The Moon Takes a Night Off

• 3 minute read
• Ages 4-9
• Bedtime Stories

The moon had been on duty every night for a very long time and had never once had an evening off.

She did not complain about it. But she was tired in a way that does not go away, and one month she decided that she would simply not come out.

The empty sky

So the sun went down, and the sky went dark, and nothing rose.

The stars noticed first.

"She is late," said one.

"She is not late," said another. "Look at the sky. She is not coming."

And a strange thing began to happen, which was that everybody could see the stars properly.

Normally the moon washed half of them out. Faint ones near her simply did not appear. But tonight there was no moon at all, and the whole sky filled in, thousands of them, right down to the horizon, including a great pale band across the middle that most people had never seen in their lives.

Down below

A man walking home stopped in the road and stood there for a long time with his head back.

An owl, who hunted by hearing anyway, had the best night she had had in years.

Some moths that navigate by the moon got a little confused and settled on a wall to wait, which they do, and slept, which they do not usually get to.

And in a house at the end of a lane a child who could not sleep looked out and saw the band of stars and asked what it was, and was told, and thought about it for the rest of her life.

The morning

The next night the moon came back.

She was a thin curve at first, which is what happens, and then a little more each night until she was full again and doing her rounds as usual.

Nobody had died. Nothing had gone wrong. The tide had carried on. The sky had managed.

And once a month, ever since, she takes the night off.

You can look for her on those nights and you will not find her, and if you go outside and let your eyes get used to the dark, you will see exactly what that child saw.