I hope you all enjoyed yesterday’s first part of The Wish Star and the Five Wishes. Today the little star hears two more wishes. Will she grant any of them?
The Dog
She did not need to wait long. Outside in the cold a few streets away from where the boy wished for a pet, a small dog lay down under a hedge and moped. He had lived in a happy home till only a few short days before, when his family had taken him on a run. They had not gone to the park he loved so much, where there were rabbits to chase and a fountain to splash in. Instead they had driven him to this town. He remembered the hurried ‘get in!’ as his master ran to the car, leaving him sprinting behind, and his mistress spun the wheel and drove away.
It was a few days before Christmas and they had bought a new puppy. Now the dog wondered whether, when they had taken him home from the pet shop, wriggling and excited with a satin bow round his neck, he had replaced some other faithful pet. It made him sad to think it.
It was cold under the hedge and he was hungry. It had been a long time since he last had a good meal. He looked up at the night sky and let out a soft moan that the wish star heard as a wish.
‘Wish Star, Wish Star,
Brightly shine
Grant tonight
This wish of mine.
Bring me food, a fire, a bed
Warmth and love to rest my head.’
The wish star heard him and she thought ‘That is the second wish, and surely it must be a worthy one, but perhaps there are others. My sisters said to choose wisely,’ and she waited.
The Shopkeeper
In a house near the hedge where the dog was sheltering there lived an old man. He had kept a shop in the town for many years and he had enjoyed talking to the people as they came in every day to buy sweets twisted into striped papers and sherbert in all the colours of the rainbow. He was old now and he lived on his own in a house in the middle of the town with a neat garden and striped curtains in every window.
Every day he sat on the porch and waved at the children on their way to school, and they waved back. Their parents would tell them about ‘Mr Bonn, who used to sell us all sweets’ and would sigh with happiness at the memory of the sweets in striped papers and sherbert in all the colours of the rainbow.
Mr Bonn had prepared his Christmas already. His sons were grown up and lived many miles away with their own children, and he would see them in the New Year. He missed the laughter of a full house at Christmas, and as he looked out of his window this night and caught a glimpse of the wish star in the night’s sky, he chuckled to himself at the thought that he might make a wish. Still, it was a time for miracles, he thought, so he shut one eye (so as to not look silly) and wished.
‘Wish Star, Wish Star,
Brightly shine
Grant tonight
This wish of mine.
Bring me friends to share this day
Chase my loneliness away.’
The wish star heard him and she thought ‘That is the third wish, but perhaps there are others. My sisters said to choose wisely,’ and she waited.
Sarah Todd Taylor 