Teddy Comes Too

Boxes, boxes, everywhere.

The cups went in a box. The books went in a box. The winter clothes went in a box that said WINTER CLOTHES.

Even the curtains came down and went in a box, and the windows looked surprised without them.

“We’re moving to a new house,” said Papa. “Everything is coming with us.”

Golu watched his whole room go into boxes. Then he picked up Teddy and held him tight, tight, tight.

“Not Teddy,” said Golu. “No box for Teddy.”

“No box for Teddy,” Ma agreed. “Some travellers ride in arms.”

So that is how they went to the new house: the boxes in the big truck, and Golu in the car, and Teddy in Golu’s arms, watching everything out the window — the trees going by, the trucks, one cow who did not care about anybody’s moving day.

The new house had new stairs. A new door. A new room, big and strange and echo-y, with Golu’s boxes sitting in it like visitors who didn’t know where to sit.

Golu held Teddy tighter. The new room didn’t smell right. The window was in the wrong place.

But then —

Ma made the bed, Golu’s own bed, with Golu’s own blanket.

Papa put the lamp on the floor and switched it on, warm and yellow, same as always.

Golu climbed in. Teddy climbed in — Teddy always climbs in on the left; that could not change and it did not change.

And Ma sang the song. The same song. The sleeping song, the one from every night of Golu’s whole life, in the same soft voice.

And do you know? With the blanket and the lamp and Teddy-on-the-left and the song — the new room stopped being strange. Right in the middle of the second verse. You could feel it happen.

A house is walls and windows. Those can change.

Home is blanket, lamp, Teddy, song, and the people who sing it.

That comes too. All of it. Every time.

Goodnight, new room. You’re ours now.