- The voice
- Bright, adventurous, tires himself out
- Home
- Moss LandHome. Everyone in it is quietly getting sleepy
- Part of
- Animal SchoolThe daytime lot, from Moss Land.
- How home goes to sleep
- It goes to sleep when its stepping stones stop rocking.
The story of Uncle Penny Bear
Uncle Penny is Tardy’s uncle, and the only member of the whole cast who arrives carrying equipment. Yellow hard hat with the goggles pushed up, red bow tie, blue dungarees, pickaxe over one of his four shoulders — Penny is an explorer, and not a retired one either: as far as Penny is concerned he is simply between expeditions, and has been for years. His bedtime gift is the explorer’s story. He starts them enormous — the deepest cave, the highest ridge, the tunnel that went on and on and on — and he tells them with all four hands going at once, and then somewhere in the middle of the on and on and on, the day’s adventuring catches up with him. The story slows. The hands settle, pair by pair. The voice trails off, mid-tunnel… and Uncle Penny is asleep before his own ending, every single time. Nobody has ever heard how the tunnel comes out. That is why everybody asks for it again.
Friends
TardyHis favourite nephew, and his best audience.
Also from Moss Land
In the archive
Uncle Penny Bear leads 7 pieces in the archive and appears in 0 more. They arrive here as they are approved and published.