Alphabet Allie's Arc

Chapter 18 of 20

Allie stepped out of the shanty and stretched. The shelves inside held her whole alphabet now, safe and sorted. She was ready to walk on when a long whistle cut the air. She turned. A bright train rolled along a track she had not noticed before, TRAIN painted big across its side. It hissed to a stop near a tall tree at the edge of the sand. A door swung open. A turkey stepped down. His feathers fanned brown and gold behind him. He wore a heavy coat sewn with acorns and a wreath of red leaves at his neck. Boots thumped the boards as he walked. He did not look at Allie. He walked straight past her, eyes fixed on the tree. Allie followed a few steps behind. High in the branches sat a treehouse with a rope ladder swinging under it. At the base of the tree, on a flat stump, sat a typewriter. Its keys shone. The word TYPEWRITER ran across the front in yellow letters. The turkey sat down at the stump. He rolled a clean sheet of paper into the machine. His feathered fingers hovered over the keys. "Excuse me," Allie said. "Who are you?" "Thomas Turkey," he said, without turning. "And I am late. The story is due at sundown." Allie stepped closer. "What story?" "Any story." He tapped one key. The letter T struck the page. "They start with these. I forget which one goes first." Allie leaned in. The paper was blank except for that one T. Thomas stared at the keyboard like it was a puzzle he had lost the picture for. "You already picked one," Allie said. "T. For Thomas. For Turkey. For the tree, and the train, and the typewriter." Thomas blinked. He looked at the T on the page. He looked at his coat. He looked at the treehouse above him. "All of it starts with me," he said slowly. "All of it starts with T," Allie said. "That's five words already." She pulled out her crayon and her last loose page. She wrote them down. Thomas. Turkey. Train. Tree. Typewriter. She held the page up so he could see. Thomas laughed, a short honking laugh. He pressed the keys faster. The typewriter clacked. Words filled the page in a neat row. He kept going. Tail. Twig. Ticket. Thunder. "Keep saying them," he said. "I'll keep writing." Allie did. She called out every T word she could find around her, and Thomas turned each one into a line. When the page was full, he pulled it free and handed it to her. His story. Her list. The same thing. "Take it," he said. "You started it." Allie folded the page and ran back to the shanty. She slid it onto the T shelf. It fit like it had always belonged there.