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

It skipped 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.

"Somewhere new, please," said Lan.

"Start with something you know," said Kami. "Start with a hat."

They folded Kami in half, then the two corners down, then the strips up. A little paper hat.

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

It was hot. That was the first thing. The sun was bright and the air smelled of jasmine and warm dust.

They stood in a garden behind a house with a deep, shady porch. A neem tree made a patch of shade. Big clay pots stood in a row.

One pot had a crack mended with a twist of wire. Beside the crack, someone had scratched a tiny hammer.

"India," said Kami softly. "Madras. The year is 1893."

A girl was kneeling by a flower bed. Beside her sat a tray of tiny marigold plants. Lan counted them. There were eight.

"I'm Meena," said the girl. "Grandmother wants these planted along the edge before she comes home. She said all the same space apart, so they grow in a straight line."

"So measure it," said Lan.

"My uncle took the tape measure to work," said Meena. "I only have this." She held up a long strip of paper. "Grandmother cut it to be exactly as long as the bed."

"I'll do it!" said Lan. "I promise. I'll just do it by eye." She grabbed a stick from the path. "One about here. One about there."

"Just guessing makes wobbly gaps," said Mark. He had been standing in the shade. "Lines don't lie, but eyes do. Read the line first, and let the paper draw it."

Lan stopped with the stick in the air. She looked at the bed. The holes she had imagined were all different sizes.

"I said I'd do it before I checked," she said. "Sorry, Meena."

On the porch, a man in a white shirt sat at a wooden desk. He was folding a square of paper, slowly and carefully. Beside him lay pages of folding drawings.

He did not look up. He did not explain.

Mark went and looked at one drawing. It showed a square, folded edge to edge. The crease was marked with a dashed line.

"Read the drawing before your hands move," said Mark. "Fold one edge onto the other edge. Then the crease is exactly halfway. You don't need a ruler. The fold is the ruler."

"Bring it all the way over," said Cornelia. "End to end. Exactly."

Meena brought one end of the strip onto the other end. Cornelia looked closely. "Point to point, then hold."

Meena pressed it. Then she folded it in half again.

"It's eight!" said Inkling.

"It's four layers," said Lan, counting the edges. "Not eight. Not yet."

Inkling laughed. She had named it too soon.

The third fold was hard. The strip was thick now, and it slipped. The ends did not meet.

"It's crooked," said Meena. "The last part will be too big."

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

Meena opened the third fold. The old crease showed her where it had slipped. She held the ends together firmly and folded again. This time they met.

Now the strip was a fat little packet, eight layers thick.

"Hold it still," said Presso. "Now press it flat. Run your thumbnail along every fold."

Meena pressed. She pressed every edge of the little packet, slowly and firmly.

"A fold you press is a fold that stays," said Presso. "When you open it, the creases will show."

"Every fold makes me something new," said Kami. "Open it along the bed, and see."

Meena unfolded the strip and laid it along the edge of the bed. Seven creases ran across it. Between them were eight parts, all exactly the same size.

"Seven creases," said Inkling. "Eight parts. One more part than creases." This time she was right.

Meena planted one marigold in the middle of each part. Eight plants, in a straight, even row.

When Grandmother came home, she stood at the gate and looked. Then she smiled.

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

At the print shop, Lan had to cut a long cake into four fair pieces. She did not guess. She folded a paper strip as long as the cake in half, then in half again, and used the creases.

Tell the story back to someone. How many creases make eight parts?