Lumi's First Day

Lumi the blue squirrel puts on her going-out-brave shirt — the one with the big yellow star — and heads off to a new school. But at the gate a little drum starts up inside her chest. Boom. Boom. Boom. What if she walks in and nobody talks to her? The drum beats so loudly during introductions that her words get swallowed back.

It beats through a whisper nobody can hear. It beats while she steps on Slowpoke the koala's tail by accident, and afterwards she sits alone on the playground bench, certain she is simply the kind of squirrel who can't make friends.

Then, having nothing left to lose, she starts tapping out her drumbeat on a real drum — and one by one, Bengbeng the kangaroo, Shanshan the tortoise and Slowpoke come to find out where the sound is coming from. "When you stepped on my tail I got a fright," Slowpoke says, "but I wasn't mad. Very few people are willing to wait for me to finish." It turns out everyone has a drum inside. They just beat at different speeds.