The Moon in the Bread Tin

Nico found the moon in the kitchen at bedtime. It lay in a round silver patch on the floor, just beside the bread tin.

“You’ve fallen,” he whispered.

Outside the window, the sky was full of clouds. The kitchen patch trembled when a branch moved. Nico fetched a tea towel, but the moon slid through it and landed on his slippers.

He tried a mixing bowl. He tried a sieve. The sieve made so many tiny moons that he decided it was dangerous and put it away.

At last he opened the bread tin. Its lid was shiny inside. When he tilted it toward the window, a pale circle appeared on the metal.

“There you are.”

He shut the lid carefully.

His older sister, Mara, came to look for him. “What are you doing?”

“Keeping the moon safe.”

She glanced at the cloudy sky, then at the tin. She could have explained about moonlight. Usually she explained everything. Tonight she sat on the floor beside him.

“Will it need breakfast?” she asked.

“Probably toast.”

They put a little piece of bread on a saucer. Nico opened the tin a crack to check. It was dark inside.

“The moon is sleeping,” he decided.

Upstairs, a door closed. Their father called that it was time to turn out the lights. Tomorrow was Nico’s first day at a new school, and everyone had told him he needed plenty of sleep. The more they said it, the less sleepy he felt.

“What if it doesn’t know how to get home?” he asked.

“The moon?”

He nodded, though he was thinking about a classroom where he knew nobody’s name.

Mara pulled her knees under her chin. “Maybe someone will show it.”

“What if nobody does?”

“Then it can ask.”

Nico considered this. He was not sure moons asked for things. They seemed very far away and very capable.

Mara lifted the tin and carried it to the window. Nico stood beside her on a wooden stool. Together they opened the lid toward the sky.

For a moment nothing happened. Then the clouds separated. The moon appeared above the chimney, bright and slightly crooked, as if it had hurried into place.

“It found the way,” Nico said.

Mara nodded. “We helped.”

In the morning Nico put the tiny piece of bread in his lunchbox. At school he stood by the classroom door until a girl with a red backpack came up the corridor.

“Is this our room?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. “I’m new.”

Nico looked through the door. There were two empty seats beside the window.

“We can go together.”

At lunch he divided the moon’s breakfast. The girl said it was a very small sandwich. Nico explained that it had been made for someone with a different sort of appetite.

That night he looked out of the kitchen window. The moon was still in the sky. He left the bread tin open, just in case it wanted to visit.