This is not just an ordinary fable – it’s a bedtime story. These stories are specially written to ease children into the land of colorful and peaceful dreams. Discover all of our bedtime stories for kids!
This time, it had to work. The late evening was cloudless, and the moon was visible only as a slender crescent. Hedgehog Cyril, along with badger Ethan, fox Christian, and squirrel Maggie, lay on the grass in the middle of a hill completely devoid of trees. The air smelled of heather and moist grass. It was so quiet that if it weren’t for Ethan’s faintly whooshing breath, they might have heard ants settling down to sleep in a nearby anthill.
They had chosen this hill a few days earlier. Right in the middle of the clearing, there was a spot from where, looking straight up, you saw nothing but the entire sky. From top to bottom, from left to right, only the starry sky. It was so close that if Cyril stretched out his paws very hard and maybe if Christian gave him a little boost, he could touch the brightest of the stars. That one, which was clearly visible in the summer evening sky.
It all started from a conversation a few days earlier. They were sitting as usual after dinner under their favorite, sprawling oak, where Maggie had her home in the branches. The starry sky shone through the leaves. It was almost as cloudless as today, and there were a multitude of stars visible. The hedgehog looked at them dreamily, sighed deeply, and whispered:
„I wonder how many stars there are in the sky? Probably nobody has ever counted them…”
Crow Basil heard this. He cleared his throat a few times to draw everyone’s attention. When silence fell, he announced that it was a foolish question because it was commonly known that there were exactly 748 stars. Cyril tried to ask who had counted them and if it was really true. But the crow replied, as only he could. He had read it in a wise, old book, so the matter was closed and there was nothing even to discuss. Typical Basil.
Cyril was a bit angry with himself. He should have said more or protested, but before he could, Basil had already started talking about his great-grandfather, who once visited the moon and brought back tiny fragments of shining stones. He probably still has them somewhere in his hollow, but now he’s too busy to go and fetch them.
As Cyril was falling asleep in his burrow under the tree that day, watching a patch of sky through the leaves, he saw many stars. One, two, three… He first counted the brightest ones and reached nine. The longer he gazed, the more he noticed. And that was just a small piece of sky. Surely there were many more. More even than the ants in that big anthill at the edge of the forest, and he heard there were thousands of them.
As he drifted off to sleep, he promised himself he would talk to his friends and persuade them to put Basil in his place. They would count the stars and tell him how many there really were. Maybe a bit fewer, but probably more, and definitely not 748. They just had to plan it well…
When he told Ethan, Christian, and Maggie about the idea in the morning, they really liked it. They talked all day only about how best to prepare for counting. They wanted to start that very evening, but Ethan pointed out that the best sky would be not only cloudless but also without the moon. Its bright light interfered with the observation of the stars. So they waited for the right day…
This time, it had to work. The friends brought fluffy, warm blankets and spread them out at the highest point of the hill. They lay close to each other, but each with their paws in a different direction. They almost touched heads. Each had their own piece of sky to count, and they didn’t want to miss a single star.
Feeling the warmth of the blanket and hearing the calm breaths of friends beside him, the hedgehog settled comfortably and relaxed. The sky before him was full of stars… Some were larger and illuminated the entire area with their glow, others were smaller and barely visible dots. But all had to be counted.
One… two… three… he began. He quickly reached ten, and then he heard a quiet voice next to him – Christian, who was counting, whispering each of the numbers. Eleven… twelve… thirteen… The friend’s voice was soporific. Cyril shook himself and refocused on the sky. Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… When looking carefully and for a long time at one point, the stars began to flicker and sway slightly. The blanket was so warm. Seventeen… eighteen… nineteen… twenty… Those four stars formed an arc. It looked as if the sky was smiling at the hedgehog in that spot.
Squirrel Maggie had already counted to sixty-three. She noticed that the stars formed lines that undulated and intersected with each other. She now saw different shapes, outlines of leaves, stones. A starry path wove before her, similar to the one they walked every day in the forest. And up there, it even reached a starry lake. The twinkling of the stars was now so clear that she sometimes had to go back and make sure she had counted them all correctly. A light, night breeze caressed her ears, so she pulled the blanket up to her neck.
Ethan counted to thirty-seven before his eyelids began to weigh heavily. At fifty, he sighed deeply and, just for a moment, only for a moment, closed his eyes. Lying on the blanket, under the warm quilt, with closed eyes was so pleasant. He sighed deeply and now counted in his memory. He had stared at the sky for so long that he remembered it very precisely. Fifty-one… two… three… Now it was getting darker and fading. Ethan didn’t make it to sixty.
Hearing the calm and rhythmic breath beside him, the hedgehog realized that the badger had already fallen asleep. He didn’t blame him. The night was warm, and it was so nice that his eyes were closing on their own. Lying close to his friends and hearing their breaths, he felt safe and blissful. All the worries and matters of the whole day were so far away. He imagined them as tiny, smiling faces on the night sky. Even less visible than the faintest shining stars.
Maybe crow Basil has his wise books, from which you can read everything about the forest, the pond, even the moon, and the entire sky. Maybe there’s even the number of stars that someone once precisely counted. The hedgehog, however, had friends with whom he could discover the world together. Falling asleep, he promised himself that they would come to the same place the next day and try to count again…
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