How Lydia Went to Heaven to Bring Back Her Grandpa

Every evening Lydia's pretty Mummy read her the fairy tales her Grandpa made up for her. But the last tale was not finished.

Lydia's mother burst into tears.

"Grandpa didn't finish this fairy tale because he went to heaven."

Lydia, too, started to cry.

"Grandpa must come back so he can finish the fairy tale for Lydia. But where is heaven?"

"Heaven," Lydia's pretty Mummy said, "is way up there, when you look out the window."

Next morning Lydia woke up very early while everyone else was still asleep. She saw a tiny little cloud through the window, just as it was floating over Seventh Street.

"Dear little cloud, pretty little cloud, take me to heaven."

The tiny little cloud came down right to the window and took Lydia away. They floated high above the city without ever touching the tallest of the skyscrapers. At first Lydia was scared, but then the tiny little cloud seemed to turn into a white swan and Lydia squeezed her arms tightly around its neck.

There in heaven she saw little angels.

"What are you doing here," they cried out. "Children are not allowed in here."

"You are children yourselves," Lydia said, "and you don't know anything. I came here to find my Grandpa who didn't finish the last tale for me."

The angels began to roar with laughter. They laughed so hard that their little wings almost fell off. Just then God the Father peered out from behind a shining golden cloud.

"You've got a beard just like my Grandpa's," Lydia said.

God the Father started to laugh so hard that his crown almost fell off his head.

"I haven't laughed so much for a long, long time," God the Father said to the little angels. "Let this little girl take her Grandpa back, or else she'll make a frightful mess here in heaven."

In the morning, when Lydia's Mummy came into her room, as she usually did every morning, she saw Grandpa sitting on Lydia's bed telling her the fairy tale.

Lydia's Mummy was not at all surprised.

She said, "My little girl is even able to bring her Grandpa back from heaven so that he can tell her the end of the fairy tale."

And she took Lydia and Grandpa for a walk in the park.