Day 14: The stars are still there in the morning.

Dear Pim, every morning when I wake up, the stars are gone from my window. Where do they go? Do they sleep all day while I am awake and playing? From a child who wants to know before the sun comes up. Pim read the letter out loud to Nell, and Nell sat up very straight in her teacup bed. It was the same question that had been on her mind since the hilltop.

"Tess said the stars are still up there in the morning," Nell said. "But how can that be, when nobody can see them?" On the day of the teacup bed, Grandma Ada had told them what her father said, that the stars sleep in the daytime. Now they had heard something new. The Night Wind rattled the window softly. "Come and see for yourselves," it said. "I know a rocky coast where the morning comes early."

The Rocky Coast Before Dawn

The Night Wind carried them far over the dark sea. "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," Pim sang as the waves rolled below. Then they came to a coast of tall gray rocks. Waves crashed against them and threw up white spray. Pim zoomed straight through the spray, came out the other side and shook the drops off his wings, laughing. Nell bounced from rock to rock, and the wet stones glittered under her light.

At the top of the rocks stood a lighthouse, and old Edda sat on its steps with a cup of tea. A gray seal lay on a flat rock below her, snoring. The sky was still dark, but at the very edge of the sea a thin pale line was growing. "You are just in time," Edda said to Pim and Nell. "It is about to begin."

Watching the Stars Fade

They sat on the steps beside her and looked up. At first the stars were bright and many. Then, slowly, the pale line at the edge of the sea grew wider. The sky turned from black to deep blue. One by one, the faint little stars disappeared. "Fade, fade, still there," Edda said quietly. It was a little rhyme she said every morning on the steps. Then only the brightest stars were left, and the sky turned paler blue.

"Where did they go?" asked Nell. Her light trembled a little. "Did they fall asleep?" Edda shook her head and smiled. "Many people say so, and it is a gentle thing to say," she said. "But they are all still there. They do not go anywhere in the morning, and they do not sleep. The sun is coming up, and sunlight is very, very bright. It fills up the whole sky, so it hides the stars from our eyes." The seal opened one eye and grunted. "Every morning she says that," he mumbled, "and it is true." Then he went back to snoring.

"Fade, fade, still there," Edda said again, as the last bright star faded into the blue. Then the sun peeked over the sea, red and gold and enormous. Pim flew up into the first warm rays and spun around with delight. "Look at me!" he cried. Nell laughed, because she could hardly see him. "Pim, where are you?" she called. "Your light is gone!"

Pim's Glow in the Sunshine

"My light is not gone," Pim called back, puzzled. "I am glowing just the same as always." He flew down into a deep crack between the rocks, where it was still shady and dim. Suddenly there he was again, a bright gold spark in the dark. Then he flew back out into the sunshine, and his glow almost disappeared. "Oh!" said Nell. "Your light is still on, but the sunshine hides it."

"That is just what happens to the stars," said Edda. "Stars are in the sky in the daytime, too. They shine the whole day long, the same as at night. But the sunshine is so bright that we cannot see them. When the sun goes down in the evening, there they are again." Nell looked up at the bright blue sky. Somewhere up there, hidden by the sunlight, were all the stars, still shining. "Fade, fade, still there," she whispered.

Edda reached into her pocket and pulled out a smooth, round pebble, gray with a white stripe around the middle. "For your friend at home," she said, "the girl who wrote the question on the paper." Nell took it carefully. Then the Night Wind swept down over the rocks. "Back home, quickly, before the little house wakes up," it said. "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," Pim sang, and they rose into the wind.

The gulls woke up on the rocks and began to call to each other. The seal slid into the water with a splash and swam off to find his breakfast. Edda finished her tea and stood up to stretch. "Come back any morning," she said, "and we will watch the stars hide again." Pim and Nell promised that they would, and they waved to her from high above the lighthouse.

It was still dark when they reached the little house, because morning comes later there. Grandma Ada's lamp was glowing in the window, a small light left on for them. Nell put the striped pebble on the sill next to June's paper. Then she climbed into her teacup and yawned. "The lamp is on. The door is near. And all is well here," Pim whispered. Above the roof, the stars were shining, and they would keep shining all day long.

Things Hidden in the Light

Here are three things to watch for, tonight and tomorrow morning. Watch for the first star in the evening, when the sky turns dark and the sunlight fades away. Watch for a small light, a nightlight or a firefly, and see how it shows up better in the dark than in a bright room. And watch for the morning sky, and remember that the stars are still there, shining behind the blue. Now close your eyes slowly, slowly, and rest.

Day 15: The air above the harbor is never still.

"Mind the ropes, little lights, or you will get tangled up in my nets!" a deep voice called out across the water. Pim swerved just in time and zipped over a pile of nets. Nell bumped into a wooden post and giggled. The Night Wind had set them down in a busy fishing harbor, full of boats bobbing on dark water. The boats creaked, the ropes slapped, and the waves went slosh against the stones.

That morning June had found the striped pebble on the sill. She had carried it in her pocket all day long, and at bedtime she had set it back beside the teacup. "Stars in the daytime," she had said. "That was a good true thing. Now find out another one." So here they were again, out in the world. "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," Pim sang, and he spun a loop over the boats.

Boats in the Night Harbor

The deep voice belonged to old Ivo. He was sitting in his little blue boat, mending a net, with a lantern hanging from the mast. A ginger cat sat on the bow and watched the water for fish. Ivo looked up at the sky every few minutes, because he would soon sail out to sea. "Clear and calm tonight," he said. "But the stars are flickering hard, so the air up high is busy."

The Rooftop Boy's Saying

Nell looked up, and the stars were twinkling hard, flickering and shivering above the harbor. "On the rooftops of a busy town, a boy told us the stars were winking at him," she said. "Are they winking at you now?" Ivo laughed a big, warm laugh. "That is a nice thing to think," he said. "Many people say so. But no, the stars are not winking. It is the air that makes them twinkle."

Moving Air up High

"The air?" said Pim. He had never thought much about the air, except when the Night Wind was carrying him. "Above us there is a great deal of air," said Ivo, "high and deep. It is never still. Warm air and cool air are always moving and mixing up there. The starlight has to pass through all of it to reach our eyes." He tied a knot in the net.

"The moving air bends the starlight a tiny bit this way and that way," Ivo said. "So the star seems to jump and flicker. Shiver, shimmer, shine. That is what my father used to say." Nell tried it. "Shiver, shimmer, shine," she said, and she shivered her own light on and off. The cat turned to stare at her with big green eyes.

Wobbly Air Above the Lantern

"Come here, and I will show you," said Ivo. He pointed to the space just above his hot lantern. "Stay back from the hot glass, and look through the air over it at that mast on the next boat." Pim and Nell looked. The mast seemed to wobble and wiggle, even though it was standing perfectly still. "The warm air from the lantern is moving," said Ivo. "It bends the light from the mast, and the mast seems to wobble. The air high above us does the same thing to the stars."

Stars Low Over the Water

Pim zoomed up high and looked around the whole sky. Then he noticed something. The stars right overhead were twinkling a little, but the stars low down near the sea were twinkling much more. "Why do those low ones flicker the most?" he asked. "Clever firefly," said Ivo. "When you look low, near the edge of the sky, you look through much more air. More moving air means more twinkling."

Nell floated down and sat on the edge of the boat. "So the stars are shining steady, all the way along," she said slowly. "And the moving air makes them seem to twinkle when the light gets here." Ivo nodded. "Shiver, shimmer, shine," he said. Then he picked up his lantern and looked at Pim very closely. "Now I have a question for you, little one," he said.

A Question for Pim

"How do you make your own light?" asked Ivo. "You have no lantern and no oil. Does it get hot?" Pim opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked down at his own soft glow. "It never feels hot," he said. "But I do not know how I make it." The bats in the rainforest had said he was a piece of a star. Pim did not know whether that was true. He wanted to find out.

Lanterns Leaving the Harbor

Ivo untied his rope and pushed off from the stones. One by one, the other boats followed him out of the harbor, each with a lantern on its mast. The cat stood at the bow with her tail held high. "Good fishing!" called Nell, and Pim flashed his light three times. Then the Night Wind came whistling down to the water. "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight," Pim sang, and they flew up over the harbor and away.

One Lamp in the Little Window

Far below them, the fishing boats were little lights on the dark sea. Far ahead, there was one light they knew best of all. It was Grandma Ada's lamp, left on in the window of the little house, so that someone would always know the way. The Night Wind set them on the sill beside the striped pebble. "The lamp is on. The door is near. And all is well here," Pim whispered.

Nell crept into her teacup and looked up through the glass. The stars above the garden twinkled softly in the moving air. "Shiver, shimmer, shine," she murmured, so quietly that Pim could hardly hear. Pim settled on the green leaf and watched his own glow. How did he make it? He did not know yet. His light grew dimmer and slower, and his eyes slowly closed. And the little house slept.