“What’s that?”

Teju hides.
“It won’t find me here!”

He runs.
“Why are you following me?”

Leave me ALONE!

Go away. Go away. GO AWAY!
“Teju! What are you doing?”
“It won’t go away!”
“Your shadow?”

“It follows me everywhere!
It’s like a super secret spy!”

“Well, there’s one way to make a shadow disappear…”

Later that night in Teju’s bedroom, the light goes off…
…and then on.
And off…
…and on.
Teju can’t sleep.

“What’s wrong Teju?”
“It only goes away in the dark, but I’m scared of the dark!”
Mum gives Teju a big hug.
“Do you want to see something amazing?”

Mum and Teju make shadow puppets until he falls asleep.

After school, Teju waits for Mum.
“I’m bored.”
Teju stands up, he jumps, he dances.
His shadow does the same.
Cool!

When he goes to bed that night, Teju leaves his night light on.
“Goodnight Shadow!”

Credits
Originally published by Book Dash under a Creative Commons Licensed BY 4.0. This book can be read for free on https://bookdash.org/books/tejus-shadow and was created by: Sope Martins (Writer), Alison Ziki (Editor), Aisha O’Reilly (Designer), Ndumiso Nyoni (Illustrator)