The Slow-Cooked Sentence

Mary Poppins glues stars to the sky. Illustration by Mary Shepard.

Then Jane and Michael saw a most amazing sight. As soon as she arrived at the top of her ladder, Mrs. Corry dipped her brush into the glue and began slapping the sticky substance against the sky. And Mary Poppins, when this had been done, took something shiny from her basket and fixed it to the glue. When she took away her hand they saw that she was sticking the Gingerbread Stars to the sky. As each one was placed in position it began to twinkle furiously, sending out rays of sparkling golden light.

Above my head hundreds of paper stars fell out of the blue sky, tumbling and fluttering through the breeze, growing soft feathers and sharp beaks before settling on the water. People, strollers, dogs, scooters, rollerbladers all walked by. They didn’t hear the stars laughing, nor see the piece of sky floating at their feet.