The Marrakech Market An Adventure of Pipo, Lulu and Mimi

Something was different this morning.

Mimi could not say what. She stood at the door of the little house under the fig tree and looked out. The sky was the same sky. The path was the same path. The old stone wall was still there, with its one loose brick that wobbled when you pressed it.

But something was different.

She sniffed the air. She listened. Nothing moved.

Then Pipo called from inside. “Mimi. Today is market day.”

Market day. Of course. That was it. The Marrakech market only came once a week, and today was the day. Mimi felt something wake up in her chest. Small and quick, like a little bird.

She went back inside.

Lulu was already up. She had her basket. She had her list. She had her good blue scarf tied around her ears, the one she only wore on important days. Pipo was eating the last of the bread, standing up, because there was no time to sit.

“We need pepper,” said Lulu. “Red pepper. The small kind.”

“And string,” said Pipo, with his mouth still full.

“And I need to see the lantern seller,” said Mimi quietly.

The other two looked at her.

“There is a lantern,” she said. “A small one. With holes shaped like stars. I saw it last time. I want to see if it is still there.”

Lulu nodded. Pipo swallowed his bread.

They set off.

The road to the Marrakech market went through the fig grove, then down the long hill, then along the river until the river bent left and the city walls rose up in front of you, pale and high in the morning sun. Mimi had walked this road many times. She knew every root, every stone, every place where the mud got soft after rain.

But today she walked faster than usual.

She was thinking about the lantern.

The market was already full when they arrived. Voices and smells and colour all at once. A man with a cart of green mint. A woman carrying a tower of flat bread on her head. Somewhere, a goat. Mimi did not stop to look at anything. She went straight to the far corner, where the lantern seller kept his stall between the carpet man and the seller of dried figs.

She stopped.

The stall was there. The lanterns were there, hanging in rows, copper and brass and painted tin, turning slowly in the warm air.

But the small one, the one with star-shaped holes, was not where she remembered it.

Mimi looked left. She looked right. She looked up at the hanging ones and down at the ones on the low shelf. Not there. Not there. Not there.

She stood very still.

“It is gone,” she said to no one.

Then she saw something on the ground, just under the edge of the stall’s wooden table. A shape. Round and small and wrapped in a piece of brown cloth, tied with a bit of string.

Mimi bent down.

She picked it up.

It was light. Too light to be a lantern. She held it in her paws and felt something move gently inside, like a small roll, like something folded. She looked around. The lantern seller was busy with another customer, a tall stork in a long coat, who wanted the big brass one on the top hook.

Mimi looked at the package.

She should put it back. She knew that. It was on the ground near someone else’s stall. It was not hers. She did not know what was inside. She should put it back right now.

She put it back.

She stood up.

She took four steps away.

Then she stopped. She turned around. She looked at the package on the ground. Nobody was looking at it. Nobody seemed to know it was there. What if somebody stepped on it? What if the wind took it? What if it belonged to somebody who was looking for it right now, somewhere in this loud and crowded place?

She went back. She picked it up again. She held it against her chest.

She found Pipo and Lulu at the pepper stall. Pipo had the string already. Lulu was holding up two bunches of small red peppers and frowning at both.

“I found something,” said Mimi.

They looked at her. They looked at the package.

“I do not know whose it is,” she said.

Lulu put down both pepper bunches. “Where did you find it?”

“By the lantern stall. On the ground.”

“Did you ask the lantern seller?”

Mimi had not asked the lantern seller. She went back. The stork in the long coat was gone now. The lantern seller was a small round tortoise with a green shell and very slow eyes. Mimi held out the package. He looked at it for a long moment.

“Not mine,” he said. “But I saw it fall.” He pointed down the main aisle of the market, toward the entrance. “A child dropped it. Small. Brown ears. Running.”

Mimi looked down the aisle. She could not see any child with brown ears.

“She was running very fast,” said the tortoise. He went back to his lanterns.

Mimi stood in the middle of the market with the package in her paws. Around her, everything moved and called and smelled of spice. She felt small. She felt the way you feel when you have done the right thing and it has not helped at all.

She went back to Pipo and Lulu. Lulu had bought the pepper. Pipo had bought nothing else but was eating a small piece of almond cake that someone must have given him.

“I cannot find her,” said Mimi.

“Then we wait,” said Lulu.

“But we do not know who she is.”

“We know she had brown ears,” said Pipo. “And she was running.”

“That is not very much to know.”

Pipo thought about this. “No,” he said. “But sometimes you only need a little.”

Mimi looked at him. Pipo broke his almond cake in two and gave her half. She ate it. It was sweet and soft and it helped a little.

They waited near the entrance of the market. One minute. Two minutes. Five. Mimi watched every animal that came through the gate. An old donkey. A family of rabbits. A cat carrying a rolled-up rug.

Then a small mouse came running back through the gate. Brown ears. Out of breath. Eyes moving fast over the ground, looking for something she had lost.

Mimi walked forward.

“Is this yours?” she said. She held out the package.

The small mouse stopped. She stared at the package. Then she looked up at Mimi. Her eyes were very wide.

“My mother’s drawings,” she said. Very quietly.

She took the package with both paws and held it the way you hold something that matters. She did not open it. She just held it.

Then she looked up again. “I was running and it fell and I did not know where, and I looked and looked and I thought it was gone.”

Mimi nodded. She did not say anything.

The small mouse reached into her pocket. She took out something and pressed it into Mimi’s paw. Then she turned and ran back into the market.

Mimi looked down at her paw.

It was a small lantern. Copper, no bigger than a walnut. With holes shaped like stars.

She stood there for a moment. She did not move. Behind her, Pipo and Lulu came to look.

“Oh,” said Lulu.

“Yes,” said Pipo.

Nobody said anything else.

They walked home the same road as always. Through the market gate, along the river, up the long hill, through the fig grove. The same roots, the same stones, the same place where the mud stayed soft after rain.

Mimi walked last. She held the little lantern up once, to see the star-holes. They were exactly right.

That night she hung it by the window of the little house under the fig tree. When the candle inside was lit, small stars moved across the ceiling, slow and quiet, like something you only see if you are paying attention.

Mimi watched them until she fell asleep.