Hum Softly, Last Little Star
The sky outside the sunroom was turning the color of lavender jam. Rosy pressed her nose to the cool glass. Ava and Leandray squished in beside her. "Look!" Rosy whispered. "One star. Two stars. Three!"
"There are ten wandering stars tonight," Rosy said. "I want to count every single one before bed." Leandray hopped. "Ten! I can count to ten with jumps!" He jumped three big jumps, one for each star.
"We need a better spot," said Ava. So the three friends carried blankets and cushions to the room with the glass skylight. They built a pillow fort right underneath it. Ava stacked the fluffiest pillows into a tall, wobbly tower.
Ava handed Rosy the softest cushion of all. Rosy snuggled in and peeked up through the skylight. "Four," she counted. "Five." Ava pointed. "That one looks like a tiny teacup!" "Six!" shouted Leandray, bouncing on his knees.
Leandray stretched his finger up high. "And that one is sev..." But just then, the night cloud came rolling across the skylight like a giant sleepy sheep. It covered the stars, one, two, three. The glass went gray.
"Oh no," said Ava. "The cloud is hogging the sky!" Leandray flopped backward into the pillows. Rosy chewed her lip. Then she sat up straight. "Clouds are big, but they can't cover everything. Let's go look from outside!"
The three friends tiptoed out the back door and across the porch. The grass was cool and damp under their feet. Tiny fireflies blinked low. Crickets sang in the dark beneath the quiet trees.
Rosy tipped her head way back. Past the edge of the night cloud, three stars peeked out. "Seven," she breathed. "Eight," said Ava. "Nine," Leandray whispered. He did not jump this time. He just smiled, very wide.
But the tenth star was still hiding. They looked and looked. The cloud stayed put. Leandray rubbed his eyes. "Maybe it went to bed already." Rosy had an idea. "Let's draw it a path home," she said.
Back in the pillow fort, Rosy spread out the star paper and picked up the purple chalk. She drew nine dots, just where the stars had been. Then she looped a soft line between them, round and round.
At the very end, she left one empty space. "That's where number ten goes," Rosy said. "Now we wait. And maybe we hum, so it knows we're friendly." She began a slow, sleepy tune.
Ava hummed along. Leandray hummed too, quieter than he had ever been. The three of them lay back in the cushions and waited, patient as pudding cooling on a windowsill. Above the skylight, the night cloud began to drift.
Slowly, slowly, it slid away. And there, right over their heads, glowed the tenth star. It was the brightest of them all. "Ten," whispered Rosy, and she drew the last purple dot on her star path.
Ava yawned a little yawn. Leandray yawned a giant yawn that stretched all the way to his toes. Then Rosy yawned too. Soon Ava and Leandray waved sleepy goodnights and padded off to their own beds.
Rosy pulled the purple quilt right up to her chin. Ten quiet stars glowed above the skylight, and her chalk path lay beside her pillow. She closed her eyes and wondered, very softly, "Do stars count us back?"
