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It seemed like any other night at first.  Mrs Stillman took me out to pee on the neighbors lawn (not the last part, that was my idea).  It was shiver cold so she dressed me in my red parka, the one with fur around the hood. Then she put on her parka. It was red too. While I was sniffing around . Mrs Stillman looked up like always to see if she could find any stars. I looked with her. And oh boy, we could see a star, then two, then seven!  Mrs. Stillman rushed back into the house and grabbed her gloves, two cameras, earmuffs and two lollipops. Then she scooped me up and told me we were going on a new adventure.

It was almost midnight. There were no people on the streets. We drove through the city, past Kit’s house, past Elaine’s house, and past the playground, onto the big road with all the big stores. They were all lit up with different colors. But they were very quiet.

Once we had pulled away from the lights we looked up to see if the stars were still there. 

But we could hardly see any. 

We kept going and hoping anyway,  like we do in a lotta things.

The road got dark and fast. Then we saw a sign for the park and followed it  into the woods. The road curled around and around, up and up . When it finally flattened out and stopped going up,  the car stopped too. And WHOOSH, everything was black and still.  

Mrs. Stillman rolled back the moon roof.  But there was no moon out last night.         All we could see was a gillion stars!

Mrs Stillman gasped. She wasn’t sick though; she was just so happy. That made me feel good so  I took a little nap inside her jacket while she kept staring up and taking pictures and gasping.   Soon she woke me up saying out loud:  “Look! There’s the big dipper!

Dipper?  I didn’t see any dipper. Then she pointed out the stars  and told me to connect the dots.

And there it was.

 Way up in the beautiful black sky. So far, so far away.

All the stars were light years away she told me.

But we felt like they were right here with us, and we were part of them. The last time we did a star watch, Mrs. Stillman told me that.  

So, I asked her which star I came from. She answered that I might have come from a lotta stars “but they are all gone now.”

 I asked her why. “ Because they all blew up.  That’s how they made you.”

 A Supernova!

“ Wow, mom, what a terrible way to make someone.”

“ It got easier after that” she laughed.

We stepped out of the car to sense the quiet and felt the air whisper over our faces.  It seemed like the stars were telling us their secrets.  




The darkness wrapped a blanket around us and made us sleepy. We decided it was time to go.

The stars shined brighter and asked us to stay.

Really Hot Stars 

But, way below Ithaca was shining too and 

it looked beautiful, so we drove down into it. 

The road we took kept going and going, leading us through the dark.



I was scared and pressed myself to Mrs. Stillman. "Ooooh. poor baby. Don't worry,"she said, and held me tighter.I kept imaging big spooky people and puppy mill owners coming to take me back. But Mrs. Stillman was right.

The road wound all the way down, past farmhouses

Past the trees

Past the malls

 And right into the city. I was so glad!

And then finally, it took us all the way home.