Secret

Chapter Four ~ Tasmin

When I was little my Dad used to tell me that every once in a while, a little lost star would fall out of the sky. Every night, I would sneak out of bed, climb the tree outside my window and watch to see if any stars had fallen out of the sky. I never found any.

One-night Mum found me outside, in the tree. She took me down and scolded me to no end.

"What do you think you were doing up there?" She told me. "You could have fallen out of that tree and neither I nor Dad would know where you were because we would think that you were sound asleep in your bed!"

"I was looking for stars," I told her. "Dad told me that sometimes a star will fall out of the sky, and I want to be there to catch it."

There was a deathly silence. Mum was staring at me, and I was staring at her.

She took me on her lap and told me this:

"Do you know what stars are, my darling?"

I shook my head.

"Stars are dreams. You didn't know that?"

I shook my head.

"Stars are dreams, and that's why there are so many of those stars up in the sky. Because there are so many dreams."

"Are they everyone's dreams? Everyone's in the world?" I asked.

"Yes. They are everyones. And there are thousands and thousands of dreams up there right now. And do you know why we can only see them at night?"

"Why?"

"Because at night, there is darkness, and in darkness, our dreams and hopes are there to light the way. To keep us going." Mum said, smiling.

"The stars will always be there, my darling. They will always be there as long as you keep on dreaming. And if a star does fall out of the sky, that's a bad thing, but we have to let that little dream go back up on its own. Because nobody should ever let go of their dreams."

"So you're telling me that I should keep dreaming," I said.

"Exactly. But nobody can dream without sleep, so hurry up and get back into bed!"

And I did. And that night, I dreamed. I dreamed of stars and dreams and hopes and wishes.

Suddenly, Tasmin wasn't in her bedroom anymore. It was nighttime, and she was sitting in the front yard of a house. It was a very nice house.

She noticed a dull glowing from somewhere up in a tree nearby. Squinting her eyes, Tasmin saw that it was a young girl, holding a net. She was collecting stars from the tree and putting them into her backpack.

Tasmin laughed. It had worked again! She slowly blinked, and reality came back into focus. She was back in her bedroom, The Fallen Star clutched tightly in her hands.