Tumble Tales

Learning to Fall

Tumble Tales · Book One

17 pages, free to read · early

Tumble Tales

Learning to Fall

Tumble Tales · Book One

Written by Evan Brake

Tumble Buddy · The Valley Press

Skip to Chapter One

Chapter 1 The Lot
Chapter 2 The Gathering Table
Chapter 3 The Walk to School
Chapter 4 First Day
Chapter 5 The Land
Chapter 6 First Whistle
Chapter 7 The Kit
Chapter 8 Everyone at Once
Chapter 9 The Roll
Chapter 10 The Notice
Chapter 11 The Drills
Chapter 12 Four Words
Chapter 13 Empty
Chapter 14 The Letter
Chapter 15 Overheard
Chapter 16 Rest

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Contents, continued

Chapter 17 Ash, Alone
Chapter 18 The Plan
Chapter 19 The Low
Chapter 20 What They Need to See
Chapter 21 The Proposal
Chapter 22 The Gate
Chapter 23 We’re Going
Chapter 24 Reading It Back
Chapter 25 Downstream
Chapter 26 Skill and Speed
Chapter 27 Style
Chapter 28 The Relay
Chapter 29 The Open Day
Chapter 30 It Stays
Chapter 31 Two Waters
Chapter 32 One Small Thing

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For my children, who I can’t wait to read this to.

And for the boy I used to be, who would have loved to hear it.

Everybody falls. The trick is to roll.

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The Valley

This is where Tumbles lives — a green valley where every kid learns to move.

Map of the Valley — artwork to come.

The Lot A scruffy patch of dust and old wood where every kid learns to move.
The Market Bend The busy heart of town, where the road bends and everyone meets.
The Everflow The river that winds through it all, down and down to the sea.
The Valley School Where Tumbles’s dad teaches, and Build Season fills the halls.
The Homestead Grandpa Rusty’s land at the valley’s edge, forty years in the making.

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The Cast

Who you’ll meet.

Tumbles A young fox who falls a lot, and always gets up.
Skye A rainbow bird who never sits still and always has a joke.
Daisy Sharp and steady, from the sunny Shores. Friend, and rival.
Ash A quiet fox from the cold Ridge who keeps to himself.
Grandpa Rusty Warm, unhurried, and able to do something wonderful.
Bront The big grizzly coach who teaches with stories, not shouting.
Clover The littlest, in a tracksuit two sizes too big.

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Chapter opener art — coming soon

Chapter One

The Lot

Tumbles took a big breath, put his head down, and ran at the wall. He ran as fast as his paws could carry him — and for a small fox, that was fast. He hit the bottom of the wall and scrambled up the curve. One step. Two steps. Three—

—and slid all the way back down into the dirt. Pff. A little cloud of dust floated up around his paws. It was not a crash. Tumbles did not crash. He slid. There was a difference, even if he was the only one who seemed to know it.

"Ooooh, so close!" called a voice from the branches above. It was Skye — a little bird who was every colour at once, like a dropped box of crayons — hanging upside down by his feet, which was Skye's favourite way to watch anything important. "Beautiful slide. Honestly. Top marks for the dust."

The wall was the biggest thing at the Lot. It curved up and up, and then it leaned out over the very top, so the only way to beat it was to run so fast you could run straight up it. Near the top there was a pale, worn patch, smooth as a river stone — the spot where a thousand paws had grabbed on, and a thousand foxes had pulled themselves over. Tumbles had never once touched that patch.

He wanted to. He wanted it more than almost anything — to get all the way to the top while everyone was watching, and have them see him. Really see what he could do.

He backed up. He ran at it again. Three steps. A slide. A puff of dust. His eyes went hot and prickly. He scrunched up his face and frowned the tears back down, the way you do when you are eight years old and you are absolutely not going to cry at a wall.

"That wall's a patient old thing," said a slow, warm voice. "It can wait." Grandpa Rusty was coming across the Lot — and Grandpa Rusty did everything slowly. He was an old red fox with a silver muzzle and big, gentle paws, and he crossed the Lot the way evening crosses the sky: in no hurry at all, and lovely to watch.

He didn't tell Tumbles what he'd done wrong. He didn't tell him to try harder. He just went through the whole slow ceremony of sitting down — a creak, a grunt, an oof — until he was settled in the dirt beside Tumbles, and the two of them were looking up at the wall together. Then he rested one old paw on Tumbles' shoulder.

And something happened that Tumbles had never seen before. The air around them turned soft and golden — a warm, glowing rose-gold, like the very last light of a sunset. Tiny sparks, like little embers, lifted up off his grandpa and drifted slowly into the air.

A warm light woke up at the back of Grandpa Rusty's eyes and simply stayed there, shining. And deep in his own chest, Tumbles felt a low, warm hum — a sound he could feel better than he could hear. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

It didn't move the wall. It didn't do anything at all. It was just there — warm, and golden, and quiet — for as long as his grandpa's paw rested on his shoulder.

Tumbles forgot all about the wall. "Grandpa," he whispered. "What was that?" But Grandpa Rusty only smiled. And the gold faded, as gently as it had come, until the Lot was just the Lot again.

Tumbles kept staring at the place where the light had been. And a brand-new feeling opened up inside him — bigger than the wall, bigger than wanting to be seen. One day, he thought. Maybe one day, something like that could come up out of me, too.

"Right." Grandpa Rusty got slowly back to his feet, with one more creak. He looked down at Tumbles and smiled. "That wall's not going anywhere. One more try?" Tumbles got up.

But the whole way home — as the sky went pink, and the warm lights blinked on all through the village — he wasn't thinking about the wall at all. He was thinking about the gold.

What was that? And will it ever come out of me?

That’s the end of Chapter One.

More of the story is coming.

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