Day 24: Starlight travels a very long way to us.

Pim, my sister says that the light from a star gets here right away, the moment the star shines. I think it must take a little while, because the stars are so far. Which one of us is right? How long does starlight take to get to my eyes? From a child who is supposed to be asleep and is still counting stars. Pim thought it was a very good question, and he did not know the answer.

The Pebble by the Seeds

The white pebble from the lake island lay on the sill beside the apple seeds. June turned it over and over in her hand while Pim told her about the shooting stars. "Tiny specks of dust," she said. "Burning up high in the air, and not a single star lost." She set the pebble down gently by the seeds.

Nell glowed in her teacup bed. "But the stars are still so far away," she said. "When I look at them, I sometimes wonder if they can see me looking." June pressed her nose to the window and squinted at the sky.

Grandma Ada came in with a basket of clean socks. "My father used to say that starlight is old light," she said. "He said it was older than the hills." June laughed and asked how light could be old. Grandma Ada did not know, so she only shrugged and began to fold the socks. Outside, the Night Wind whistled down the chimney. "There is a hut up in the high mountains where Berta writes down the stars," it said. "Come along, and you can ask her."

A Notebook Full of Dots

The Night Wind carried Pim and Nell up and up, over dark forests and gray rocks. At last it set them down beside a small stone hut high on a mountain. The air was cold and thin. Berta stood outside the hut in a thick coat and a woolly hat. She held a notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," Pim sang softly.

Berta looked up from her notebook and smiled at the two little lights. "Visitors, up here?" she said. "Come and see what I am drawing." The page was full of tiny dots, with neat lines joining some of them together. Pim zoomed around her hat twice and landed on the edge of the notebook. "We came to ask about starlight," he said. "Does it reach us right away, or does it take a long time?" Berta laughed, because she loved that question best of all.

Light from Very Far Away

"Light is the fastest thing there is," said Berta. "It could go around the whole Earth seven times in one second." Pim spun in the air. "Then starlight gets here right away!" he said. Berta shook her head. "The stars are very, very far away," she said. "So far that even light takes years and years to cross the dark. The light from the nearest stars takes a few years to reach us. From many stars, it takes hundreds or even thousands of years."

Nell looked up at the bright stars over the mountain. "So the light I see tonight," she began slowly. "It left those stars a long time ago," said Berta. "From many of them, it set out before you were born, and before I was born, and before my grandmother was born. It has been traveling all that time, and it is only arriving tonight."

Nell's light grew very still. "And the light that leaves a star tonight?" she asked. "Where will it be tomorrow?" Berta looked up at the sky. "It will be still on its way," she said. "It will reach this mountain many, many years from now." Pim was so surprised that he forgot to fly and sat down in the snow.

"Still on its way," said Nell, very softly. She pointed to a small, faint star far above the hut. "And that one, too?" Berta nodded. "That light has come farther than any of the others here," she said. "All this time it was on its way, and it is just reaching your eyes now." So the child in the letter was right, Pim thought. The light does not get here right away. But the light is very, very fast, and the way is very, very long.

Berta tore one page out of her notebook and folded it in half. "Take this home with you," she said. "It is a page of star patterns. People have joined the stars with lines for a long, long time." Nell looked at the dots on the page, and her light gave a small, strange flicker. Something on that page seemed very close to her. Pim tucked the folded page under his wing. The Night Wind lifted them up off the snow.

"Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," sang Pim and Nell together as the mountain fell away below them. The stars over the peaks shone with their old, old light. Far ahead, a small yellow light was waiting, and that light was not old at all. It was Grandma Ada's lamp in the window of the little house, left on all night so that anyone out in the dark could find the way. Its light reached them in a moment, because the little house was near.

The Night Wind set them down on the sill. Pim slipped the folded page under the white pebble so it would not blow away. June was asleep with one sock still in her hand. Nell settled into her teacup bed, but she kept one eye on the page with the dots. Pim looked at the lamp and at the page and at Nell. "The lamp is on. The door is near. And all is well here," he whispered.

Old Light for Your Window

Watch for one bright star tonight, and think of the long way its light has traveled to reach your window. Watch for a faint little star, because its light may have set out long before anyone in your house was born. And watch for a lamp left on in a window nearby, because its light reaches you in a moment, and someone there is waiting. Still on its way, the starlight comes. The page of dots lies under the pebble. The lamp is on, and it is time to close your eyes.

Part 5: The Long Way Home

Nell has learned a great deal about the sky, and now she begins to remember where she belongs. In these last nights, Pim and Nell look for her place, wait for the clouds to pass, and say goodbye to the friends they met on the way. The lamp in the window of the little house stays on through all of it.

Day 25: Nell remembers the shape of her home.

"What are all these little dots, Pim?" asked June. She had found the folded page under the white pebble on the sill. She opened it out flat on the kitchen table, beside Grandma Ada's lamp. The page was covered in tiny pencil dots, and thin lines joined some of them together. Pim zoomed down onto the table and walked along one of the lines. "Berta drew them on the mountain," he said. "She said they are star patterns."

The Page of Dots

Grandma Ada put on her glasses and leaned over the page. "Ah," she said. "When I was a girl, my father showed me pictures in the stars. There was a hunter with a belt, and a big spoon, and a swan with long wings." June looked at the dots and turned her head to one side. "I don't see a swan," she said. "I only see dots." Grandma Ada laughed. "That is because the swan was never really there," she said. "People drew it with their eyes."

Pim flew up beside the lamp and looked down at the page. "Berta said that people have been joining the stars with lines for a long, long time," he said. Grandma Ada nodded. "And the stars in a pattern are not really close together," she said. "Some are near, and some are much, much farther away. They only look close from here." Pim thought about that. "So the pictures are not in the sky," he said. "The pictures are in people's heads."

"Then why did people make them up?" asked June. Grandma Ada tapped the page with her finger. "To find their way," she said. "A long time ago, travelers had no machines to show them the way. Sailors at sea looked for the patterns they knew, and they could tell which way to steer. Travelers in the desert did the same. Farmers watched for certain patterns to know when to plant and when to pick." June nodded slowly. "So a picture helps you remember where the stars are," she said.

All this time, Nell had been very quiet. She floated over the page and looked at one small group of dots in the corner. There were four dots, with lines joining them into a kite shape. At the bottom of the kite, where the tail would be, there was an empty space. Nell's light flickered and then flickered again. "One, two, three, four," she whispered. "And a gap." June and Pim looked at each other, and then they looked at Nell.

"I know that shape," said Nell, and her voice was shaking a little. "I know it, Pim. I lived just below those four stars, in the gap at the tail. When I looked up from my place, I saw the kite above me every night." Pim zipped around her in three quick circles. "One, two, three, four, and a gap!" he cried. "Nell, that is your home! That empty space is your place!" June jumped up so fast that her chair fell over.

The Kite over the Roof

"Let's go and look for it right now," said June. Grandma Ada picked up the chair and found June's coat. They all went out into the garden together, past the mint and the gate. June stood on the bench and looked up. Pim and Nell flew up to the top of the roof. "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," sang Pim, as he rose. The sky was dark and clear, and the stars were out.

They looked and looked. Pim zoomed from one corner of the roof to the other. There was the big spoon, high over the trees, and there were bright stars and faint stars, gold ones and blue-white ones. At last Nell stopped and pointed far away, over the dark hills. Over there, the sky was not black. It was a dull orange glow, where the lights of a town were shining.

"Look, just above the glow," said Nell. Pim looked hard. He saw one faint star, and then another, very pale and hard to see. "One, two," Nell whispered. "The others are there too, I know it. But the glow is too bright, and I cannot see them." Pim landed beside her on the chimney pot. "Then we will go closer, and we will look again," he said. "We will find your kite, Nell."

Nell was not sad, even though she could not see the whole kite. She knew its shape now, and a shape could not be lost. "One, two, three, four, and a gap," she said softly to herself. Pim sat close beside her. "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," he sang, more slowly this time. Down below, the window of the little house glowed yellow. Grandma Ada's lamp was on, the way it was on every night, so anyone out in the dark could find the way back.

June took a pencil from her pocket when they came back in. On a clean piece of paper, she drew four dots and joined them into a kite. At the tail she drew a tiny star, very small and very bright, with a circle around it. "That is you, Nell," she said. "That is where you belong." She pinned the drawing to the wall right next to the lamp. Nell glowed at it for a long time.

Grandma Ada made a cup of warm milk and gave June a piece of toast. June ate it in her chair, and her eyes kept closing. Pim flew onto the sill and looked at the lamp, at the kite drawing on the wall and at Nell. "The lamp is on. The door is near. And all is well here," he whispered. Grandma Ada smiled and carried June off to bed.

Nell curled up in her teacup bed. She looked at the drawing one more time before her light grew dim. One, two, three, four, and a gap. Pim settled on the green leaf beside her. Outside, the stars seemed to move slowly across the sky, and far beyond the glowing hills, the kite was waiting. The lamp glowed on in the window. The little house was very quiet, and slowly, slowly, everyone fell asleep.