The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

It bounced across the Green and into the print shop. It stopped on the long table, next to a square of paper.

"Fold me, I won't mind," said Kami.

"What shall we make?" asked Inkling.

"Start with something you know," said Kami. "Start with a little book."

They folded Kami in half, edge to edge, and pressed it like the cover of a book.

The last crease went flat, and the paper opened like a door.

They stepped out onto a gravel path. There was a high wall, an apple tree, and rows of little flower beds.

The beds were empty. It was autumn, and the leaves were falling.

Under the apple tree, small children sat at a long table. Each child had squares of coloured paper. They were folding.

One leg of the table had been mended with a strip of tin. Beside it, someone had scratched a tiny hammer.

"Kuwana was a temple," whispered Lan. "This is a garden."

"A garden in Germany," said Kami softly. "Bad Blankenburg. The 1840s. They call this place a kindergarten. It means a children's garden."

An old teacher with grey hair sat at the end of the table. He was folding a paper star. He did not explain anything.

One boy sat apart from the others, beside an empty bed. He held one blue square.

"I'm Emil," he said. "My little sister Liese starts here tomorrow. She is scared. I wanted to give her a flower, but the flowers are all gone."

"I'll make her one!" said Lan. "I promise. Look, a flower is easy."

She took the blue square and began to tear a wavy edge with her fingers.

"Not all the way through, please!" said Kami, in a crackly voice. "A torn shape is just a flat scrap. Every fold makes me something new. Nothing has to be torn away."

Lan stopped. A tiny tear showed at one edge, no longer than a fingernail.

"I said easy before I checked," she said. "Sorry, Emil."

"It's only a little tear," said Emil. "It's still one square."

"Corners first, always," said Cornelia. "Make the corners meet exactly."

Emil turned the square into a diamond. He brought the bottom corner up to the top corner and held it there.

"Point to point, then hold," said Cornelia.

Now it was a triangle, two layers thick. Each layer was half of the square.

"It's a tulip!" said Inkling.

"It's a triangle," said Lan. "Tulips have petals."

Inkling laughed. She had named it too soon. "It is a half, though," she said. "I can name that."

The teacher had left a folding card on the table. It showed a triangle with two dashed lines.

"Read the drawing before your hands move," said Mark. He traced the first dashed line. "This corner goes up, past the top point. That is one petal."

He traced the second line. "And here is the same line again, on the other side. Like a picture in a mirror."

"Every line on the drawing has a job," said Mark.

One line plus one line is two lines. Two petals.

Emil lifted the left corner up past the top. It stood up like a little blue flame. One petal.

He lifted the right corner. It went up crooked. It leaned away from the first one.

"It doesn't match," said Emil. His mouth went wobbly.

"Crooked is just a first go," said Crinkle cheerfully. "Smooth it out and try again. The crease remembers."

Emil opened the crooked petal, gently. The old crease showed him where it had gone wrong. He folded it again, looking at the first petal this time.

Now the two petals matched, like the two sides of a butterfly.

"Now press it flat," said Presso. "Run your thumbnail along the fold. A fold you press is a fold that stays."

Emil pressed each petal slowly and firmly.

He stood the tulip in the empty flower bed. It stood up.

Inkling looked at it for a long time. "It's three things," she said. "It's a flower. That's a thing you know. The petals match on both sides. That's beauty. And the triangle was a half. That's knowledge."

The old teacher looked up from his star and nodded, just once.

The next morning, Liese stood at the garden gate. She held her mother's hand very tightly.

Emil gave her the blue tulip. "It won't wilt," he said. "Not all winter."

Liese held it up. She let go of her mother's hand, just a little, and walked in.

Lan found a plain square in her pocket. They unfolded it flat, and the door closed behind them.

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

Back on the Green

In the print shop, Lan wanted to tear out a paper heart fast. She folded the paper in half first instead. Both sides came out the same.

Inkling held up a triangle. "It isn't a tulip yet," she said. "But it is a half."

Tell the story back to someone. What three things did one square become?