The Night the Moon Got a Little Sister

For as long as anyone could remember, the Moon had the night sky all to herself.

Every evening she rose over the rooftops, round and silver and important, and the whole world looked up at her. Dogs sang to her. Poets scribbled about her. Small children pointed at her with wet, just-washed fingers and said her name before almost any other word.

The Moon loved her sky very much.

Then, one evening, there was a new light in it.

It was a star. A brand-new, very tiny star — so new it still wobbled when it twinkled, the way new things do.

“Ooooh,” said the whole world, looking up. “Look at the little star!”

The dogs sang to the star. The poets scribbled about the star. The small children pointed their wet fingers right past the Moon.

The Moon dimmed. Just a little. Just around the edges, where nobody could see.

It’s very small, she thought grumpily. It can’t even twinkle straight. And it’s sitting in MY sky.

All night the little star wobbled and blinked, and all night the Moon pretended not to look, which is hard work when you are the biggest eye in the sky.

But then, very late, when the rooftops were asleep and even the dogs had run out of songs, the Moon heard a small sound.

The little star was crying. Tiny silver hiccups, the kind only very new lights make.

“I can’t do it,” sniffled the star. “The twinkling. It keeps coming out crooked. Everyone watched me all night and I got it wrong every single time.”

The Moon came closer. And she noticed something she hadn’t noticed before: up close, the little star wasn’t taking up much of the sky at all. The sky was enormous. There had always been room.

“Little star,” said the Moon, “shall I tell you a secret? On my very first night, I rose in the daytime, by mistake. Nobody even saw me.”

The star giggled — a wobbly, hiccupy giggle.

“Now watch,” said the Moon. “Twinkling is just shining, and then resting, and then shining again. Shine… rest… shine. Nobody can rest properly if they’re worried. So I’ll hold the sky steady, and you practise.”

And she wrapped her big silver light around the little star like a shawl, and held the whole sky absolutely steady.

Shine… rest… shine.

Shine… rest… twinkle.

“I DID IT!” shouted the little star, so loudly that one dog woke up and had to be sung back to sleep.

When the sun came to take over in the morning, he found them still together — the little star fast asleep, twinkling perfectly in her dreams, and the Moon beside her, bright to her very edges.

“New star?” asked the sun.

“My little sister,” said the Moon. “I’m teaching her the sky.”