Two children lay on a large meadow full of flowers. A girl called Claire and a boy called Oliver. Claire was an adorable girl with green eyes like a cat’s and fair hair. Oliver was her best friend, with tousled hair and big eyes. They did everything together. They couldn’t even remember ever being without one another. Oliver protected Claire and helped her, and she liked him very much. They both liked the stars. And so every night, as darkness fell and little lights began appearing in the sky, they would lay down next to each other in the meadow and look at them.
One evening as they lay there looking at the sky, they saw a star fall. “Look, Claire, a star is falling. Make a wish! I’m sure it will come true,” Oliver said, pointing at the sky. Claire smiled, closed her eyes, and whispered something. “What did you wish for? Will you tell me?” Oliver asked. “I can’t do that, it’s a secret,” Claire smiled mischievously. She knew that she’d made a wish that could only come true in a fairytale, but she’d still made it.
For a while they stayed there in the meadow, when suddenly another star fell. But this time, it was different. It was falling closer and closer, its light growing larger. The two children looked at one another and immediately jumped to their feet. The star crashed right in front of them. The entire meadow was suddenly illuminated by beautiful light. A small man stepped out of the light’s glow. He scuttled over to them and looked at them with his beautiful, smiling eyes that resembled mirrors. “So, are you coming?” he said.
“What? Where are we supposed to be going? And how? Who are you, actually?” Oliver blurted out. “I’m the man from the stars. I fly around the sky, making sure that all the stars rise into the sky, that the moon’s as bright as it should be, and I make sure that everything in the sky is in order. And also, I make wishes come true when stars fall, and someone makes a wish. And today, you wished for something, Claire. So, here I am. I borrowed a star from the sky, and I can take you for a ride across the sky on it. So, are you ready for a heavenly tour?”
At first, the children looked at one another in disbelief, but then they let the man persuade them. They were very tempted by the idea of a tour of the skies. They climbed onto the star and the man made it rise with all three of them on it. They flew higher and higher, until they were in the sky itself.
Slowly, they moved across the heavens and the man explained: “This is the North Star, here’s the Orion constellation, these stars here form the Lion constellation, and back there is the Milky Way, the stars and I sometimes go surfing on it.”
That night, Claire and Oliver traveled through what seemed like the entire universe. They both enjoyed it very much. As the man slowly descended back to Earth with them, the children thanked him profusely. But before they said goodbye, Claire leaned over to him and whispered in his ear: “But I didn’t wish for a trip across the sky when the star was falling.” “I know,” the man from the stars replied. “You wished that you could always be with Oliver and that he would never stop loving you.” Claire blushed. “And how do you know, little man?” she asked. “I know everything,” he said and flew away.
Then he created a message in the sky from star dust. “Don’t worry, Claire, your wish will come true on its own. You don’t need any magic for that.” Claire smiled dreamily, looking up at the sky where the magic star words were slowly disappearing.
It had truly been a magical night. She’d seen the universe, met the man from the stars, and experienced it all with her best friend. And what was more, she’d started to believe in magic. She was determined to do everything in her power to make her wish come true as well.
