#thefirststar

This piece is part of a children’s book called Unfinished Bedtime Stories that puts you in the shoes of the protagonist. It sets up the world and the character, but lets your imagination do the rest. Read this before you go to sleep.

You are lying in your cozy bed. Your mom and dad kiss you goodnight and leave the room. As their footsteps disappear down the hallway, you can hear the crickets chirping in the hills outside your window. You open your eyes and watch the doorway. The light at the end of the hallway flicks off. Your parents are going to sleep. It’s safe now.

You slip out of bed, as quiet as a mouse, and drag your telescope over to your window. You point your telescope toward the stars and wait. All the newspapers said that it would happen tonight. Then you see it. The first flash of silver streaks across the darkness. It’s a shooting star. Then there’s another and another and the meteor shower begins. You watch with wide eyes. It’s beautiful.

Then a giant star unlike the others appears and rockets across the sky, but instead of growing smaller and dimmer, it grows bigger and brighter, so big and bright that you have to back away from your telescope. It begins to fall. It's falling down, falling towards you, you think, and then, for a moment, it lights up the whole night sky before it disappears in the hills. You stare out at the hills. They're close. You ride your bike in them every day. Did a shooting star just land there?

You’re going to find out and you’re not going to waste anytime. You grab a sweatshirt and climb out your window onto the roof of the second story. You carefully step across the clay tiles to a branch of the big tree in your front yard. You’ve done this before. You step out onto the branch, grab another branch for support and tightrope walk your way to the trunk where you scurry down to the grass. The grass is cold and damp on your bare feet and that’s when you realize that you forgot your shoes! It’s too late to go back now.

You grab your bike from the front porch and wheel it silently out the front gate and onto the path that leads into the hills. You hop on your bike and peddle. Slowly and quietly at first, then faster and faster until you are racing through the dark green hills, up and down and around the windy trail. Finally you reach the spot where you think it disappeared, but you don’t see anything. Maybe you were wrong, you think.

You are about to give up and head back when you notice a faint glow behind the hill in front of you. You drop your bike and race across the grass until you come to…

...a cliff! You stop just in time. On the other side of the hill, is a dirt cliff at the edge of a giant crater. And at the center of the crater, is a tiny glowing sphere of light. It’s a star. So that's what a star looks like, like a light bulb floating in space.

Without thinking, you scramble down the rocky cliffside and go tumbling into the crater. You spring to your feet and run to the star. You slow down as you get closer. It looks like a bright, white ball of light. It’s brightest at the center and then it sort of fades off.

You reach out to touch it and, as your fingers enter the first particles of light, you feel a tingling sensation. It tickles. You smile and reach deeper into the light. You cup your palm underneath it and now you are holding the star in your hands. Then it begins to shrink, as if it’s melting into your hands. Your whole body tickles. It feels good. It feels amazing. It gets smaller and smaller until POP! It disappears.

You stand there looking at your empty hands wondering what happened. You have a new energy. You feel happy and energetic, like you want to run and jump and climb and fly. You run to the edge of the crater and try to climb up but some of the dirt breaks loose and you fall back down. You didn't realize how steep it was when you climbed down. Now you're stuck.

You try to climb again and again but the dirt keeps breaking away and you keep falling. Frustrated, you finally leap as high as you can and suddenly you are launched into the air, up and out of the crater. You land onto the soft grass and go rolling all the way down the hill. You stand up. Holy cow. What just happened?

You try jumping again and you fly high into the air, as high as a house, higher than you've ever jumped before. This is cool! You grab rock and throw it in the air. Then you jump and you catch it high up, twenty feet above the ground. You throw it again, but this time it's out of reach. You focus your mind on catching it and suddenly you are floating and you catch the rock. But as soon as you realize that you're floating, you crash to the ground giggling. If you focus, you might be able to learn to fly!

You'd better get home before your parents discover that you're missing. You bike home and peddle faster than you've ever gone. You lock up your bike, bend your legs, and spring onto the roof in a single leap! You land with a CRASH on the clay tiles. Your parents will have heard that. You race back into your room and, thinking quickly, you set the telescope on its side. You are about to jump into bed when you see the hall light flip on and hear footsteps pound towards you. It's your mom. She's going to catch you. If only you could make yourself invisible!

Your mom bursts into the room and stops. She scans the room, “Sweetie? Where are you?” You're standing right in front of her, but she can't see you. You ARE invisible! She moves to the window and closes it. You jump into bed and pull the sheets back over you. Ok, now you don't want to be invisible, you think. Your mom turns back from the window and jumps and screams! She's staring right at you now.

“I didn't see you there! It's so dark in here.”

You roll over and rub your eyes, pretending to be half asleep.

“Sorry…”

“Did you open the window?”

“Yeah, I got hot.”

“What was that noise?”

You yawn groggily, “I knocked over my telescope, sorry.”

She looks over and sees the telescope on its side.

“It's ok, get some sleep.” Your mom tucks you in, fixes the telescope and leaves.

This week is 

thefirststar  < my cousin Josie 

i wonder who it will be next week............