Millie Buckets sometimes wondered:  What was quiet like?  What was it like to hear the clock ticking in the afternoon or the toaster popping up your bread in the morning?  What was it like to close your eyes, breathe, and hear the air whooshing down your windpipe and into your lungs?  What was it like, Millie wondered, to walk through the house, all by yourself, and hear the creak, creak, of only your shoes on the floorboards?

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be loud, loud, loud, all the time, you could find out, just by going to Millie’s house.  Millie Buckets had five brothers—imagine!—one for each finger of your hand, and her house was LOUD!  When she woke up in the morning, two brothers would already be up, making cities with their blocks and then, like giant gorillas, kicking them down.  The crash would awaken the youngest brother:  Wah! And that would awaken the other brother, who would yell and grumble and groan.  The last brother would only snore more loudly.

Millie hardly knew what to do.  Where, for example, should she take her friends, when they came home from school and wanted to have private conversations about Miss Paddle’s funny voice?  Where should she go, away from ten grubby socks and ten stinky shoes, to eat the special chocolate she had received for her birthday?  Every time she sniffed, she smelled her brothers, and every time she took a breath to say something, one of her brothers yelled instead.  Every time she wanted to read a book, all she could hear was the groaning, the grumbling, the bumbling, of her five brothers.

“I am all surrounded and covered up by brothers!” she yelled one morning at breakfast.  Her mother, who had the littlest brother on one hip, and was feeding bananas to the next littlest in the highchair, looked at her. 

“Oh, Millie,”  she said, and then the last three brothers came tumbling down the stairs in a ball of dust and hair, and Millie wondered, sitting on the bus to school, if her mother had heard her at all.

But during the next week, things started happening that gave Millie hope.  When her father came home from work one day, he had large bags and loads of wood from the hardware store.  The next day, Millie’s mother cleared out trash from the old shed in the backyard.  And on Wednesday, Millie and two of her brothers went to the store and bought yards and yards of fabric, sprinkled with dandelions (Millie’s favorite flower) and little red ladybugs.  On Thursday, Father and the two big brothers went out to the shed and hammered and banged and sawed. When Millie asked what was going on, the brothers shrugged and Father grinned. 

Then, on Friday, Millie went to her friend, Susan’s house, for the night.  Her friend did not have any brothers, but she had two little sisters who cried a lot.  Susan and Millie put pillows over their ears. 

“Sometimes,” Susan whispered to Millie, “All I want is a little quiet.”

Millie understood exactly what Susan meant.

On Saturday afternoon, when Millie came home, all the brothers were gone.  “Mother,” said Millie, “Where is everyone?”  But instead of answering her, they went out the door to the backyard.  On the brand new door of the shed, Millie saw a sign:  MILLIE BUCKET’S HOUSE.  NO BROTHERS ALLOWED.  When they went inside, Millie saw a little, comfortable chair, a table and stools, and a colorful rug on the floor.  Her very own curtains hung at the windows, and her very own clock hung on the wall. 

They sat down at the table.  Mother leaned over and winked.  “Listen,” she said, and Millie closed her eyes and listened.  She could hear the clock ticking.  She could smell the flowers on the table.  She could hear the way the wind moved the curtains back and forth.  And then she listened very hard, and she could hear the whoosh of the air as it went down into her lungs.  “Mmm,” hummed Millie, “That sounds delicious.”

Mother winked.  “And the best part,” she said, “Is that you’re not covered in brothers.”

Millie smiled.  “I’ll invite you here for chocolates,” she told her mother.

Mother winked again.  “Make sure you invite me often.”  And then they sat back, closed their eyes, and listened to the quiet sounds of the afternoon.

And when Millie went back to the house, she was not upset to hear the banging, booming, and bumbling of her brothers. 

“On the contrary,” Millie said, “It is a refreshing change.”  She knew that if the noise got too loud, she could escape to her special place.  She’d have to invite Susan as soon as she could.  After all, sometimes a little quiet conversation between friends was the most perfect thing of all.