Desmond has been working on something, and tonight he finally does it for the others. It is an impression of Odin, the oldest and slowest and kindest fish on the whole reef, and it is very, very good. The cousins come apart laughing. They ask for it again. They ask for it eleven more times. And then Odin comes out of his hollow, which Odin does not do, because he had heard everybody laughing and he had something he wanted to tell them. A gentle bedtime story about the difference between the two kinds of laughing, and about a joke you can only fix by making a better one. Broadcasting from the laundry room very late, where a sock named SOCK is still looking for his brother and Goofy Daddy does an impression he is extremely proud of.

Settle in, dreamer. Have a look, every so often, at who is laughing.

Jack finds a little piece of sea glass on the sand, worn soft and smooth by years and years of ocean. When he holds it up, the moon shines right through it and comes out the green of the inside of a wave. It is the first thing in the whole Coral Shallows that belongs to only him, and he tucks it away under his flipper where nobody else can reach. Then he goes out to the far wall, further than the cousins usually go, and meets somebody who lives in a long dark crack in the coral and has never once wanted to leave it. A gentle bedtime story about the hardest kind of giving, and about a small green light in a place that never had one. Broadcasting from the end of the driveway in bare feet, where the asphalt is still warm from the day and a mailbox named Bill has been keeping one postcard safe for years without ever knowing what it says.

Settle in, dreamer. Some things are worth more where you put them than where you keep them.

A travelling sea turtle named AvaBleu stops at the Coral Shallows for one night, and Quinn has already worked out exactly where she should sleep. The warmest spot. The softest spot. Quinn is right about every single bit of it. But AvaBleu keeps saying, very kindly, that she would rather lie out on the open sand. So Quinn explains it again. And then she explains it better. A gentle bedtime story about the moment you stop making your point and ask a question instead, and about all the things somebody will tell you if you do. Broadcasting from the laundry room floor, where a brand new bed sits on top of the warm dryer and a cat is asleep in the cardboard box it came in, down on the cold floor, having reviewed both.

Settle in, dreamer. Try asking them how come.

Out on the moonlit reef, Leo watches the big dolphins leap clear out of the water and into the sky - and he wants to do it right now, more than he's ever wanted anything. But the shallows are calm and still, and the big leap needs the big water, and the big water comes with the tide. With a slow old grouper named Odin keeping watch and a floaty otter named Wade to drift beside him, Leo learns the hardest, bravest thing a daredevil can do. A gentle bedtime story about the long, blue minute before the wonderful thing arrives - broadcasting from the back step, where two little mushrooms are growing side by side in a forgotten rain boot.

Settle in, dreamer. It's already on its way to you.

The cousins have followed the water all the way to a new home — a warm, moonlit reef called the Coral Shallows. It's their very first night, and everything is new. Desmond decides the way to make a strange new place feel like home is to be the biggest, loudest, funniest fish in the whole sea... until a kind old crab shows him there's a quieter way to belong. A gentle bedtime story about how much you can hear once you stop making noise — with two old friends waiting on the reef, and the same sea humming inside a little shell.

Settle in, dreamer. Let's listen for the quiet.

It's the cousins' last evening in the Whispering Woods - tomorrow the whole family moves to a new home by the sea. Leo wants to make the goodbye enormous, then wants to skip it altogether, until the smallest friend in the woods sits him down by the creek and shows him something about where the water is going. A tender season-two finale about leaving a place you love, and how you get to carry it with you — because the creek that runs out of the woods is headed for the very same sea, and what leaves always finds its way back. Tonight Goofy Daddy broadcasts from the edge of the bed with Shelley the seashell, who holds the whole ocean and only ever says one thing.

Settle in, dreamer. Follow the water home.

There's a part of the path home where the evening wind moves through the leaves and the whole stretch seems to whisper — and tonight a brand-new friend, a little fennec fox named Oren, is far too scared to walk through it. So is Jack, if he's honest. A gentle bedtime story about how the scariest sound in the dark, when you stop and really listen, turns out to be only the woods saying goodnight — and how the bravest thing you can hand a frightened friend is a quiet "me too." Broadcasting tonight from the basement corner, with Bello the mushroom, who is perfectly happy in the dark.

Settle in, dreamer. Point your ears at the quiet.

The quick way home is washed out tonight, so the cousins have to take the long way round — and Quinn, who always knows the

way, decides to fold up her map and walk at the back for a change.

What happens when the cousin who's always three steps ahead lets everyone else go first? Jack notices a path the others

would've walked right past. Desmond turns a wrong turn into the best part of the whole night. Leo leads them somewhere

just a little braver than Quinn would've picked. And Quinn finds out the woods stay just as warm whether or not she's the

one out front.

A slow, winding walk home through the Whispering Woods, told the way bedtime likes it — soft, unhurried, with lots of room

to breathe.

Curl up, dreamer. We're taking the long way tonight.

Goodnight... to you.

Pssst. Hey.

Tonight the cousins go on a real trip - all the way to the sea. There's a whole list of wonderful things to do… until they meet Wade, an otter who treasures one plain grey rock, and Pim, a little crab who wouldn't trade his small shell for the world. A slow, warm bedtime story about the big ocean - and the small things floating in it.

Close your eyes. And goodnight… to you.

Chapter 2 of Slicko The Jumping Squirrel

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56510/pg56510-images.html#CHAPTER_II

Get your copy here: ⁠Slicko, The Jumping Squirrel: Her Many Adventures