The Notebooks of Honora Gorman

The Fallen Star

When Sophie went to bed at night, she always parted the curtains and gazed upon the night sky. Some nights, she saw patterns in the stars. Some nights, wisps of clouds sailed past a soft full moon. Some nights, she even saw a moonbow.

When the sky was especially starry, she would remember her grandmother saying, “Everybody has a star.”

Sophie wondered which one was hers. There was one star that she noticed the most. It seemed to be winking at her. She tried an experiment to discover if the star was really hers. She winked and blinked with one eye and with two – and sure enough, each time the star winked back. Sophie was very happy to have found her star.

Night after night, the last thing she did before sleeping was wink at her star. One night, she was almost asleep, looking at her star between long sleepy blinks, when all of a sudden – Swhissshh! The star streamed through the sky and was gone!

Sophie kneeled up in bed with her hands on the window ledge and searched the sky. But there was no sign of her star. It had fallen.

“I must find my star,” she said.

The next morning, she packed a bag with all the items she would need for her search. First of all, cookies and a sandwich. Next, a compass, though she wasn’t sure how it worked. And since she didn’t have a map, she brought along a tiny toy globe with bright blue oceans. Last of all, she packed a small box to put her star in – because she was sure she would find it.

Sophie set out on her journey, looking far and wide and up close. Her plan was simple: to search for something shiny. She walked and walked, and rambled and ambled. Every now and then, she climbed a fence or a tree or a hill, and shielding her eyes with her hands, she peered as far as she could see. If she spotted a flicker or a sparkle or a twinkle or a glitter, she would set off in that direction.

In the middle of the day, Sophie sat down by a tree and ate her sandwich. She took out the small globe and turned it round and round, wondering where on earth her star could be. She held the compass in her palm, but it didn’t tell her anything. She thought of all the things she had mistaken for her star: a shiny beetle, sparkling dew drops, weathervanes and mailboxes, windows reflecting in the sun, and a glittering stream. She gave a deep sigh. There were many shiny things in the world.

Sophie followed the glittering stream that ran along a narrow road. At the end of the road, she saw a cottage with a blue arched door and a garden. A big garden. It was being tended by a little old man wearing a bright red vest, a blue shirt, and green pants, and a little old lady wearing a bright red skirt, a green blouse, and a blue shawl. They both wore yellow boots.

They smiled at her with twinkling eyes. A sign, perhaps? Sophie wondered.

They had just watered their garden and silvery drops clung to every leaf and petal and stem and glittered in the afternoon sun. It was a very sparkly place. Could her star be here? She was sure this place held a clue.