'Tick, tick, tock' said the clock.

  It was confusing to a young boy wrapped in his sheets trying to get to sleep. As far as Ed was concerned his clock was meant to say 'tick, tock, tick, tock'. It seemed to him that there was a missing 'tock'!

  It's not that Ed was doing anything, it's not as if that missing 'tock' was very valuable to him and had he not been in his room wrapped in his sheets he wouldn't have noticed it. That missing second would have passed him by and he would never have known, he would never have realised that he lost a second of his life. But he had heard the missing 'tock', well he didn't hear it but he knew it was there, and that upset him.

  'Where did it go?' Ed questioned himself. After all, everything that is lost can be found and that is what pulled Ed out of his bed. He swung his straw-like legs out of his bed and stood; missing the creaky floorboard. He tip-toed out of his room and into the hallway trying ever so hard not to wake his sleeping parents.

  The clock stood at the end of the hallway, luckily the moon was shining through a window, lighting his way. He picked his way over the wooden floorboards, taking care not to tread on the creaky ones. Ed reached the clock, a big free-standing grandfather clock. It had two weights swinging silently in its cabinet; counting each 'tick' and each 'tock'. Ed checked the cabinet, he checked the clock's face and even checked behind the clock itself. In short, he checked everywhere he could think a missing 'tock' would be found. Of course he didn't find anything; the 'tock' was lost and Ed couldn't think of anywhere that he could find it.

  With a small sigh Ed turned back toward his room trying to forget his lost second. He was trying so hard, in fact, that he forgot where he was tip-toeing and stepped right on top of a creaky floorboard. Ed couldn't believe it, he knew those floorboards like the back of his hand, he knew which were creaky and which were not and he had managed to step on the creakiest of them all.

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  He froze, looking over his shoulder to his parents bedroom, hoping he hadn't woken them. After a minute, that felt like an hour, he felt satisfied that they were still safe in their slumber and continued tip-toeing down the hallway to his room. He had not gone more than two steps before he heard a voice behind him.

  "Edward?" called his father "what are you doing out of bed?"

  "Father," answered Ed, trying to make his voice as small as possible. "I'm sorry I was looking at the clock. I think it's broken."

  "What's wrong with the clock?"

  "It missed a 'tock', it never misses a 'tock'"

  Ed's dad walked down the hallway, not worrying about the creaking floorboards, and scooped Ed into his arms. He carried him into his bedroom and laid him on his bed.

  "What do you mean?" Ed's father asked after Ed was safely under his sheets.

  "I couldn't sleep, when I can't sleep I listen to the clock. The clock usually says 'tick, tock, tick, tock' . Listen, it's doing it now."

  Ed's father listened to the clock which was quietly 'ticking' and 'tocking' as it was made to do; he gave Ed a slow nod of approval.

  "But tonight, when I was listening to it, it missed a 'tock'," explained Ed.

  "But the 'tock' is there now?" asked Ed's father seriously.

  Ed nodded his head, he was starting to feel a little foolish about the whole thing. Ed's father went on to explain that 'ticks' and 'tocks' in clocks are just sounds that are made when the mechanics in the clocks turn round. He told his son that there really is no difference between a 'tick' and a 'tock' and that the clock was actually working fine. This, to Ed's sleepy mind' was a good answer and even before his father had finished speaking he had fallen into a deep sleep. A sleep where he forgot all about 'ticks' and 'tocks' and during the night when all was quiet the clock continued to 'tick' and 'tock' just like it was made to do.