The Sparrow in the Railway Station

• 3 minute read
• Ages 4-9
• Bedtime Stories

A sparrow lived inside a railway station, in the girders under the roof, which is a strange place for a bird to live and a very good one.

It was dry. It was warm in winter because of the engines. And there was food on the floor all day long, because people eat on platforms and people are careless.

She had been born up there and had never once been outside.

The day

Her day had a shape.

The five-forty came in and people got off with tiffin boxes and the first crumbs of the morning appeared under bench four. She always started at bench four.

Then the long gap in the middle of the morning when the station was quiet and she went back up into the girders and slept.

Then the afternoon, which was the good one, because the school trains came in and children drop more than adults do.

Then the evening rush, which was too crowded to work in, and then the last train at eleven and the whole floor to herself.

The man with the broom

There was a sweeper who worked the night shift, and he had known about her for years.

He did not feed her, because he thought it was better not to, and he was probably right. What he did was sweep the platform in a particular order that left the area under bench four until last, so that she got a clear hour there before he came through.

He had never told anybody he did this and had never mentioned it to her, obviously, because she was a sparrow.

He had just quietly arranged his round that way, every night, for nine years.

The roof

Late at night when the station was empty, she would come down and work under bench four with the whole place to herself.

The roof of that station is very high and made of iron and glass, and at night the lights were turned down to almost nothing, and it was as quiet as a building that size ever gets.

Then she would go back up into the girders and put her head under her wing.

And below her the sweeper would finish the last stretch of platform, and turn the lights off entirely, and go home.

And the station would sit empty in the dark, with one bird in the roof, until the five-forty came in.