The Story of Hope and the Little Locked Door
| December 2, 2011There once was a town inside of a bubble
Where the sun never shown and the skies were so gray.
Though many people lived inside,
There was no way to get away.
There was no escape by car or by plane,
By horse, by train or riverboat too,
You couldn’t get out on a camel’s back
Or by hitching a ride with a circus crew.
The only way out was a little door
Just small enough for a kid to crawl through.
But this door had always been locked,
And where the key was, nobody knew.
In this town there lived a girl
With a smile as bright as a morning sunrise.
Her mom named her Hope, and when she was born
They said she had fire in her eyes.
When she was little, she played and she sang
As all the other little kids do.
She wasn’t much bothered her gray home
Or by the fact that the sky wasn’t so blue.
Hope had a brother, older by years
Whose smile was harder and eyes made of stone.
He was no longer a child, but becoming a man,
Much taller and stronger and nearly all grown.
When she was little, her brother told Hope,
“You wanna survive? You gotta learn to fight.
This world, it ain’t pretty, and when you’re sleeping
Things worse than monsters come out at night.”
Hope loved her brother, and took his advice
And from the older kids, she learned to get by
Throwing punches and kicks, growing tougher each day.
Whatever it took, she never asked why.
One day on a walk, Hope came to the edge
Of the town where she’d lived all of her life.
To her surprise, she saw a place
Where the kids still played without any strife.
The grass there was green, and everyone smiled.
Nobody was fighting to get their way.
Hope tried to reach out, but she couldn’t get past
The bubble that seemed to keep in the gray.
“I want to go there,” Hope thought to herself.
“Out where there are smiles and blue skies galore.
Where they don’t have to worry, and the kids still sing,
And I wouldn’t have to fight anymore.”
She paced back and forth along the edge
But every exit she found was blocked.
Finally, she came to the only way out,
But, like always, the door was locked.
“There must be a key,” Hope wondered aloud
Even though she knew that it was forbidden.
So she ran to her brother, the only person she knew
Who might know where the key was hidden.
He laughed when she asked. “You want out?” he jeered.
“Out of this cruddy place we call home?”
He looked around, and then spat on the ground.
“Well, there ain’t no way out, no escape from this dome.”
“But there has to be!” Hope nearly squeaked.
“Why else would there be that little door?”
“That door’s always been locked,” her brother replied.
“I don’t know what you’re crying for.
“Besides, even if you could get through
The people there wouldn’t like you at all.
They’d poke fun at you for being so different
And laugh at you when you trip and fall.
“Just stay here. We can’t get out.
All you’re doing is wasting your time
On impossible dreams and fantasy worlds.
Learn to fight, and you’ll be fine.”
Well, Hope was so upset by this,
That the very next day when she was in school
She couldn’t stop crying all throughout class,
And the other kids laughed and called her a fool.
Her teacher, Ms. Sun, noticed something was wrong
And pulled her aside at the end of the day.
“Tell me, Hope,” her gentle voice asked,
“I couldn’t help but notice, but are you OK?”
Hope paused for a minute, and then she sobbed, “No!
I’m tired of fighting and this gray place
I want to live where the green grass grows
And feel the sunshine on my face.
“The door out is locked, but I know there’s a key
Even though my brother says there’s no way.
I think I can find it, but I’ll never have time
If I’m wasting my time in school all day.”
Ms. Sun just smiled like she knew a secret,
And said, “I think I know the key that you mean.
In fact, I might even be able to help you
Get out to where the grass is green.”
“Really? You could? But how is that possible?”
Hope exclaimed with a touch of glee.
Ms. Sun smiled mysteriously, and simply said,
“I’ve been there before, you see.
“The key is pretty hard to find,
Except for those determined to look.
It could be hidden somewhere quite unexpected,
Like in a tree, or a shoe, or a book.”
“But where is it?” Hope asked Ms. Sun,
Eager to start her search right away.
“You’ll never find it if you’re so impatient
And you have to listen to what I say.”
“Anything!” Hope said, imagining in her head
A treasure hunt full of danger and sorrow.
Instead, Ms. Sun handed her a book,
And said, “Read this and bring it back tomorrow.”
“A book?” Hope asked, “Is the key in here?”
She flipped through the pages but only found words.
“Just trust me,” Ms. Sun said with a wink.
“By the time that we’re done, this won’t seem so absurd.”
A bit confused, Hope took the book home
And read even though it wasn’t much fun.
She didn’t know some works, and had a hard time
But she still worked until the book was done.
The next day in school, Hope asked Ms. Sun,
“I read the book, so now what do I do?”
Ms. Sun pulled another book from the shelf,
And said, “Take this home and read it, too.”
Again, Hope read the entire book,
And night after night was the same routine.
The more she read, the more fun she had,
But still, she dreamed of the grass that was green.
As she read and she read, and then read some more
Her dark, dismal world began to fade away.
Where there once was gray, now there were colors.
She started to see beauty every day.
She went to Ms. Sun, quite upset, and said,
“I think all that reading broke my eyes.
I see things that weren’t there before.
Every day is a new surprise.
“And besides, I still have no idea
Where I’m going to find that key.
I’ve done everything you’ve told me to do…
Are you just playing games with me?”
“Of course not!” she said, “You have it right now.
The key that you want was inside of the books.
All that time you spent reading, well tell me, child…
Did you ever go back to the door to look?”
And with that, Hope ran, as fast as she could
Back to the edge where the door stood tall.
She reached for the handle, and to her surprise
She found that the door wasn’t locked at all.
She stumbled into a bright new world
Where the air smelled so good and the clouds were so few.
She rolled around in the soft green grass.
She laughed and sang under a sky that was blue.
The other kids there ran up to meet Hope
And welcomed her with warm smiles and eyes.
They played games and Hope told them all about
The books she had read and her home with gray skies.
She asked her new friends if they’d ever been there,
They said, “We’ve seen it, but we’ve never been.
Our parents say that it’s too dangerous.
By ourselves, they won’t let us in.”
So Hope took all the kids back through the door
And showed them around the little gray town.
At the school, they found Ms. Sun
Who marveled at all the new friends Hope had found.
“How did you know?” Hope asked Ms. Sun,
“About the key and the lock and the door?”
“I knew that once you read all of those books,
You’d see things that you never had before.
“The door is unlocked, but only for those
Who know how to use the hidden knob.
You can’t find it unless you’ve read a whole lot,
And you’ve done such a wonderful job!”
Hope hugged Ms. Sun, and said with a smile,
“I’m leaving this town for good tomorrow.
I’m not coming back, so I just want to thank you
For all of the books that you let me borrow.”
Ms. Sun hugged her and said, “If you really must go,
Remember always, I say this is true:
The more that you read and the more that you know,
The more magical doors will open for you.”