10. ... ... . . z... z zz zzz
Stellaria, the little angel girl on Cloud Thirteen, was extremely unhappy. No matter where she looked she couldn’t find Rufus. The rat had been trusted to her keeping and she had lost him. Rufus was more than a pet, he was her school project. And if she failed the project — if she failed to keep Rufus out of trouble, if she failed to keep him alive — she would fail her Christmas exams. She would have to wait for another year to begin her Guardian Angel training classes. Doing what? Taking care of perhaps another stupid rat. But the worst thing was, it would be all too late then. She would not get in the same class with Miro, and from ever after he would always look down on her. The one who could take care of not even a rat.
What made Stellaria feel yet worse was that Miro had gone down to Earth with the band. He played the saxophone while Stellaria couldn’t even sing. She had gone to the audition as well and failed in a stellar way, and the saying had stuck. Ever since anybody failed just about everything in a “stellar” way, which drove her absolutely mad.
She hurried down the corridor to check the last place she could think of: the closet in the great hall. The rat had once had a secret stash of candy there but Stellaria had forbidden Rufus to go there any more. It was too dangerous for a tiny rodent to cross the great hall because Ms. Tidybit, the housekeeper, was likely to show up with her vacuum cleaner at any time. Whoosh and Rufus would be sucked into a black hole never to be seen or heard squeaking again. Stellaria had tried to explain about the black holes to the rat one day without getting any response. Perhaps it was already beyond the event horizon mentally. Or just plain retarded.
The door was ajar. When Stellaria entered the closet the cat that had been evicted from the kitchen emerged from inside stretching its legs and licking its mouth. Lucky you, Stellaria thought, caught another mouse and getting fatter by the day. Then a sudden terror seized her, the cat that ate mice surely ate rats, too.
*
In the meanwhile, night had fallen upon Earth and all the sheep had fallen asleep except for one little lamb that kept following the mysterious shooting star. It headed out towards the mountains, towards the highest peak behind which the star now shone. But soon the mountainside rose to hide the star and the sky began to cloud over. One by one the smaller stars put out their lights and snowflakes began to fall. The little sheep, however, was determined not to turn back. It had to find out what to wish for. And to do that it had to find the star to wish upon.
The air was now thick with snow, like porridge, and the wind howled with the voice of a thousand wolves, but the little sheep kept on going on steadfast. It didn’t know to be afraid, and even if it had wished to turn back, it didn’t know which way home was anymore.
The going got more and more strenuous. Snow piled up on the ground and big wet snowflakes landed on the sheep’s back and stuck on the fur making it weigh like a pile of rocks. The little sheep got tired and finally was so exhausted that it decided to rest for a while. It stopped, it’s eyed drooped, closed, and in no time at all it fell asleep.
There was no end to the snowfall. Soon the little sheep was covered from head to hoof so that it resembled a huge snoring snowdrift.
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