The caterpillar counts the stars

At the very top of a cabbage in the vegetable garden lived Poppy, a little green caterpillar with yellow dots on her back. The moon had been up for a long time, but Poppy's eyes were still wide open.

"I can't fall asleep," she told the leaf she was lying on. The leaf didn't answer, of course. But an old snail passing by raised his feelers. "Count the stars," he said. "One star for each foot. You've got plenty, so that works out nicely."

Poppy looked up. The sky over the garden was full of tiny shining dots. "One," she said, tucking in her first foot. It was a star all on its own, above the garden shed.

"Two." That one twinkled near the chimney. "Three." It was caught in the branches of the apple tree. Poppy tucked in one foot, then another. "Four... five..." The air smelled of damp earth.

"Six." Poppy yawned. One star, one foot. "Seven." Her voice was getting slow. The cabbage leaf rocked ever so slightly in the breeze, like a hammock.

"Eight..." Her eyelids were drooping. She looked for the ninth star and found it right at the edge of the sky, above the hedge. "Nine..." She still had lots of feet left to tuck in.

"Ten..." she breathed, or maybe just "te...". The snail went on his way without a sound. Poppy was asleep, curled up on her cabbage leaf, her little feet tucked under her. Above the garden, the stars she hadn't counted yet would wait for the next night.