Bea’s Rooftop Star Map

Bea placed one glowing dot beside the chimney. A breeze whisked it over the roof.

“Oh, come back!” she called.

The dot bobbed past a row of chimneys and landed on the next rooftop, shining like a tiny lantern. Bea floated after it, her pale blue scarf streaming behind her.

Below her, quiet houses lined the street. Their roofs made a bumpy path beneath the cloudy sky. A few windows glowed, and somewhere a sleepy dog gave one small bark.

Bea had brought a pouch full of glowing dots. She wanted to make a star map of the moon’s pattern before the moon slipped behind the clouds. She had studied it all evening: a crooked line, one bright point, and a little cluster near the edge.

“If I finish in time, I can show it to Lulu,” she said.

Lulu, her friend and fellow little ghost, floated down from a roof ridge. Her nightcap’s pom-pom bounced above her head. Lulu loved looking at maps.

“Is that the moon’s map?” she asked.

“It will be. I just need to put each dot where it belongs.”

Bea set another dot near the chimney. The breeze puffed, and away it skipped. Lulu zipped after it and caught it in her cupped hands.

“This breeze has ideas of its own,” Lulu said.

Bea tucked the dot back into her pouch. The moon still peeked through a wide gap in the clouds, but the gap was shrinking.

“We’ll have to be quick.”

They moved along the rooftops. First came a tall chimney with a square cap, then a round metal vent like a button. Beyond it, a roof sloped toward the street.

Bea placed dots by the chimney, the vent, and the sloping roof. For a moment, they stayed put. Then the breeze brushed past. Two dots rolled apart, and clouds covered the moon’s crooked line.

Bea stared at the blank patch of sky. She could no longer see the pattern, and she wasn’t sure where the dots belonged.

The dots had scattered. One rested by the chimney, another had slipped down the sloping roof, and a third shone on the round vent.

“I can’t see the pattern anymore,” Bea said. “The clouds hid it.”

“Maybe we can wait for the moon to show us again,” Lulu said.

But the clouds were thick, and the moon was only a pale smudge behind them. Bea watched the breeze tumble a loose leaf along the roof. Then she noticed the rooftops themselves.

The chimney stood tall and square. The round vent sat below it, and the sloping roof stretched away like a long, dark hill. Together, the shapes gave her an idea.

“What if the rooftops help us make the map?” she asked. “The chimney can be a tower, the vent a town square, and the sloping roof a road. We can put the moon’s pattern across them.”

Lulu tipped her nightcap to one side. “A town and a moon map together?”

“Exactly! I still remember where the bright point and the little cluster go.”

Lulu rose above the houses to see all the roofs at once. Bea gathered the scattered dots. She set them in the crooked line she remembered, with the bright point beside the chimney-tower and the little cluster near the round square. The rooftops gave each part of the pattern a place.

The breeze nudged one dot. Bea caught it against her sleeve. “Not this time,” she told the wind kindly.

She placed three more dots down the sloping roof, following the remembered pattern like lights along a winding street. On the next rooftop, a peaked dormer made a perfect little house. Bea set a dot beside it. Farther along, another chimney stood like a gate at the town’s end.

“Does it look right?” Bea called.

Lulu drifted from one side to the other. “The tower is in place, the square is easy to find, and the road leads to the little house. Your moon pattern is there, too!”

Bea added the last dot where the rooftops met. Now the dots marked the moon’s pattern and joined the rooftops into a tiny town, with a tower, a square, a road, and homes tucked close together.

The moon disappeared behind the clouds. Bea looked at her map, then at Lulu.

“We did it,” she said. “The rooftops helped us finish the moon map.”

For a while, Bea and Lulu simply looked. The glowing dots followed the crooked pattern Bea had memorized, while the chimneys, vents, and roof peaks made the pattern into a little town.

“I can see the whole town from up there,” Lulu said, floating down beside Bea. “And from here, I can see the tiny lights along the road.”

“Maybe someone in the sky will visit,” Bea said.

“Then we’ll show them the town square.” Lulu pointed to the round vent. “It’s easy to find.”

A small breeze passed over the roofs. This time, the dots stayed where Bea had placed them. The breeze fluttered her scarf, which waved behind her like a blue ribbon.

The ghosts moved along the row of houses, admiring the map. The chimney-tower looked tall and important. The round vent made a fine town square, and the dotted road curved past the little dormer house.

At the last rooftop, Bea turned to see the whole map behind her. She couldn’t see the moon, but she knew where every dot belonged.

“Do you think the clouds can see it?” Lulu asked.

“Maybe,” Bea replied. “They’re right above us.”

A cloud slid across the sky. For a moment, a thin silver edge showed where the moon was hidden. Below, Bea’s map remained in place.

The two little ghosts found a wide stretch of roof tiles that felt pleasantly warm beneath them. They settled close together, their feet pointing toward the far end of the row.

Lulu traced the map with her eyes, from the chimney-tower to the round square and along the dotted road. Bea followed the same route, then began again, slowly. She imagined tiny houses beside the rooftops and tiny neighbors waving from their windows.

The night grew still. A sleepy dog gave a soft snuffle below, and one window went dark. Bea’s scarf rested across her lap. Lulu’s pom-pom stopped bouncing.

They watched their little town in the sky until their eyes grew heavy. Then Bea and Lulu curled up on the tiles, their finished moon-and-town map beside them, and let the quiet rooftops keep watch through the night.