They took the paper bricks down off the shelf, the whole lot of them, one after another.
One rang on the way down.
So they took that one in both hands and shook it, and shook it again, listening.
Others were stacking them up and knocking them down. “Whoa!” — and clapping.
More bricks came out after that, with a small bell inside each one.
One child dragged the bricks over onto the bubble wrap. An adult put a square of them round where that child was sitting.
“Now it's a house.”
Another one came over and handed an adult a brick.
“Shall we make you a house too?”
That child pointed at the brick. Yes.
Somebody else had one in both hands, shaking it up and down.
“That brick's hard, isn't it.”
Then along the bricks, holding a hand, one foot in front of the other. An adult laid more of them end to end into a bridge, and another child came over for a turn at walking it, feeling it underfoot.
And one of them just hit a brick with a flat palm.
“That goes boom!”
So it went on, and on, and there was laughing.
Up onto the brick and down again, holding two hands, eyes on the adult's the whole way.
They laid the bricks out long, like a road. Some went along it on their own. Some wanted a hand.
Two bricks side by side, stood on — and from up there, the family photographs on the wall.
“Mommy! Daddy!”
Another child wanted up there too, and pushed. So an adult built a second one, next to it.
The bricks that came in were four times the size of the ones in the room.
Two of them got them out and stacked them up. An adult started a taller one alongside, and two more came over to put bricks on that.
An adult held it steady. “Shall we knock it down together?”
“Yes.”
“One, two, three—”
They looked up, waiting.
“Crash!”
And they hit it with their hands.
Then up again, and counting again, and down again.
There was a picture of an igloo on the wall — a house made out of ice.
An adult started a wall out of the white bricks, and a child took it up and built it higher.
Then over the top of it, eyes meeting. Peekaboo.
An adult left a small gap between two bricks and put a hand through. Then an eye at the gap.
After that, toys went in through the gap and came back out, and a hand came through to meet the other one.
Somebody else came over to see.
Later they drew on the white bricks with coloring pencils, then laid the drawn-on ones end to end as a road, and ran cars along it.
They laid the bricks flat and put one on another, and then another, with somebody helping, until it came up to their own height.
Then one of them stood in front of it, clapped, and went “hoo—”
So an adult sang happy birthday, and that child sang the last word along with it and blew the candles out.
Somebody was about to knock it over, so more bricks came out for them to build with instead.
A friend put a car on top of the tower, and a magnetic block.
“Shall we make it a proper cake?”
Out came the fruit and vegetable baskets and the toy spoons, and it all went on top, one at a time.
“Have one of these!”
“Here you are”
One child took the white bricks out, and an adult moved a table aside to make room.
The bricks went down in a square, and that made a space.
Somebody came over with a dinosaur and stood it up on the wall.
“This is the T. rex's house. Do you want to come round?”
“Yes!”
More dinosaurs went inside. Then bricks went across the top for a roof.
“Dinosaurs for sale! Come and buy a dinosaur!”
Others came over to see, and then it turned into finding them.
“Find the dinosaur! Where is it?”
They lifted the bricks one at a time.
“Found it!”
A book came over to be read, and in the book there was a flood.
“What do the animals do when there's a flood?”
“They can build a house that's safe.”
“Let's build one, then.”
So the bricks went up as a house for the animals. Somebody fetched the animal figures and put them inside. Somebody else went in and out of it themselves.
Then one side of it fell down.
“Oh no — the animals' house has fallen down!”
“Nee-naw, nee-naw.”
A toy phone went up to an ear. “Please come and rescue the animals!”
An ambulance arrived, nee-naw. Then a fire engine, nee-naw. Then a police car — “coming, coming!”
“Come quickly! Come and get them!”
And one of them held a brick up against their ear and shouted into it.
“It's an emergency!”
Then handed an adult a brick. “You call them as well.”
“There are animals and children in danger here.”
After that they were all stepping over the walls they had built, going somewhere in a hurry.
The bricks came out with the animal toys.
One child picked a pink penguin. “I'm going to make the penguin a house.” The bricks went up one on another until there was somewhere for it to go in.
Another built theirs straight up. “It's a block of flats! Look what I did.”
“The penguin's hungry.”
So the toy dishes came over.
“It needs a dummy.”
And an aubergine stalk went to the penguin's mouth. “That's the dummy.”
“Have a strawberry,” said somebody else, feeding theirs. “Rabbits eat carrots”
One child built a space out of bricks and got into it.
Another child got in as well, to play.
“No! Get out!”
“I want to play with you.”
That went on, and the answer stayed the same.
So an adult said: shall we build one of our own, next to it?
That child nodded, carried bricks over, and built a space alongside the first one.
“Only I can come in here!”
And then everybody wanted one.
Three of them stood the bricks on end in a line, and put a triangle at the far end of it.
They counted together, and pushed.
It went down all the way along, and the triangle went last, and they clapped.
Then one of them stood a fallen brick on its side. The next put one on the same way. The third carried on, and what came out was a tower of crosses.
That fell too.
This time one of them went flat, upright, flat, upright — and the other two followed the pattern up.
When it was done they made a big chair out of it, and took turns sitting in it.