Post by DianaDeBolt on Jul 9, 2022 9:50:53 GMT -5
Every night at 8:00 p.m. the townspeople of Starlight Cove say goodnight to the stars with wishes. It's been a tradition for fifty years and my favorite part of every day. Grandpa Billy and I race up our lighthouse steps, footsteps echoing off the metal stairs. It’s almost eight. We lost track of time due to hyper-focusing on the mural we’re painting on the tower wall. Grandpa pauses to slice his fingers over the swirls of blue, black, teal, and purple creating a galaxy of nebulae, stars, and planets.
“It’s coming along spacetacularly,” Grandpa says. He guffaws at his own joke.
“Ha, ha, very funny,” I say, but giggle anyway. Grandpa's laugh is the loudest laugh of anyone on Earth. I'm sure of it. And it's contagious. No matter how groan-worthy his jokes and puns are.
I stop in front of the constellations I painted earlier today. “Do our starlings look okay?”
Everyone in Starlight Cove has their own constellation we call starlings. They’re not typical constellations, like Leo or Orion. Ours are built from our individual imaginations. Built of stars into whatever shape we want.
Grandpa hugs me to his side. All the painted stars and lines of his starling, Mizar, connect properly resembling a leaping fox. I'm not sure about my Alcor, though. He looks less like a constellation and more like a messy, confusing connect-the-dots. I’m going to paint as many Starcovian starlings as I can fit on the wall. I can’t continue until the art is perfected.
“They’re great, Ser-Star. I bet you can add three new ones tomorrow,” he says. “Easy peasy, the moon is cheesy.”
I roll my eyes at the joke but beam with pride. Even when I don’t believe in myself, Grandpa always does. He tugs me away from the mural, up the rest of the stairs, and out onto the lighthouse balcony where we set out scraps of paper to write our wishes on. I don’t waste any time pondering my wish and scrawl success with StarWatch. I can’t wait to reveal my app in school tomorrow! When it’s up and running, kids will enter whether their wish came true. The app ranks the starlings by the most wishes granted to the least. I’m working on games and other cool stuff for it, too.
I peek side-eyed to see what Grandpa’s writing. I'm surprised his paper is blank. Usually, he's finished light-years before me. He noisily unwraps a Popit. As he takes a bite from the fist-sized ball of sweet popcorn, he rolls and unrolls the sleeve of his sweater. Even in the dim glow of the moon, the outrageous—and quite possibly infinite number—of colors woven into the sweater glare brightly. In pure Grandpa Billy style, his top is a mismatch with his pinstriped pants. His eyebrows squish into a furry line. The anxious expression while eating his favorite treat is even more mismatch-y than his outfit.
“It’s coming along spacetacularly,” Grandpa says. He guffaws at his own joke.
“Ha, ha, very funny,” I say, but giggle anyway. Grandpa's laugh is the loudest laugh of anyone on Earth. I'm sure of it. And it's contagious. No matter how groan-worthy his jokes and puns are.
I stop in front of the constellations I painted earlier today. “Do our starlings look okay?”
Everyone in Starlight Cove has their own constellation we call starlings. They’re not typical constellations, like Leo or Orion. Ours are built from our individual imaginations. Built of stars into whatever shape we want.
Grandpa hugs me to his side. All the painted stars and lines of his starling, Mizar, connect properly resembling a leaping fox. I'm not sure about my Alcor, though. He looks less like a constellation and more like a messy, confusing connect-the-dots. I’m going to paint as many Starcovian starlings as I can fit on the wall. I can’t continue until the art is perfected.
“They’re great, Ser-Star. I bet you can add three new ones tomorrow,” he says. “Easy peasy, the moon is cheesy.”
I roll my eyes at the joke but beam with pride. Even when I don’t believe in myself, Grandpa always does. He tugs me away from the mural, up the rest of the stairs, and out onto the lighthouse balcony where we set out scraps of paper to write our wishes on. I don’t waste any time pondering my wish and scrawl success with StarWatch. I can’t wait to reveal my app in school tomorrow! When it’s up and running, kids will enter whether their wish came true. The app ranks the starlings by the most wishes granted to the least. I’m working on games and other cool stuff for it, too.
I peek side-eyed to see what Grandpa’s writing. I'm surprised his paper is blank. Usually, he's finished light-years before me. He noisily unwraps a Popit. As he takes a bite from the fist-sized ball of sweet popcorn, he rolls and unrolls the sleeve of his sweater. Even in the dim glow of the moon, the outrageous—and quite possibly infinite number—of colors woven into the sweater glare brightly. In pure Grandpa Billy style, his top is a mismatch with his pinstriped pants. His eyebrows squish into a furry line. The anxious expression while eating his favorite treat is even more mismatch-y than his outfit.
