Little Moon Girl

A little girl leaves home for the first time to encounter life on Earth.

 

Little Moon Girl

 

            Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived on the moon. No one knows exactly how she came to be there except that one day there was a flurry of stardust and moon rocks and a little girl was left in the clearing. Her hair and eyes were the dark blue of the heavens and her skin was the shiny white of the moon over the Earth. Her friends: the Man in the Moon, the stars, and the other extraterrestrial beings of the universe called her Luna. This is her story.

            Luna had a very nice life on the moon playing in the craters and winking at the stars who winked back and told her jokes for they dearly loved to laugh. She also spent a lot of time talking with the Man in the Moon who was very wise and also very fond of his little friend. He told her stories and taught her about all of the different worlds in the galaxy. On the anniversary of the eighth year that Luna had appeared the Man in the Moon revealed to her a gift from one of his deepest craters: a long, silver fishing pole.

            “What is this Mister Moon?” Luna had asked after she pulled it out of its hiding place.

            “That, my dear, is a very special pole used to pull friends out of the farthest corners of the universe.”      

            “Wow!” Luna exclaimed in wonder.

The Man in the Moon smiled, “go ahead, try it.”

Luna went to sit on the very edge of the moon and cast out the line into the darkness of the cosmos. Pretty soon she reeled in a little red Martian who was roughly the same size and age as Luna.

            “Hi, I’m Travers,” He said as he blinked his five eyes and grinned broadly, “how do you do?”

            Luna was ecstatic, the pair quickly became best friends, but Travers could not stay all the time because he had his own home on Mars, and his mother got very worried if he was gone for too long.

Luna cast out her line again and this time she found Zeke, the funniest, furry sidekick one could ever hope to meet. Zeke was a chimpanzee sent into space by NASA, but somehow he had never been able to find his way home so he traveled throughout the universe in his space shuttle charting new missions. Zeke and Luna played for hours and thought up new missions for Zeke to go on. These missions took Zeke a long time to complete so he was gone for long periods of time, but he always came back to visit.  

When ever Luna was feeling lonely she would cast out her line and sometimes she would find new friends and sometimes not, but there was always the Man in the Moon and the stars to keep her company.  One day, however, it had been a very long time since she had had any visitors and Luna was feeling very down in the dumps about this.

            “Travers! Zeke!” Luna yelled into the vastness of the heavens as she sat with her pole at the edge of the moon. “Where are you?” she sighed and threw herself onto her back tossing the silver pole into the nearest crater.

            “What is wrong little friend?” A voice called out from the darkness.

            “Oh, Mister Moon,” Luna replied, flopping over onto her belly and peering around the Moon’s edge to glimpse his face. “I haven’t found one single new friend in a light year and Travers and Zeke haven’t come to see me in forever.”

            “Well I am here, and the stars,” he answered.

            “I know, but you can’t play with me like they can. You can only talk to me.”

            “Oh I see,” the Man in the Moon furrowed his brow to think about this. “Have I ever told you about the creatures on Earth Luna?”

            “No, I don’t think so. What are they like?” She asked eager to learn about a new world.

            “Well, most of them look a lot like you with just one head, and two arms and two legs, two eyes, one nose, and one mouth. They are a very funny creature with many thoughts floating around in their little brains. They are called humans.”

            “What do they think about Mister Moon?”

            “Mostly they worry, but sometimes they invent new ideas.”

            “What is worry?”

            “Worry is when you feel kind of scared about something.”

            “Oh.”

            “A lot of times they worry about what all of the other humans think about them.”

            “That sounds silly.”

            “It is really. That is their planet right down there, the shimmering blue one. Luna, would you like to go and visit these humans?”

            “Oh yes!” Luna exclaimed, “Could I?”

            “Yes, I think it would do you some good. Stand up and look down to their planet. I’m going to shake you off. Concentrate very hard on falling to Earth and don’t be afraid.”

            “Ok.” Luna stood at the edge of the moon and looked down. The Man in the Moon huffed and puffed and sneezed. The tremor shook Luna off and she fell into the Milky Way focusing her thoughts on landing on Earth. She fell and she fell and she fell and at last she landed in the ocean. “Finally, I made it,” she thought as the water closed in around her and she began to sink to the bottom. The Man in the Moon had not prepared her for the landing and because she had never seen water before she didn’t know how to swim. Luckily, from out of the depths a little mermaid with long blonde hair appeared and pulled Luna to shore. The little mermaid placed her on the beach and began to swim back to sea before Luna even had a chance to say thank you.

            “Hey, wait!” She yelled just before the mermaids head could disappear under the water. “What is your name? I want to talk to you.”                        

            The mermaid turned around and came back to the beach, “I’m Aurellia.”

            “I’m Luna; it’s nice to meet you.” The moon girl and the mermaid shook hands. “Are you a human?” Luna asked.                         

            “Of course not,” the Mermaid replied. “I have fins instead of legs, see?” Aurellia waved her green tail for Luna.

            “Oh, well what are you then?”

            “I’m a merperson. I live in the sea with my family in a big underwater castle. I wish I was a human though. I watch them sometimes, from my rock. It always seems like they are having so much fun.”

            “Do you ever get to play with them?”

            “No, humans usually keep to themselves, besides, my tail would scare them. Most of them are afraid of things that are different from them. The rest of them don’t believe merpeople exist. My father says it is better that way.”

            “Well I came all the way from the moon to meet some humans. The Man and the Moon told me that they look just like me.”

            “I guess that’s true, except I’ve never seen a human with blue hair before, or such shiny skin.”     

            “Do you think they’ll like me?” Luna asked.

            “I don’t know, maybe. If you want to find out follow that path there,” Aurellia pointed the way, “Just past the tree line I’ve heard there is an elementary school. You can find kids there who look a lot like you.”

            “Thank you Aurellia, maybe one day I can come back and play with you in your castle. Bye!” Luna waved and walked in the direction Aurellia had shown her. The little mermaid watched the moon girl disappear down the path before she slipped back underneath the water and was gone.  

            It wasn’t long before Luna heard the laughter of children. “I must be close,” she thought and hurried on until she spotted the kids playing in the school yard. Luna felt a tingling feeling in her stomach that she sometimes got when she was scared. She remembered what the Man in the Moon said about worry and just thinking about her friend made the tingling feeling fade away and Luna smiled, “maybe I am like the humans.” Luna walked slowly toward the gate and watched the children swinging on the swings and going down the slide. She opened the gate and waited her turn to use a swing. The other kids didn’t seem to notice her at first until one little girl with short brown hair stood up next to the slide, pointed at Luna and said: “Hey! Who is she?” All of the children gathered around Luna who stood in the middle of the crowd bewildered by all of the attention. She had never had so many playmates at once before. Everyone was curious about Luna. They wanted to know who she was and where she had come from.

            “Why is your hair blue?” asked the little girl with the short brown hair.

            “I don’t know,” said Luna, she had never thought about it before.

            “Where did you come from?” asked a boy wearing a green t-shirt. Luna was relieved; she knew the answer to this question.

            “From the moon!” she said sticking out her chest proudly. All of the children laughed at this.       

            “The moon!” bellowed the boy with the green shirt, “she’s crazy!” Now, the children laughed even harder. Luna was confused; she had only told the truth.

            “My mother says it is not nice to laugh at people,” said the girl with the short brown hair. She took Luna’s hand and led her out of the circle to a shady spot underneath a big oak tree. Luna and the girl sat down and pulled at the grass. “I’m Marybeth,” said the girl. “Are you really from the moon?”

            “Yes, I live there. The Man in the Moon sent me down here so I could meet some humans.”

            “Wow! That is so cool!” Marybeth gushed. “So, what do you think so far?”

            “Of what?”

            “Humans, silly.”

            “Oh, well I’m sort of confused. Why was everyone laughing at me?”

            “They thought you were lying, none of us have ever met anyone from the moon before,” Marybeth explained.

            “Oh,” Luna was still a little confused, but Marybeth was a nice girl and she was glad she had met her.

            Luna and Marybeth played together for the rest of the afternoon. They swung on the swings, and slid down the slide. Marybeth even taught Luna how to jump rope, but just before the sun went down Marybeth’s mom came to take her home to dinner.     “Bye Luna! It was nice to meet you!” said Marybeth as her mother hurried her toward a mini van.  Luna waved goodbye and sat down on a swing to watch the parents come and pick up the last of the children. She swung slowly back and forth until the very last child went home. “What am I going to do now?” Luna wondered. She hopped off the swing and went to sit underneath the big old oak tree. It was starting to get dark and the stars began to shine. Luna smiled and thought of her friends and wished she was back at home on the moon. A single, glistening tear escaped from her eye and rolled down her cheek.

            “Tom! Tom, I think it’s raining.” A squeaky voice called out in the darkness. Luna was startled; she looked around, but didn’t see anyone. “Never mind, it’s just this girl here, I think she’s crying. What’s the matter dear?” A tiny hand pulled at the hem of Luna’s dress. There, in a sliver of moonlight, was a teeny tiny woman with long, golden hair and a bright pink dress.

            “Who are you?” asked Luna.

            “Thumbelina, I live here in this tree with my husband Tom. Come out here Tom.” A tiny little man walked out to join his wife.

            “Why, hello there! Who might you be?”

            “I’m Luna.”

            “Are you lost dear?” Thumbelina asked.

            “Lost?” Luna thought about this for awhile, “no not really. The Man in the Moon sent me down here to meet some humans. Are you humans?”

            “Sure, we’re just of the little sort,” said Tom.

            “Do you want some company dear?” asked Thumbelina.

            “Yes, I would like that,” Luna answered. Luna, Tom and Thumbelina sat together for a long while sharing stories and telling jokes that Luna had heard from the stars. She greatly appreciated the company, but was still very homesick and missed her friends terribly, especially the Man in the Moon. After Tom and Thumbelina had gone back into bed Luna lay awake for hours looking up at the smiling face of the Man in the Moon. “I’m ready to come home now!” Luna yelled, but she heard no response. She sighed and dozed off to sleep dreaming of Zeke and the silly adventures he might be on at this very moment.  

            A few moments after midnight Luna felt a tickling on her nose, she brushed it off and rolled over to go back to sleep. A second later the tickling feeling came back. Luna opened her eyes and saw the silver thread of her fishing pole dangling in front of her nose. “Hooray!” she cried and quickly grabbed onto the line. Up, up and away the silver line carried her through the heavens and back up to the moon. As soon as he finished reeling her in Travers put the pole aside and gave Luna a big hug.

            “Travers! I missed you so much!” Luna let go and noticed Zeke standing next to her favorite crater. “And Zeke, it is so good to see you!” Then Luna said hello to the stars and went to peer over the edge of the moon. “Mister Moon,” she said, “I learned a lot from my trip to Earth.” The Man in the Moon smiled.

            “What did you learn Luna?”

            “I learned that worry is the tingling feeling you get in your stomach, but it goes away when you think about how much your friends like you.” The Man in the Moon laughed.

            “Will you be returning to Earth again?”

            “No, thank you. It was nice, but I like it much better here with you and the stars.” Luna smiled and the moon beamed. He always knew his little charge had a wise heart.

            “Hey Luna, come on!” Travers called. Luna ran to join her friends and together Luna, Travers and Zeke had a wonderful day exploring the craters and planning new missions for Zeke to embark on.  After her trip to Earth Luna was never again lonely and was always grateful that she had friends like the Man and the Moon and the stars to love her even on days when she couldn’t find other friends from the galaxy with her fishing pole.

Author's Note

This is a story I wrote for a children's literature class in college. I am thinking about taking the premise and the characters and trying to mold them into a more child friendly book perhaps for preschool/kindergarten age. I would really like some feedback as far as character development and help with slimming it down to more of a childrens book scale.