‘Stop it, P!’ I hear Josie say, ‘I’m trying to concentrate.’
     
     Browsing the library for her next bedtime story, Silky Josephine discovered two evenings ago, an old paperback, recently added to the newly installed shelves. 
     ‘It smells like Science,’ she said, when I removed the book for her closer examination and approval. 
     Yellow-edged and brittling, its pages did indeed give off the moist, metallic scent of an often-used laboratory, of an experiment deep in its many-beakered and burbling process.
     Moving Mountains, the book was called. And on its cover ...beneath one of Sir James Fraser’s many mesmerizing spirals ...was printed the claim that inside one would find the keys to unlock their mind’s natural telekinetic powers. 
     ‘What are telekinetic powers?’ Josie asked. 
     ‘Well,’ I say, ‘telekinesis, or telekinetic power, is the ability to move an object without touching it. With your mind. Mostly.’ 
     Silky’s eyes widen, ‘Ohhhh,’ she says, ‘This book then. Let’s read this one.’ 
      And so we do. 
     Which is why Silky Josephine has been on the floor this morning, still as a stone for nearly twenty minutes now, bright eyes intent on one of her more rollable toys, a cat-eye marble, silent, but for her occasional snip at ‘P’ ...Peter Pan ...who has only ever slept with any great display of determination, and lunges and yaps, ‘Move!’ at the marble every half minute or so. 
     ‘Breakfast?’ I suggest, and a smile spreads across Silky Josephine’s deeply concentrated face. 
     ‘I knew you were going to say that,’ she says. ‘I just knew it.’