On the highest peak for three valleys around, a boy named Idris spent every clear night on his roof.
He had a notebook.
A pencil worn to a stub.
A jar lid he used as a viewing circle.
And more patience than most adults twice his age.
He was mapping the stars.
Every constellation above his mountain.
Every planet. Every fuzzy smear of galaxy he could make out.
Page by page by page.
The sky above Idris’s mountain. Complete. ⭐
🏔️ The New Boy
Then a family moved into the valley below.
A boy named Cai, who had lived in a city and had never once looked up at this many stars.
Cai came up the mountain path one evening, following the light of Idris’s lantern, curious.
He found Idris on the roof with his notebook.
“What are you doing?” Cai asked.
“Mapping the sky,” said Idris, not looking up from his page.
“You can’t map the sky.”
“I’m most of the way through.”
Cai sat down uninvited and looked up.
Oh.
He had never seen anything like it.
⭐ The Trade
Idris showed Cai the notebook.
Every page filled with careful dots and lines and tiny neat labels. Weeks of work. Months of cold clear nights.
Cai looked through it slowly.
“This is incredible,” he said. And he meant it.
Then he looked up at the sky and pointed.
“What’s that one?”
“I call it the Shepherd,” said Idris.
“It looks like a rabbit,” said Cai.
Idris looked at it.
“…it does look like a rabbit.”
They both started laughing.
Loud, easy, helpless laughing that bounced off the mountain.
💛 What Jack Would See
Jack had heard about the notebook — everyone in the valley had by now — and climbed up to ask if they could look.
Idris handed it over without hesitation.
“I’m thinking of giving it to Cai,” he said.
“Your whole map? After all that work?” said Jack.
“He needs it more,” said Idris. “He’s never had stars before. And besides.”
He paused.
“He taught me the rabbit.”
He tapped a page where, in newer pencil, next to The Shepherd, someone had written: also a rabbit.
Jack handed the notebook back and looked up at the sky.
So many stars.
Nobody could map all of it.
That was the best part. ⭐