The Puddle That Held the Moon

It had rained all day, and then, in the evening, it stopped, the way rain sometimes does, all at once, as if somebody had remembered to turn it off.

Arlo was walking home from Gran’s with his mum. It was late for him, later than usual, because Gran had made a crumble and nobody leaves before a crumble. The street lamps were on. The pavements were dark and shining, and every step made a small wet sound.

“Look,” said Arlo, and stopped.

There was a puddle by the gate of number twelve. It was not a big puddle. But it was a very still one. And in it, round and white and perfectly clear, was the moon.

Arlo looked up. There was the moon in the sky, high over the roofs, nearly full, with its face turned a little to one side as if it were listening. He looked down. There was the moon in the puddle. Same moon. Same face.

“It’s got the moon in it,” he said.

“So it has,” said Mum.

“How did it get in there?”

Mum thought about that. She was good at thinking about things properly and not just saying the first thing.

“I don’t think it’s in there,” she said. “I think the puddle is showing it to you. The way a mirror shows you your face. The moon’s still up there. The puddle’s just very good at looking.”

Arlo crouched down. He put his face close to the water, and there was his own face, dark, with the moon beside it like a lamp.

“Hello,” he said to the moon.

The moon did not say anything. Moons don’t. But it stayed.

“Can I touch it?”

“You can try.”

He put out one finger, slowly, and touched the water, right in the middle of the moon.

The moon broke. It went into rings, and wobbled, and shivered into little bits of light that ran to the edges of the puddle and came back again, and for a moment there was no moon at all, only a mess of silver.

“Oh,” said Arlo.

“Wait,” said Mum.

They waited. Arlo held his breath, because it felt like the kind of thing you held your breath for. The rings went out and came back and grew smaller. The water settled. And slowly, from the middle, the moon put itself together again, until it was round and whole and white and exactly where it had been.

“It came back,” said Arlo.

“It always does.”

He stood up. His knees were wet. He didn’t mind. They walked on, and at the next puddle he looked, and it had the moon in it too, and the one after that, a long thin one in the gutter, had a long thin moon. He counted them. Seven moons between Gran’s and home. Eight, if you counted the real one.

“Do you think,” said Arlo, “it’s the same moon every time? Or does each puddle get its own?”

“What do you think?”

He thought about it the whole way up the path. He thought about it while his coat came off and his shoes came off and his socks were found to be wet through and taken away to be dealt with. He thought about it in the bath, and in his pyjamas, and while his teeth were being done.

“Same moon,” he said, at last, when he was in bed, and the lamp was on, and Mum was sitting on the edge of the duvet. “But every puddle gets to hold it. Just for a bit.”

“I think that’s right,” said Mum.

She turned the lamp off. The curtains were not quite shut, and through the gap there was a bit of sky, and in the bit of sky, high up over the roofs, was the moon.

It was in the puddle by the gate of number twelve, too. It was in all the puddles, all the way down the street, all the way to Gran’s. Lying very still. Being held.

Arlo closed his eyes. And the moon, which is very good at waiting, stayed exactly where it was, until morning.