The Frog Who Polished the Stars
Deep in a hollow where the reeds lean close and the moon dips its toes into the water, there lived a small green frog named Pim.
Pim was not like the other frogs.
The others sang loud songs from dusk to midnight, puffing their throats like little bagpipes. But Pim was a stargazer. He sat very still on his favourite stone, chin tipped up, eyes wide as two dark ponds of their own.
And every midsummer night, Pim had a job to do.
He was the keeper of the lily-pad mirrors.
Nobody had asked him to be. He simply was.
You see, the pond where Pim lived was no ordinary pond. On the longest, warmest nights of the year, when the sky grew heavy with stars, the lily pads would turn their faces up and catch the constellations as they drifted by. Each round leaf became a little mirror, and each mirror held a piece of the sky — a bright bear, a curled dragon, a spoon of silver light.
But stars are shy things. They will not rest on water that is dusty, or rippled, or restless. And so Pim had learned, from his grandmother, and she from hers, how to polish the pads with fog.
This midsummer night began softly.
A warm hush lay over the reeds. Somewhere a moth bumped gently against a leaf and apologised. The pond was smooth as a held breath.
Pim slipped from his stone with barely a sound. Ploink.
He paddled to the first lily pad, the big one near the willow roots. A tired old constellation was already looking for a place to lie down — the Great Fish, whose tail was made of seven small stars.
“One moment, friend,” Pim whispered.
He took a slow breath. Then he blew out a wisp of fog — not a puff, not a huff, just a soft grey ribbon that drifted over the leaf. With his little webbed hand he wiped in slow, patient circles.
The lily pad shone.
The Great Fish sighed, curled its tail, and settled onto the mirror like a cat onto a cushion.
“Sleep well,” said Pim.
He paddled on.
There was much to do. There always was, on midsummer.
He polished the pad by the bulrushes for the Little Spoon, who liked a quiet corner. He polished the pad near the frog-bit flowers for the Dragon, who was long and had to be laid down in a gentle curl. He polished a tiny pad, no bigger than a coin, for a single wandering star who had lost her flock and only needed a small place to lean her light.
Wisp. Wipe. Wisp. Wipe.
The fog on his breath tasted of pond-mint and old rain.
On and on Pim went, from leaf to leaf, and the sky lowered itself slowly, slowly, into the water. Soon the pond was not a pond at all. It was a second sky, stretched out flat and shining, holding all the sleeping shapes of the night.
Somewhere near the middle of things, Pim grew tired.
His eyelids felt as heavy as wet petals. His little arms ached in that good, soft way that arms ache when they have done kind work.
But there was one pad left.
It floated all alone in the centre of the pond, waiting. And above it, hovering just a whisker above the water, was the smallest, shyest star Pim had ever seen. She flickered like a candle uncertain of its wick.
“Come now,” Pim murmured. “There is room for you too.”
He breathed out his last soft wisp of fog. He wiped the pad in three slow circles. And he waited.
The little star drifted down.
She touched the lily pad the way a snowflake touches a mitten — without a sound, without a ripple — and she nestled there, safe and round and shining.
Pim smiled.
He paddled back to his stone.
Around him, the pond lay perfectly still. A hundred lily pads. A hundred little mirrors. A hundred sleeping stars, tucked in for the night, waiting for dawn to lift them gently home.
Pim rested his chin on the warm stone.
The reeds swayed, just a little. A frog sang, far away, a single low note like a lullaby remembering itself. The moon leaned closer, as if to whisper thank you.
Pim’s eyes grew softer. Softer.
He thought about the Great Fish, curled on its cushion. He thought about the Dragon, dreaming in its gentle curl. He thought about the shy little star, cupped by her round green bed.
Everything that needed holding was being held.
Everything that needed resting was resting.
And because everything was safe, Pim closed his own eyes at last — a small green frog on a warm grey stone, breathing the slow breath of sleep, while above him and below him and all around him, the summer stars lay quiet on the water until morning.