The stars in the packet looked rather ordinary. Twenty flat shapes in a paper bag.

Then the shopkeeper dimmed the light in the display box. The stars glowed.

Ava put both hands beside her face.

Look up! Look up!

“Our room could be SPACE,” she told Louis.

One packet cost one coin. Ava had one. Louis had a coin too.

“We could each buy a packet,” he said. “Then make one sky together.”

Ava thought about twenty stars in a close little crowd. Then forty spread across a much bigger space.

“Could some make a rocket?” she asked.

“Some could make a fish,” Louis replied.

“A SPACE fish.”

They agreed. Each bought a packet. At home, Mum helped fix the stars safely where they could see them from their beds. Ava chose a rocket shape. Louis made a fish with a very long tail.

One last star remained.

“For Walbot,” said Ava.

“I'm already quite shiny,” I pointed out.

They placed it between the rocket and the fish. My own tiny place in the sky.

Look up! Look up!

When Mum turned off the light, forty small stars appeared.

Ava lay still. Louis lay still. I hovered quietly.

Then Ava whispered, “The fish is following my rocket.”

“Of course,” Louis whispered back. “It wants to see where you're going.”

They fell quiet again. There was a whole sky to look at.