The moon plays peekaboo

That night, Ines wasn't asleep yet. Sitting up in bed with her nose against the window, she was looking at the moon. A big round white moon, resting just above the bakery roof.

A fat gray cloud drifted in front of it. No more moon. Ines's eyes went wide. "Where did you go?" She counted under her breath: one, two, three... And the moon popped out on the other side of the cloud. "Peekaboo, moon!" Ines laughed.

A second cloud came along, long like a scarf. The moon hid again. One, two, three... "Peekaboo, moon!" It came back a little higher, as if it had climbed up while no one was looking.

Then came a thin little cloud, so thin you could see the moon through it, like behind a curtain. "I can still see you," Ines whispered. The moon didn't move. It looked like it was smiling.

The wind pushed the clouds away over the hills. The sky turned clear, with the moon in the middle and a few stars around it. The white light came in through the window and settled on Ines's blanket like a puddle of milk.

Ines lay back down and put her hand in the puddle of light. "Are you staying this time?" she asked. The moon stayed.

Ines counted again, more slowly: one... two... three... She never got to four. She was asleep, her hand open in the light, and the moon shone over the bakery roof without hiding once, all the way until morning.