A Graphic Educational Fiction Novel

What was that
BANG?!?

A simple question sparks a mind-blowing journey! Join Bean and his dad on an epic adventure exploring how sound travels from source to our conscious perception.

72-Page Paperback • Coming 28th March 2026
ISBN: 978-1-80634-016-3

End of Preview

Find out the rest of the story inside the book!
Scroll down to order your copy.

(Page 20)

MEABO: High-pitch sound waves, like a bird singing, will move the floor towards the lower part of the spiral. The hairs towards the lower end of the spiral will get bent when that happens. What do you think might happen with a low-pitch sound like thunder?

BEAN: Maybe... the opposite of a high-pitch sound...

MEABO: Which is?

BEAN: It moves the floor higher up the spiral...

MEABO: Go on...

BEAN: And then bends the hairs and sends a message to the brain.

MEABO: Great! You figured it out by thinking it through. When the brain receives the message, it knows where it's being sent from in the cochlea. That's how we know the difference between high- and low-pitch sounds.

And then what happens?!

Does the brain understand the sound right away? How does it become a memory?

(Page 18)

MEABO: The stapes is the smallest bone in your body. The eardrum is much wider than the end of the stapes. The force moving the eardrum gets transferred across to the stapes. This focuses the movement of the eardrum's wide area onto the small end of the stapes. This increases the pressure of the stapes vibrating into the cochlea.

BEAN: Got it. What happens after the stapes vibrates into the cochlea?

MEABO: Well, the cochlea is full of liquid.

BEAN: Liquid?!

MEABO: Yup. As the stapes vibrates backwards and forwards into the cochlea, it pushes the liquid. This produces waves in the liquid. These waves travel up the cochlea.

BEAN: Okay... can we go inside and have a look?

MEABO: Of course! Snorkels on. Let's go inside!

INSIDE THE COCHLEA (Page 19)

MEABO: As we can see, the cochlea is a spiral shape. It's divided into three sections that spiral round to its top. One for the wave to travel up the spiral, and one for the wave to travel down.

BEAN: And the one in the middle?

MEABO: This is the cochlea duct. As the waves travel up the spiral, they spread out. As they spread out, the waves travel through the floor, down to the cochlea duct.

BEAN: But why is the cochlea duct there?

MEABO: It's very important. As the waves travel through, they can make its floor vibrate up and down.

BEAN: And that's important because...?

MEABO: Along the cochlea duct's floor, all the way up the spiral, there are tiny hairs. When a part of the floor moves up, the hairs at that location get bent against a barrier above them.

MIDDLE EAR (Page 16)

MEABO: Let's go further into the ear and see what happens next.

BEAN: Great!

Meabo and Bean enter the ear.

MEABO: The sound waves travel into your ear and through this tunnel called the ear canal. At the end of the tunnel, they hit the eardrum.

BEAN: Like a drum you hit?

MEABO: Yes. When a sound wave hits the eardrum, it vibrates backwards and forwards.

(Page 17)

BEAN: I... feel... dizzy...

MEABO: Shall we go around the other side and see what happens next?

BEAN: Absolutely!

MEABO: There is a bone connected to the eardrum called the malleus. What do you think happens to the malleus as the eardrum vibrates?

BEAN: If the malleus is connected to the eardrum, I guess it'll move when the eardrum moves.

MEABO: It does indeed. The sound waves cause the eardrum to vibrate. And you're right: because it's connected to the malleus, it also makes that bone vibrate. Connected to the malleus is the incus bone, and connected to the incus is the stapes bone.