Gabe’s Moon Shadow

“I’m the moon,” Gabe announced, spreading both arms across the path.

Nell giggled. “You look more like a tree with very long branches.”

The brother and sister stood in a woodland clearing before dawn. Moonlight slipped between the tall trees and lay in pale patches on the forest floor. Gabe and Nell had come out with their dad to watch the woods wake up. While he packed their blankets, the children began a shadow game near an old oak.

Gabe stretched his arms wide. Behind him, a long dark shape appeared on the path. The moon was shining on Gabe, and his body blocked some of its light. That made his shadow.

“See?” Gabe said. “A big, round moon.”

Nell leaned to one side and studied the shape. “That’s not a moon. It’s a bird with its wings out.”

“It’s a moon with wings,” Gabe said. He flapped his arms. His shadow flapped, too, skimming over the leaves.

Nell gave a little hop. “Now it’s a bat!”

Gabe stopped flapping and looked down. The shadow was long and skinny, with arms pointing like crooked wings. It did look a bit like a bat.

“But I wanted to show you a moon,” he said. “A nice round one.”

Nell scooted closer, careful not to step on his shadow. “Maybe the moon has to be hiding behind something.”

Gabe glanced at the oak. Its broad trunk stood beside the path, and its roots curled out of the ground like sleepy fingers. Beyond it, the moonlight made another bright patch on the leaves.

“Good idea,” Gabe said. “Let’s see what happens.”

He stepped in front of the trunk and stretched his arms again. His shadow slid across the oak’s bark. Nell watched closely, her head tilted.

From a branch above them came a quiet, round call: “Hoo-hoo.”

Nell looked up. A small owl sat among the leaves, its feathers neat and brown. It blinked at the children, then turned its face toward the moonlit clearing.

“Maybe the owl knows how to make a moon,” Nell whispered.

Gabe smiled. “Then we’d better keep trying.”

Gabe stood beside the oak and tried again. He lifted his arms high, then low, then wide as he could. His shadow stretched over the trunk, but it still looked like a bat swooping past.

“More round,” Nell suggested.

“I’m trying!” Gabe wiggled his elbows. The shadow wiggled back, its pointed ends waving over the bark.

Nell traced the shape in the air with one finger. “The bat’s nose is over there, and its tail is over there.”

Gabe stopped. “Tell me more. What do you see?”

Nell smiled, glad he had asked. “When you flap fast, it looks like a bat flying. When you hold still, it looks like a bird. And when you turn sideways, the wings get skinny.”

Gabe looked from Nell to his shadow. He had been imagining a round moon, but he had not paid much attention to what his arms were doing. He shifted his feet across the leaves and slowly turned to face the oak.

His shadow slid over the bark. As Gabe turned, his arms lined up with the trunk and seemed to vanish behind its broad edges. He turned farther, and the shadow grew narrow.

“Wait!” Nell said. “Go back a tiny bit.”

Gabe turned back toward the trunk. Then he crouched close to it, curling his shoulders and drawing his knees up. He wrapped his arms around the trunk’s sides until his hands disappeared from Nell’s view.

“Don’t move,” Nell whispered.

Moonlight shone from behind Gabe and fell on the front of the oak. Gabe’s tucked-in arms were hidden around the trunk’s sides, while his head and curled body blocked the light from a small patch of bark. The shadow there looked round, with no wings sticking out.

Nell clasped her hands. “There it is! A moon-shadow!”

Gabe grinned. “I found it because you told me what you saw.”

“Now it’s my turn.” Nell stood in the moonlight beside the oak. She held her hands close together above her head, then raised two fingers like little ears. Gabe watched her shape appear beside his round shadow.

“A tiny owl!” he said.

Nell turned her hands just a bit. The owl’s pointed ears became round, then pointed again.

The real owl above them gave another soft “Hoo-hoo.” Its small shadow rested near the tree’s roots, like it was watching the game, too.

Gabe and Nell laughed quietly, so the forest could keep its peaceful hush.

Nell kept her fingers raised while Gabe crouched beside the oak, holding his moon-shadow in place. The little owl shape seemed to sit beside the round patch on the bark.

“Mine is the moon,” Gabe whispered.

“And mine is the owl that visits it,” Nell whispered back.

The real owl blinked from its branch. It turned its head one way, then the other, as if it were listening to the children’s quiet voices. Nell tried turning her hands to make her tiny owl bow. Gabe’s round shadow wobbled when he shifted his feet.

“Careful, Moon,” Nell teased.

Gabe planted his boots firmly. “The moon is staying right here.”

They held their shapes for a few moments. Then Nell let her hands fall and shook out her fingers. Gabe stepped away from the oak, and his round shadow slid off the bark and stretched across the path again.

“Good night, Moon,” Nell said.

“Good night, tiny owl,” Gabe answered.

Their game had come to an end, and they could take their time. They sat together on a flat root beneath the oak. Nell leaned against Gabe’s shoulder. He wrapped his jacket around both of them, and they watched the clearing grow easier to see.

The moon still hung above the treetops, but the patches of moonlight on the ground were becoming less clear. A bird chirped from somewhere deeper in the woods. Then another answered. The owl on the branch gathered its feathers close and tucked its face down, looking ready for a quiet rest.

Nell pointed at the tree trunk. “I can still see where our moon was.”

Gabe followed her finger. The bark looked plain now, but he could remember the round shape, the little owl beside it, and Nell’s happy grin.

“I’ll remember it, too,” he said.

The first pale light reached the clearing. Gabe and Nell stood, brushed a few leaves from their clothes, and walked toward their dad, still smiling about the moon and the owl they had made from shadows.