“I don't get this,” said a boy with an unkempt mop of hair and big, round chestnut brown eyes to his grandma. Arlan dropped his star constellations book to the floor and placed the telescope on the top of the stack of textbooks and “Get Well” cards lying beside his bed. He grabbed an old sweater sitting at the foot of his bed that once belong to his grandfather and pulled it over his head.
“Here -let me show you what the constellation looks like again. It's called Ursula Major,” Grandma flipped through the book. “Keep your eye out for a falling star and wish on it.”
Arlan sighed. “If the moon is God's thumbnail, then maybe falling stars are his tears,” lamented the boy.
She sat down on the edge of his bed and pointed out his window, “I can see the Dipper out tonight. Can you spot it?”
The boy gazed out the window and past the top of the evergreens as Grandma walked across the room to place the book back on the book shelf, but it fell. She picked it back up again and placed it more carefully underneath a pop-up book of dinosaurs.
Arlan thought someone should make book shelves with guard rails, like there are for beds for the very young and the very old.
“I don't see it. It isn't there,” he stated plainly.
“It's right there, I'll show you,” Grandma went to the window but couldn't find the Dipper now. “That's strange, I saw it just a moment ago. Oh, well. I'm tired, my brain is tired, and I bet you're tired as well. Maybe you'll feel better in the morning. Goodnight, sweetie.”
“'Night, Grandma,” the boy rolled over and shut his eyes.