In a dream, Eli rode a moon balloon with his aunt. Its basket floated above a village of silver roofs.
Eli carried a notebook for drawing cloud shapes. He had already drawn a whale, a boot, and something that might have been a cabbage.
Soon clouds filled the sky ahead.
‘We won’t see the moon,’ he said.
His aunt checked the compass fixed beside the basket. ‘We can take the clear path around them.’
‘But the moon is that way.’
‘We have time.’
The balloon turned. Eli watched the cloud wall from the side. It had small ridges and bright edges, like a mountain made of folded blankets.
He opened his notebook again. He had never drawn a whole cloud wall before.
They passed a gap where one star shone. Beyond it, the sky opened. The moon appeared over the basket rim, enormous and quiet.
Eli drew it on a fresh page. Then he looked back at his cloud wall.
‘If we went straight, I wouldn’t have seen this side.’
His aunt nodded. ‘Sometimes a different route gives us another picture.’
As the balloon drifted home by the wide, clear path, Eli hugged his notebook. The silver roofs blurred into moonlight, and the dream grew quiet.
In the morning, the real notebook waited beside his pillow. It had no moon balloon in it yet.
He fetched a pencil and drew the clouds first.
There would be plenty of room for the moon on the next page.
