My older brother always used to tell me tiny stories. He said “the world isn’t made up of particles, like they tell you in school. It’s made up of tiny stories. Tiny stories are happening everywhere, all adding up into big stories. And your eyes and ears, they can’t copy things exactly, can they? So they just tell your brain tiny stories.” That last bit always made my head hurt. It still does.

I remember this one day particularly; it was a Saturday I think, in school vacation. When I was getting dressed, he said “You know," (he'd always start like that), "your t-shirt doesn’t like being under your jacket. He can’t see anything! But he’s lucky today, because it’s cold and wet outside. So he’ll be nice and cosy.” I’d always tell him “You’re making it up!” but he always said “No I’m not! When you’re older you’ll understand these things.”

And then, we decided to go out, down to the park, even though it was cold and raining, so that I could play on the swings. As I put my shoes on, he said “You know, all pairs of shoes like to race each other.”
“Race each other?” I asked. “But they’re on my feet!”
“Yeah, but they still like to race. They see who’s the first one to the next lamp-post, or through the front door, or something like that. And it’s neck-and-neck the whole way. They keep overtaking each other.” From then on, I’d always jump, feet together, through the front door or past lamp-posts.

He took an umbrella, and we went outside, both huddling together, me holding onto his arm. “You know,” he said, “I once knew an umbrella who didn’t like the rain, because it made him cry.”
“You’re making it up!” I said, as usual.
“No, no, I’m not!” he said. “He hated it so much that he swam all the way to Spain, to become a parasol.”
“What’s a parasol?” I asked him.
“It’s like an umbrella, but it protects people from the sun when it’s really hot,” he replied. “So this umbrella loved that. He got to sunbathe all day long!” I still didn’t believe him. But I felt sorry for our umbrella, because he looked like he was crying too.

As we were walking down our road, my brother pointed and said “Do you see that magpie? Splashing around in the puddle?” I nodded, and he continued: “Magpies always get really disappointed by the rain.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “you know how magpies love to collect shiny things? Do you see how glittery the raindrops are? It’s so beautiful for magpies, so sparkling, but they can’t take them home to their nests, like they normally do with sparkly things.” I didn’t really understand why the magpies needed to take the sparkly things home with them, especially when there were so many. But I felt sorry for that over-excited magpie splashing in the puddle, watching the raindrops glisten brightly and then disappear.

That day, when we got to the park, it had stopped raining, and I ran to the swings and started playing on them. My brother walked over more slowly, shaking the umbrella dry, and stood by the side, watching me, sometimes pushing me higher up. He saw a dragonfly buzzing in the long grass, behind the tarmacked play-park, and he said “You know…”
“You’re making it up!” I shouted as I was swinging up and back and up again, past him.
“I’m not!” he said. “This is true. I know that dragonfly! He’s called David. He told me that he wishes he could breathe fire, like a real dragon. And this,” he continued, bending down to let a ladybug crawl onto his outstretched index finger, “this is Simon.”
“But he’s a ladybug!” I shouted, laughing, still on the swing, come to a rest now, my exhilarated shoes now on the ground.
“That doesn’t mean he’s a lady!” my brother said, putting the bug back into the grass. “He tells everyone that he’s not a lady. But I guess they don’t listen. Like you!” he said, giving me a hug and ruffling my hair. I knew he was making it up. But there was no use telling him.

That was a while ago now. He still tells me tiny stories though, whenever I see him, even though I’m older now. He told me that inside the book that I’m reading, the pages are like birthday parties, with the words all hyper and dancing around. “You’re making it up!” I said, like I always did. But he said “No, really. Except when somebody opens the pages, of course. Then the words play Sleeping Lions, really quickly.” I laughed, and so did he. But every time I open a book now, I do it really quickly, just in case. But the words are really fast.

I think he’s right, anyway. I see tiny stories everywhere now. None of my friends understand it. But then again, they never had a brother like my brother! And now that I’m older, I understand what he meant before, whenever I said that he was making it up. Now that I'm older, I believe in tiny stories.