The Mural at the End
of the Alphabet

At the quiet end of the alphabet, after all the busy letters have had their turns, live three friends that most words forget to invite.

X is energetic and curious, always uncovering things: under rocks, under leaves, under everything. Y has the most vivid imagination in the Land, and can find beauty in a puddle, a pebble, or a plain gray morning. Z is the wisest and calmest of the three, moving through the world as smooth and unhurried as honey.

"Nobody ever picks us," sighed X. "When words line up, I am never first." "They call us the END of the alphabet," said Y, "as if the end were a leftover." "Hmm," said Z, calm but listening.

That day, they found a glade they had never seen: a ring of smooth bark walls, open to the sky, like a gallery waiting for art. "Fine," said X. "If the words will not pick us, we will each make something alone."

So they painted. X uncovered hidden colors: secret reds, buried golds. Can you make X's sound? Two sounds holding hands — ks! ks! — like the end of fox, and box, and six. Y painted yawning yaks with yarn-soft wool, yellow birds with trailing ribbon tails. Yuh, yuh. And Z painted a garden of zinnias, row upon row. Zzzz. Hand flat on your throat: Z is the buzzing twin of quiet old S.

The afternoon passed. And a strange thing happened.

X's wall was full of color, but it felt empty. Nothing lived in it. Y's creatures were wonderful, but they floated on plain bark with nowhere to stand. Z's zinnia garden was peaceful, but nothing moved in it, and no one came.

Three letters peeked sideways at three walls.

"Your reds," said Y to X quietly, "would make my yaks glow." "Your yaks," said Z to Y, "look hungry for my zinnias." "And your garden," said X to Z, "is full of hidden things. May I uncover them?"

Nobody said let's work together. They just began handing brushes.

X uncovered winding paths through Z's garden. Y's creatures wandered in and made themselves at home among the zinnias. Z painted calm evening light across X's wild reds and golds, and suddenly the colors were not loud anymore. They were warm.

The three walls slowly became one mural.

By sunset, letters from all over the Land had gathered in the glade. S slid in. K hopped up beside her. The gray cat from the Creek Games padded in behind.

"It is beautiful," whispered S. "But the top is still bare. It needs a sky."

"Then we will spell one!" said K. "S! K! And—" K stopped. "Wait. Sky has no A, no E, no I, no O, no U. A word cannot work without a vowel. Can it?"

Everyone turned to look at the end of the alphabet.

Y stepped forward, eyes shining. "Sometimes, when a word needs me... I do the vowels' work."

Y walked to the end of the word and stood tall.

S  ·  K  ·  Y SKY

And because spelled words come true, the whole top of the mural bloomed: violet and rose and deep evening blue, real sky pouring across the bark in colors no jar of paint has ever held.

"Rare letters," said Z, calm as ever but smiling wide, "make remarkable things."

From that day on, whenever a young letter felt small, or last, or left out, somebody would walk them out to the mural at the end of the alphabet, and tell them the story of the three friends who were picked least.

And shone most.