“You don’t even glow,” I told the moon. “You’re a liar. You just reflect.”
    The moon glared at me.
    “I glow.”
    “You’re illuminated but you don’t glow. You need your own light to glow.”
    “If I cast light, I glow. I glow,” he repeated. “I glow.”
    “We can have this conversation all night but when it comes down to it, you’re nothing but a substitute for the sun while he’s busy.”
    “You can’t look at the sun,” she said. “And I glow but I don’t burn.”
    “You couldn’t burn if you tried.”
    “I wouldn’t ever want to burn.”
    “But you can’t, and that’s what matters.”
    The moon glared at me, and for a moment I thought she really was glowing, but she was nothing but a liar and a fake and she was just reflecting someone else’s (much brighter) glow. She was big and fat and full of holes, and she hung around the stars pretending to be big. A star could fit a thousand moons, and stars glow, and the moon can only orbit around without anything to do. That’s what I told her.
    “I have plenty to do,” she told me.
    I waited in the field while the big fat moon settled back down to the horizon. The sun burst into the scene with a violently orange rise; I cheered, and I waited for him to come into full view. I couldn’t look directly at him, but I smiled and let the warm rays rinse the night off my face.
    I spent the day telling the sun about the moon, because they’d never really met. He didn’t have much to say to me, because he’s very busy, but he did keep me warm and lit my way around the field while I picked berries. I ate berries all day until there were no more berries left in the field, and I tossed the very last one to the sun, because he was helpful enough to guide my way. He didn’t take it, though, and it fell back into the grass.
    There was a brilliant display of purple as the sun went down, then a couple stars twinkled awake but the moon did not come out. I waited for a little while, but the moon was not there. I called out, and there was no reply.
    After an hour of darkness without any illumination at all, I became concerned. I heard some rustling around the field, but I couldn’t see who was there.
    “Moon?” I called out.
    “Is that a berry?” came a voice from somewhere in the grass.
    “No,” I replied, “I’m a boy. Who are you, and what have you done with the moon?”
    “The moon is new tonight, and she is very shy when he’s being reborn. Are you sure you are not a berry? You smell very much like a berry.”
    “I assure you,” I told him, “I am not a berry. I can’t see you.”
    “If you were a bear, you would be able to smell me.”
    “I am not a bear, I am a boy, and I would very much like the moon to come out because I cannot see you. Are you a bear?”
    “I think you are a berry that doesn’t want to be eaten.”
    “I can give you a berry, I offered one to the sun, but he didn’t want it and he gave
it back. I could find it if the moon was here. Moon! Moon!”
    The moon did not reply, and the someone sneaking around snuck awfully close. A set of big strong teeth clamped down into my arm.
    “You are not a berry!” came an astonished growl. It hurried away, noisily thudding against the earth in its haste.
    “I told you!” I shouted. “That’s what I was trying to tell you!”
    Suddenly dizzy and dripping thickly from my arm, I clutched it tightly against my chest and held my breath until it numbed down to a dull throb of pain. The swell of sleep came over me, and the stars began to rock back and forth until I closed my eyes and let my body fall into the grass. I thought for a moment my arm might have been snapped right off, but it was there, attached by frayed tendons, the nerves dulled by a band of punctures wrapped near the shoulder.
    “Moon, come back,” I pleaded drearily. “I can’t sleep without a light.”