The Star That Was Late
- 3 minute read
- Ages 4-8
- Bedtime Stories
There was a small star a very long way out who was always the last to appear.
The bright ones came out first, as soon as the sky went dark enough, and then the middling ones, and then a great many small ones all together.
And then, some time after all of them, when a person had been looking for a while and their eyes had properly got used to the dark, the small star would appear.
Being last
It bothered her.
"I set off at the same time as everybody," she said. "I am not slow. I have never been slow."
"You are not slow," said an older star nearby. "You are further away. There is nothing you can do about that and nothing wrong with it."
"Nobody sees me."
"Somebody sees you," said the older star. "Only they have to wait, and most people do not wait. That is a fact about them and not a fact about you."
The waiting
And it was true that most people did not wait.
People came out to look at the sky and looked for a minute and went in, and in that minute they saw the bright ones and the middling ones and thought they had seen the sky.
But some people stayed.
They lay on a roof or sat on a step and let their eyes get properly used to it, which takes longer than anybody expects, and after a while the sky filled in behind what they had already seen, and among the very last things to arrive was one small star a very long way out.
And every single person who ever waited long enough to see her thought she was the best one, because a thing you had to wait for always is.
The light
There is one more thing about that star which she did not know for a long time and which is true of all of them.
The light arriving from a star has been travelling for a very long time.
Hers had been coming for longer than most, because she was further away than most, which meant that the light a child saw on any given night had left her a long time before that child was born.
So she was not late at all.
She had set off first.
Moral of the story
She was the last to be seen and the first to have sent anything, and she spent years feeling slow about it. Most of the things that look like being behind are something else entirely.
Questions and answers
- Why was the small star always last to appear?
She was much further away than the others, so her light took longer to reach anyone looking.
- What did the older star tell her?
That being further away was not the same as being slow, and there was nothing wrong with it.
- Why did most people not see her?
They looked for a minute and went inside, without letting their eyes get used to the dark.
- What did people who waited think of her?
That she was the best one, because a thing you have to wait for always seems so.
- What did she learn at the end?
That starlight takes years to arrive, so hers had set off long before anyone else's, which meant she was not late at all.
Word meanings
- middling
- Of medium size or quality.
- adjust
- To get used to something, as eyes do to darkness.
- arriving
- Reaching a place.
- distance
- How far away something is.
Questions about The Star That Was Late
Is the science in this story real?
Yes. Light from distant stars takes years to reach us, and human eyes really do take twenty minutes or more to adjust fully to darkness.
What is the moral of The Star That Was Late?
That appearing to be behind is often about distance rather than speed, and that the people who wait are the ones who see the most.
Why is this a good bedtime story?
It is quiet throughout, ends on a gentle reversal rather than a twist, and it gives a child something to look at from the window.
What is a good activity afterwards?
Go outside and wait ten minutes without a light. Far more stars appear than anybody expects, which makes the story real.