Each evening, a small star rested in the branches outside Una’s house. It was a magical star, no bigger than an apple, and it liked to hear the day’s news before returning to the sky.
Tonight it would not shine.
‘I have nothing bright to tell,’ it said. ‘The other stars saw mountains and oceans. I stayed above this lane.’
Una opened her notebook.
‘What did you see here?’
‘A baker carrying flour.’
Una wrote it down. ‘Anything else?’
‘A child returning a borrowed book. A gardener giving away seedlings. Someone holding a door.’
The star paused. ‘Mostly ordinary things.’
Una read the list aloud. She remembered the baker making bread for their supper. She remembered choosing a seedling, with soil still cool around its roots.
‘Those things changed my day,’ she said.
The star flickered once.
‘But I didn’t help anybody.’
‘You noticed them. And you helped me notice them again.’
Una turned a fresh page. At the top she wrote, Things worth remembering. She drew the gardener’s little pot beside it.
The star looked at the drawing for a long time. Its light grew steady enough to shine across both pages.
‘May I watch the lane again tomorrow?’ it asked.
‘I hope you do.’
The star lifted from the branch. Una watched it find its place above the chimney. From there, the lane probably looked very small.
But her notebook held bread, a book, a seedling, and a door kept open for a neighbor.
She left room for tomorrow’s ordinary things, closed the notebook, and went to bed.
