A Bucket of Stars
A Bucket of Stars
It was a glorious night as we floated on a bed of cool water beneath a sparkling sky. A muggy breeze tickled the birch trees that circled the water hole. We drifted in darkness on the pond, safely hidden from the abandoned estate house in the distance.
I’d seen better night skies and I’d seen worse. I mean, I’d definitely trade Sirius for Jupiter any day of the week, but you can’t get greedy when it comes to planets. You take what you can get, which is never that much if you live close to a city. Those bright lights are like gigantic leaf blowers that blast the stars right out of the sky.
My older brother, Kyle, was the reason I’d snuck onto the abandoned estate that night. I wasn’t really a rule-breaker, but it didn’t take that much convincing to get me there. I guess I’m easy that way. You could basically buy me for the price of a single constellation.
Time stopped as we floated in silence. It wasn’t a bad night sky, really. I’d rate it four million out of five million stars. But it still didn’t compare to lying on a sandy beach under the magic of the Milky Way back when Dad still took us camping.
As I drifted under the moonlight, Kyle flipped onto his stomach, then slowly treaded water in lazy arcs. He turned to me and flicked water on my face.
“Hoc facteri, Noah,” Kyle said. “Hoc loco est mirabile.” Which is Latin for “This place is amazing.”
“Sed illud proprietatem,” I said. Latin for “Are you nuts? We’re trespassing, you always break rules, and I’m kind of nervous that you’re going to get us killed.”
Okay, maybe it wasn’t. I mean, except for the part about us trespassing.
Noah, about to start grade eight, and his older brother, Kyle, have just moved to the small town that their father grew up in. Their “secret” language is “bad” Latin which they learned when their father forced them to sign up for a course at a community centre after the death of their mother and the failure of his business left him with constant headaches and an inability to tolerate noise. Noah believes that a new and better telescope would reinvigorate their father’s lifelong and professional interest in astronomy, as well as his two sons. Noah just has to figure out how to get a new, expensive telescope. Then he meets Tara who enjoys making short films about her dog, Max Newman. When Tara learns that Noah wants a telescope, she asks if he’d make a movie – Astronomax – with her and mentions that they could enter a film contest, saying that, if they won, Noah’s half of the prize money would be enough for him to buy the new telescope. In the process of making the movie, Noah and Tara inadvertently uncover some ugly secrets about their small town’s mayor and his wealthy friends.
This engaging and fairly fast-paced story goes from Noah’s speculating on how to deal with his “Zombie” father, to trying to outwit this small town’s two-faced Mayor and greedy cronies with the help of his new friend, Tara. Author Suri Rosen’s main characters, Noah, his brother and their father are well-drawn and believable. While Tara’s backstory becomes clearer throughout the novel, her endearing eccentricity remains somewhat of a mystery. Secondary characters, though less developed, are also credible. A number of worthy lessons, such as the following, are imbedded in the story: ‘build up’ in urban areas versus ‘sprawling out’ over green spaces; people make mistakes and one needs to learn how to forgive.
Karen Rankin is a Toronto, Ontario, teacher and writer of children’s stories.