Meet Tardy

Tardy

Six little hands, one slow breath at a time

The voice: Small, warm, curious
Home: Tardy’s HomeThe mushroom house at the end of the path
Part of: SleepThe ones whose whole job is getting you there.

The story of Tardy

Tardy is the smallest hero there has ever been — a tiny grey-and-cream creature with big teal-green eyes, six limbs, and four little hands, which is exactly the right number for holding a blanket, a toy, a mug of warm milk and somebody else’s hand all at the same time. He is named for being late — late to bed, late to school, late out of the bath — and his whole world is patient with him about it, because the going slowly is the point. What makes Tardy the hero is not that he is good at sleeping. It is that he practises. He walked the whole route once, all the way down — through the forest, past the springs and the stream and the waterfall, along the lake to the shore and the sea — and at the end of the walking he went further and further into the Sleepy Forest until he found the Zzzzz Tree, and lay down on the lovely soft green moss under its branches, warm and safe. Going to sleep, it turns out, is a thing you can get better at. Tardy gets better at it every single night, and he takes everybody watching with him.