up, a lot of nest building in the branches, and a lot of climbing down again. And by the time they got home to Anna’s house, and it was time for Pietro to go home, they were so tired they barely had the energy to say goodbye.
And by mistake, Pietro left with Anna’s rucksack, and didn’t notice all the way home! And Anna carried Pietro’s rucksack upstairs, and she was so tired she didn’t even notice it wasn’t hers when she put it up on her desk!
After she’d brushed her teeth, Anna sat down on her bed and thought ‘I already miss Pietro, I wonder if he’s left a letter or a gift in my rucksack?’
So she dragged herself over to the desk, picked up Pietro’s rucksack, and carried it back to the bed.
“This isn’t mine!” she said!
At Pietro’s house, he picked up what he thought was his rucksack. “This isn’t mine!” he said.
At Anna’s house, she sat on the bed and wondered what to do.
“I know,” she said. “I’ll put a present in his rucksack now, and then at least it will be there for when his mummy or daddy come over to pick up the bag in the morning.”
She wrote a letter and drew a picture of them both collecting pine cones, and wrote Anna at the bottom, and put it in Pietro’s bag to keep it safe.
But then - an extraordinary thing happened. A magic thing happened.
Pietro sat on his bed in his house looking at Anna’s bag, when it began to GLOW. Fairy dust and sparks zipped all around it, and then all was calm again.
A little scared, but being very brave, he opened the bag and found… A letter from Anna! It must have just got there because it had a picture of them collecting pine cones, and had Anna written at the bottom.
But how did it get there? Was it the letter elves?
Pietro suddenly didn’t feel tired anymore - this was amazing! He found a pencil and some paper, and quickly but neatly drew a picture of Lomberstack mountain, and half way up, drew White Star Lake where they liked to play. ‘Meet you here tomorrow,’ he wrote. And then he wrote ‘Pietro’ at the bottom.
He placed the letter inside the bag, and did it up tight.
At Anna’s house, Anna sat on her bed and watched in amazement as fairy dust and sparks began to zip around Pietro’s bag. When everything had calmed down and she’d steadied her nerve, she reached inside and brought out - Pietro’s letter!
“Meet you here tomorrow,” she read, and looked at the picture of White Star Lake up Lomberstack Mountain.
“He wants to meet me tomorrow at the lake!” Anna yelled.
“Who are you talking to in there?” asked Anna’s mummy from the hall.
“Oh! …Just myself..” Anna said.
But what time did he want to meet her? That was very important. If you’re going to meet someone, you need to know what time.
She was about to write a note saying ’10 o’clock’ on a piece of paper, but then, looking around her room, she had a better idea.
She took her red alarm clock, set the hand to 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.. 10. And then put it in the bag.
At Pietro’s house, Anna’s bag glowed and fairy dust and sparks zipped. He opened it and took out a red alarm clock. ‘It must be a message!’ he thought. And then he counted where the small hand was..
“Ten! It’s on ten! She wants to meet me at 10 o’clock!”
He was about to write a message saying ‘OK’, but then had a better idea.
He drew a picture of a thumb pointing upwards and put in the bag.
And can you imagine what happened at Anna’s house? Zip and flash and bang and she opened the bag to bring out - a drawing of a thumb? And why was it pointed down?
Then she turned the paper around. “Oh it says ‘OK!’” she yelled!
“What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing!”
So the next day, at ten o’clock, the two friends met by White Star Lake, half way up Lomberstack Mountain. And all because of their magic bags.
Thankfully, Anna had remembered to bring a picnic, and as they sat in the long grass by the water and ate it - sharing some with a toad - Anna remembered: “Oh, Pietro, here’s your bag back!”
But Pietro didn’t take it.
“I think,” said Pietro. “We might have a very magic system going on here. Let’s keep each other’s bags. Let’s keep them exactly the way around they are!”
“GOOD IDEA!” laughed Anna.
And how did the magic happen? Was the letter elves? Was it the bag pixies?
Well who knows, but what we do know is that when you’ve got two friends are as good a friends as Anna and Pietro, magic is always possible.
