Ruth smiled as she watched her granddaughter, Molly, from
the porch. The little girl was spinning ‘round and ‘round, alternating her gaze
from the billowing fabric of her dress to the darkening sky above her.
“Ah!” exclaimed Molly, momentarily stopping her dance and
swaying from dizziness. She pointed toward the sky. “The first star’s out,
Grandma!”
“Oh, she’s looking lovely tonight,” said Ruth, following her
granddaughter’s pointer finger to the budding light.
“She sure is,” echoed Molly. She began to spin again, but
stopped. “Gosh, Grandma, I wish I could play with them.”
“With who, now?” asked Ruth.
“With the stars, Grandma!” said Molly impatiently.
The skin around Ruth’s eyes creased as she broke into a
grin. “You know, Molly,” she said, “you sound just like me when I was your age.
I wanted to play with the stars, too. And you know what?”
“What? What?”
“I did!” said Ruth proudly.
Molly stared at her with wide eyes full of wonder. She
looked up at the stars, and they seemed so impossibly far away. But if Grandma
had done it…
She climbed up onto the porch. “Tell me how, Grandma, tell
me!” she squealed excitedly.
“Alright, honey,” said Ruth, chuckling. “I’ll tell you, but
don’t go getting any ideas, now!”
After Molly promised that she certainly wouldn’t get any
ideas, Ruth began her tale.
“As I said, when I was your age, all I wanted was to play
with the stars. My parents brought home all sorts of little toys for me, but
the excitement always wore off so quickly. But the draw of the stars: that
never wore off for me! I’d talk about it constantly, and every evening I’d
greet the stars as they came out to see me. But, as you know, they were too far
to play with me.
“I’d talk and talk about meeting the stars, and of course no
one thought it was possible. They all said, ‘You silly girl, Ruth, you’ll never
meet the stars!’
“Now, I got tired of that talk very quickly. So I went off
on my own. That’s right, I ran away to look for the stars!”
Molly gasped and broke into a peal of giggles.
“What did I tell you about not getting any ideas, Molly?”
said Ruth sternly, before laughing along with her granddaughter.
“Well, anyway, I ran away, and I decided to ask everyone and
everything I came across to tell me how to get to the stars. First I came
across a pond, and I asked her if she knew where the stars were. She said that
they would shine right there on her surface every night. So I went in and swam
around, but I couldn’t find anything. You know, the science education wasn’t
what it is now, and we didn’t know about reflection.”
“Grandma, that’s silly!” exclaimed Molly. “Ponds don’t talk!”
“Oh, you’d be surprised, honey,” said Ruth with a wink. She
continued, “Then, I found a brooklet. He sang very nicely and was very kind to
me, and he also said that the stars shone in his water each night. So I swam
around the brooklet, too, but I didn’t find the stars there.
“I was feeling quite disappointed by now, but I still felt
hopeful that I could find my playmates. So I kept walking until I came to the
most beautiful meadow I had ever seen. It was filled to the brim with colorful
flowers and butterflies. But as I got closer, I saw that there weren’t any
flowers or butterflies at all, but tons and tons of fairies!”
“Fairies?” said Molly softly. “Everybody says those aren’t
real! Were there really fairies, Grandma?”
“Child, don’t tell me you can believe in playing stars and
talking ponds but not in fairies! Where do you think all the magic comes from?”
said Ruth. “Well, the fairies told me that if I danced with them I might see
the stars shining on the grass, but I danced until I was dizzy and sweaty and
the stars never came out to greet me. So I sat right there in the meadow and
cried ‘til my eyes were sore.
“But then, I heard the most beautiful song I had ever
witnessed, and I realized that the fairies were singing. They were trying to
help me! And I saw a great big golden staircase come down from the sky. I
climbed and climbed all night, and when I got to the top, there were the stars.
We danced and sang and spun around together, and when I started to miss my parents,
they helped me get home.”
She looked out at the sky, which was quite dark now except
for the constellations. “But that journey home is a story for another night,”
she said mysteriously. Molly nodded and looked toward the sky, smiling.
Although she had promised her grandma that she wouldn’t get any ideas, she had
gotten a lot of ideas.
Author's Note: This story is based on "The Stars in the Sky," a British fairy tale. In the original story, a young girl goes out to find the stars so that she can play with them. She meets a milldam, a brooklet, and the "Good Folk" (whom I imagined as fairies), but can't find the stars. The Good Folk tell her a riddle, and she eventually is carried by a horse and a fish to a staircase with no steps. She climbs and climbs, but never finds the stars, and she eventually falls and finds herself back at home, where she weeps bitterly. I simplified the plot by taking out the horse and fish, and I changed the ending so that the girl met her goal, because I didn't see any reason for her not to! I decided to have the girl tell the story in old age, looking back, and I thought that an excited, star-obsessed granddaughter would be a great audience for her.
Image Information: Grandma telling story. Source: Pixabay.
Bibliography: "The Stars in the Sky" from More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. Link to the reading online.
