Boom

Bramble hopped over. "What do you mean, one size?"

The frog grinned. "Watch. Or — listen." He leaned in close to Bramble, and dropped his voice to the tiniest whisper. "Once," he breathed, so softly that Bramble had to lean right in to catch it, "there was a sound in the dark that nobody could explain." Bramble's branches prickled. He was leaning so far forward he nearly toppled. The whisper had reeled him in like a fish on a line.

Then the frog filled his chest, and his voice came out big and round and warm: "And it was the SEA, my friends — the whole wide SEA, come all the way up the valley to say hello!"

Bramble jumped. The loud part had surprised him, in the best way. "My name is Boom," the frog said, back to a normal, friendly level. "Soft pulls them close. Loud wakes them up. You point at the important parts with your volume."

"Boom," Bramble said, still a little breathless, "I run a listening-circle. The kids tell tales out loud, and they all tell them at one flat size — every word the same. Their giants are tiny and their whispers are gone." He brightened. "Would you join my circle? Teach them to change their size?"

Boom laughed, a warm rolling laugh. "I'd be glad to. I've got every size there is — from the smallest hush to the biggest roll. I'll lend them all out."

So Boom joined the listening-circle, and the tales there have never been flat since.

Now, when Bramble teaches about volume, he calls on Boom. "Tell us a story," Bramble says, "but find the soft parts and the loud parts."

A young hedgehog tried. She told a tale about a secret. When she got to the secret itself, she remembered Boom's lesson — and she dropped her voice to a whisper. The whole circle scooted in. Then, when the secret burst out into the open, she let her voice swell up big. The circle leaned back, delighted.

"You felt that, didn't you?" Boom rumbled. "But here's the trick most folks miss." He leaned in. "The loud part only works because of the soft parts around it. If you shout the whole way through, nobody can tell which part matters. Loud-all-the-time is the same as flat. You need the quiet to make the big moment big." He patted his round belly. "Save your biggest size for your biggest moment. Spend the rest of the time soft and warm and close."

A young creature asked, "What if I'm shy about being loud?"

"Then start with soft," Boom said kindly. "Soft is powerful too. A whisper can hold a whole circle. You don't have to be the loudest frog in the pond. You just have to change — to give your story some big and some small."