The First Snow: a free five-minute bedtime story about the first snow of winter

Anya was supposed to be asleep. But something had changed in her room. The light coming through the curtains was different. Softer. Whiter. As if the streetlamp outside had put on a woolly hat. She slid out of bed and pulled the curtain back, just a little. Snow. It was falling in big, slow flakes, turning in the lamplight, taking their time. The first snow of the year. The pavement was already white. The parked cars had white blankets. The bins had little white hats. "Grandpa," she whispered, padding into the living room, where her grandfather sat with his book. "Grandpa, it's snowing." Grandpa put down his book, and together they went to the big window and looked out at the town. "Listen," said Grandpa. Anya listened. And that was when she noticed the strangest thing of all. The town had gone quiet. Usually at night she could hear the cars on the big road, and the dog two doors down, and the train in the distance. But the snow was catching every sound and tucking it away, the way a blanket tucks away the cold. "Snow is the quietest weather," said Grandpa. "Rain chatters. Wind shouts. But snow just says shhh." They watched a flake land on the window. It held its shape for a moment, a tiny star with six arms, and then melted into a drop. "Every flake is a different star," said Grandpa. "Nobody has ever found two the same. And they only fall at night like this when the whole sky is holding its breath." Down in the street, a single cat walked across the fresh snow, lifting each paw high and shaking it, and left a line of small neat prints behind. The baker's window went dark. The last bus slid by, slowly, with only the driver inside, and its tracks filled in again behind it. "Where do the birds go?" asked Anya. "Into the hedges," said Grandpa, "all fluffed up, close together. Where does the cat go?" "Home," said Anya, watching the prints turn the corner. "And where do the Anyas go?" Anya yawned, a big one. The snow seemed to have tucked that away too, because it came out almost silent. Grandpa carried her back to her room. He pulled the curtain open a little wider, so she could see the flakes still turning in the lamplight, and he tucked the blanket around her, right up to her chin. "In the morning," he said, "the whole town will be new. Nobody will have walked on it yet. It will be waiting for your boots." "Shhh," said Anya, who was almost asleep, in her best snow voice. "Shhh," said Grandpa, and he turned out the light. Outside, the flakes kept falling, slow and white and silent, over the quiet town, over the hedges full of birds, over the small neat cat prints, and over the window of a girl who was already dreaming about her boots.

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The First Snow

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