That morning the sky was a clean blue, and the sun was just warm, like a light blanket. In the garden, Dash, Ziggy, Lily, and Skye were having a jumping contest in the puddles left from the night.

"Look how far I can jump!" shouted Dash, and with one big hop he landed right in a puddle, splashing water everywhere.

"You got my socks all wet!" laughed Lily, her blue eyes shining.

Skye, calm and quiet, gathered the fallen leaves and lined them up like little boats. Ziggy ran back and forth, fast as lightning, pretending to be an airplane.

Then something happened. The air began to tremble, the leaves rose up in a swirl, and from far away came a sound they knew.

"CHOO CHOO! CHOO CHOO!"

"Toby!" they all shouted together.

The magic train popped out from the bushes, shiny and cheerful, with colorful smoke puffing from his chimney. He opened his door and said, as always, in rhyme:

"CHOO CHOO! Dear friends, what a beautiful day,
climb up with me for a trip far away!
I'll leave you a clue of the fun we will do:
a ball that keeps flying and slips away too!"

The children looked at each other, curious. A ball that flies? What did Toby mean? They climbed up quickly and the little train set off, swaying among the clouds.

After a stretch of the journey, Toby slowed down. In front of them appeared a wonderful place: Whistlewind Market. There were stalls of every color, the smell of warm bread, of fruit and flowers, and happy voices calling from one stand to another. Above it all blew the playful Wind, that cheeky little breeze that ruffled hair and made the leaves fly.

But something was wrong. The market was all in a mess! Apples rolled on the ground, hats flew away, and a big magic tent, at the far end of the square, was wide open. Above the tent it said: "Tent of the Dancing Books."

"The wind opened the tent," said a lady, "and the characters from the stories jumped out of the books! They don't want to go back inside!"

The children ran over to look. And that is when they saw him. Behind the stalls, curled up and a little scared, was a Giant. He was huge, with two hands as big as tables and a shy smile.

"I don't want to scare you," said the Giant in a deep voice. "I came out of my book and I saw this wonderful place. I don't want to go back in."

"What does wonderful mean?" asked Dash, scratching his head.

The Giant smiled. "It means amazing, so beautiful that it fills you with surprise."

"Oh!" the children said together, happy to have learned a new word.

"But why don't you want to go back into your book?" asked Skye softly.

The Giant looked down. "Because in my story I only have to sleep on top of a mountain. I have never had fun, not even once. I want to play, even just for one day!"

Dash jumped up. He had an idea. "If the problem is having fun, then let's play soccer! If you have fun, then you go back into your book happy. Okay?"

The Giant clapped his hands, and it was like thunder. "Yes! I want to try!"

They set up the field right away. They used two stalls as goals. The Giant stood in one goal, gigantic, with just one finger raised. "I'll save them with this," he said, laughing.

But they needed a referee. And just at that moment, from a tree, a shiny blackbird came fluttering down.

"I'll do the whistling!" chirped the blackbird. "My name is Fiorello, and I'm the most handsome one in the market!" And right away he closed his eyes in a pose, looking for his reflection in a sparkling puddle of dew.

The game began. Ziggy ran fast, Lily kicked hard, Skye passed the ball just right, and Dash zoomed like the wind. But the real problem was the wind itself!

The playful Wind started blowing on the ball and made it go crazy. The ball went straight and then curved around. It flew high and then came back. Once it hit Ziggy right on the bottom and he tumbled over, laughing. Another time the ball bounced off the Giant's belly and flew far away, and everyone ran after it among the stalls, slipping on the fallen apples.

"So funny!" shouted Dash, as he chased the ball and landed in a basket of tomatoes. He got up all red with tomato, and he looked like a clown. "I'm a running tomato!" he cried, and did a silly somersault. Even the Giant laughed with his mouth wide open.

And the referee? Fiorello the blackbird was a disaster. He only whistled when he could strike a pose and look at himself. When there was a foul, he was looking at his reflection and saw nothing. When the ball went out, he was fixing his feathers and whistled by mistake. "How handsome I am!" he kept saying, and meanwhile he wasn't refereeing at all.

The Giant laughed so hard that the stalls shook. He saved the balls with just one finger, and each time he went "BOING!". The children laughed until their tummies hurt.

At one point the playful Wind played a really funny trick: it blew under a man's hat and sent it flying straight onto Fiorello's head. The blackbird, with the hat over his eyes, started running here and there, shouting: "It got dark! It's night! Who turned off the sun?" The children laughed so much that they had to sit down on the ground. Dash held his tummy, and Lily had tears in her eyes from laughing.

But the game was close. No one was scoring. The excitement grew. Who would score the first goal?

Then the moment came. Lily grabbed the ball, ran fast, and kicked it with all her might toward the Giant's goal. The wind pushed the ball, which shot up high, then down low, and went straight into the net, right past the Giant's finger.

"GOAL!" shouted Ziggy, Lily, and Skye, jumping for joy.

Fiorello the blackbird, who at that very moment was admiring himself in a puddle, lifted his head and whistled. "Good goal!" he chirped, without having seen a thing.

Everyone was celebrating. The children's team was ahead. But Dash stayed still, silent. Because he had seen something the others had not seen. Before going into the net, the ball had touched his hand. It had been a handball. That goal was not fair.

Dash's heart was beating fast. If he stayed quiet, his team would win. No one had seen it, not even the referee. It would be so easy to say nothing.

Dash looked up at the sky. He thought about how much he wanted to win. He thought about how happily his friends were laughing. For a moment he stayed quiet, and the words stuck in his throat.

But inside him something was tickling his tummy. He looked at his friends laughing. He looked at the happy Giant. And he understood that a stolen win was not a real win.

He took a big breath and said, "Everybody stop! The goal doesn't count."

Everyone turned around, surprised.

"What are you saying, Dash?" asked Lily. "We scored!"

Dash swallowed. It was hard to say, but he said it anyway. "The ball touched my hand before it went in. It was a handball. The goal is not fair. Even if no one saw it, I know it, and I have to tell the truth."

There was a silence. Even the wind seemed to stop for a moment.

And then something wonderful happened. The gentle Giant put a hand on his chest, and his eyes filled with tears. "At last," he said in a moved voice, "at last someone who tells the truth even when it's hard!"

And he burst into a giant laugh, so big and so happy that the whole market filled with cheer. "This," said the Giant, laughing, "this is the best fun I could have wished for! Winning didn't matter. What mattered was playing with true friends!"

The Giant felt calm and happy at last. "Now I can go back into my book," he said. "I really had fun, and I'll take this happy memory with me." He waved to everyone and walked toward the Tent of the Dancing Books. The playful Wind, as if by magic, blew softly and put all the pages back in their place. The Giant went into his book, the tent closed quietly, and the market went back to normal, with the apples in the baskets and the hats on people's heads.

"You did something like a champion, Dash," said Skye, hugging him. "Harder than a goal."

Fiorello the blackbird, for once, stopped looking at himself. "Let's start the game again!" he whistled. "And this time I'll really watch!"

They played again, fair and happy, laughing until they were out of breath. And when the sun began to go down, they heard that friendly sound again.

"CHOO CHOO! CHOO CHOO!"

Toby the Magic Train had come back to pick them up. The children climbed aboard, tired and happy, and Toby, before setting off for home, said in rhyme:

"CHOO CHOO! Head home now with joy in your heart:
today, like the wind, the truth won from the start!
Whoever speaks true, though it's hard to do,
grows braver and stronger, and finds a friend too!"

And the magic train set off among the clouds, while the four friends, from the windows, waved to Whistlewind Market as it grew smaller and smaller, until it looked like a tiny colored dot far away.