Asha's Stone for the Shy Moonflower

Tock, tock, tock. Asha's four soft paws went over the stepping stones, one stone, then the next, then the next. Asha was a small rabbit with long ears and a tail like a cotton ball. Tonight she was going to Juno's house for her very first sleepover.

Her bag bumped along on her back. Inside it was a brush, a carrot for later, and her blanket the color of butter. Her mom walked behind her with the lantern, and the light made a small gold circle on the path, so the dark stayed outside it.

At the bottom of the garden, under the huckleberry hedge, a little door stood open in the earth. Out bounced Juno. Juno was a hedgehog, round as a teacup, and her prickles lay flat when she was happy. They were flat now. "You came!" said Juno. "You came for the sleepover!"

A dry leaf was stuck on Juno's back, and it rode along with her like a little flag. "Come and see," she said, and she scooted down the tunnel so fast that her round bottom went wibble-wobble.

The burrow smelled of warm bread and clean moss. Grandma Fern came up the tunnel with her apron on. Grandma Fern was a hedgehog too, older and rounder, and when she hugged Asha, her prickles lay down like grass after rain. "Welcome, little rabbit," she said.

"I'll be back when the sun comes up," said Asha's mom. "Pancakes. The fat kind." Then she pressed something small into Asha's paw. It was a smooth gray stone, still warm from her pocket. "That's a bit of our path," she said. "Keep it with you tonight." She kissed Asha's ears and walked up the path, and the lantern light got smaller, and smaller, and then it was gone.

Asha's ears went up. Then they went down. Her tummy felt like jelly in a bowl, jiggly and not quite still. "I feel wobbly," she whispered.

Juno put her head on one side. "Wobbly how?" "Like my inside is full of hopping," said Asha.

Grandma Fern nodded. "First nights feel like that," she said. "Come in and sit. The burrow is warm, and the night is long, and nobody here is in a hurry."

First, Juno showed Asha the sleeping room. It was a round nest of moss with two soft hollows in it, like a bowl big enough for two. "You can have my extra pillow," said Juno. "It's stuffed with the softest moss, the kind that grows where the fountain splashes." Asha lay down. The moss smelled green and cool. She held her stone in her paw. Her ears went up. Then they went down.

"Still wobbly?" whispered Juno. "Just a little," said Asha.

Next, Grandma Fern brought two blue cups of warm dandelion milk. "Small sips," she said. "It's hot." It wasn't hot. It was just warm and sweet, and it made Asha's paws tingle all the way to the tips.

"Grandma says it's hot about everything," said Juno. "She says it about apples." Asha laughed, a small laugh, and then she held her stone in her other paw. Her ears went up. Then they went down.

"Hm," said Grandma Fern. "Some wobbles want the moon. Put on your scarf. We'll go and say goodnight to the flowers."

Outside, the path glowed. Moonflowers grew all along it, each one a little moon on a green stem, and every one was open for the night. "They only open for the moon," said Juno. "Watch." And they counted them together, one, two, three, all the way up to ten.

"That one's the wiggliest," said Juno, pointing. "And that one smells like a birthday." Asha counted them all twice more, just to be sure. Her ears went up. Then they went down.

Then Asha saw something else. By Juno's door stood a small clay pot with one green stem in it. "That one's mine," said Juno. "I planted it from a seed and I sang to it every single day. It's going to open tonight." But the bud on the stem was tight and shut, like a cup turned upside down.

Juno waited. The bud didn't move. "It's not opening," said Juno, very quietly. "Maybe it doesn't like my song. Maybe it doesn't want to sleep outside."

Asha looked at the pot. It sat in the dark of the hedge, and the moonlight slid right past it and landed on the path instead. "Moonflowers open for the moon," said Grandma Fern. "This little one can't see it from there."

Juno's chin went wobbly. Asha knew that wobble. She knew it from the inside.

"Grandma," said Asha, "could we put the pot where the moon can see it?" "What a good idea," said Grandma Fern. So Grandma Fern lifted one side, and Asha held the other, and together they carried the little pot to the flat stone beside the fountain.

The fountain was talking quietly to itself, the way it did all night. Tip-tap. Tip-tap. The moon poured down on the flat stone and made it white as milk. Still the bud stayed shut. Juno sat down beside it and said nothing at all.

Asha put her paw in her pocket. There was the stone, warm and smooth, a bit of her own path from home. She took it out and set it down next to the pot. "Here," she whispered to the bud. "This is from my garden. It's friendly, and it's warm. You can borrow it tonight, so you're not the only one who's new."

For a moment, nothing. Then something went pup. Very softly, like a small green lid coming off, the bud began to open. One pale petal at a time it came out and out, until the little flower was wide open and shining, a small moon of Juno's very own.

"It opened!" said Juno. "It opened, it opened, it opened!" She hopped in a circle, and her prickles lay flat all over, and the dry leaf sailed off her back. Grandma Fern laughed. "Well," she said. "There's moon in that stone, I think."

Juno looked at Asha. "You gave it your home stone," she said. "Why?" Asha looked at the little flower, glowing next to her stone. "Because it was having a first night too," she said.

They went back inside. The moonflower light came in the door and made a white path on the wall, and the burrow was warm as a pocket.

"Is your inside still hopping?" asked Juno. Asha thought about it. "It's hopping slowly," she said. "Like a sleepy dance."

They lay in the moss nest, side by side, with the extra pillow between them. Juno's eyes closed first. Her breath went in and out, in and out, soft as a little wave on a beach.

Asha put her paw in her pocket. It was empty where the stone had been, and that felt all right. She reached out and put her paw on Juno's paw, and her ears went up. This time they stayed up.

Outside, the fountain went tip-tap, tip-tap, talking quietly to itself. The moonflowers glowed along the path, one, two, three, all the way up to ten, and one more. The jasmine smelled sweet, and the wet earth smelled brown and good.

And in the burrow under the huckleberry hedge, two small friends breathed in and out, in and out, all night long, together.