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Six likes the stars. He likes them a lot.
Stars are very far and very shiny and they twinkle the same way fireflies do, or at least that’s what Five said. Six has never seen a firefly before, but Five read about them in a book and told Six all about them, so Six now knows about how they come out in the summer where it’s nice and grassy and twinkle with pretty lights, just like stars do (but fireflies are bugs and stars are not bugs, stars are stars).
Six likes to press his face to the window and look until his forehead feels cold from the glass, until his eyes feel heavy and One says, go to bed, you’re gonna get in trouble, but Six doesn’t listen because the stars are more important than bed. But then One gets very huffy and says, now, c’mon, or else you’ll get in trouble with Dad, and Six says okay, okay, and walks up all those stairs and goes to bed, even though he’s still thinking about the stars outside. One didn’t say that tonight though, so Six is at the window again.
Tonight, the stars are very twinkly and very little, but also very bright, and Six is thinking about how nice it would be to be a star. No training, no fighting, no hard tests where Dad says to let the monster inside his stomach out and Six isn’t sure if he wants to or not but he has to because Dad said so. Just floating in the sky forever. It sounds very nice and peaceful. Six considers this. But maybe they get lonely. But also maybe not, because there are so many of them, so many that Six could never count them all, even if he tries very hard.
And then Number Five is next to him (very suddenly, because Five doesn’t walk places, he jumps places, and Six wishes he could do that because it is so, so cool), and Six smiles when he sees him because Six likes Five the most. He likes all of his siblings, even One who can be a bit bossy and Two who gets mad a lot and Three who is nice and soft and Four who is very loud and Seven who is quiet and sweet, but Five is the best because he’s smart and serious and explains lots of things that Six doesn’t always understand, but Six always listens, and Five likes when people listen, and Six likes Five.
“Do you want to look at the stars with me?” Six asks, and Five doesn’t answer but he does squint out the window the way Six does when he wants to get a real good look at the stars, so Six takes that as a yes and smiles brightly. Six likes looking at the stars and he likes Five and he thinks that both of them together are even better.
But then Five is stepping away from the window and looking at Six very expectantly. “Okay,” Five says, and nods at Six very seriously. “Let’s go see them.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s go see the stars.”
Six blinks at him. “We are seeing them.”
“No,” Five says, rolling his eyes, because he always rolls his eyes when Six doesn’t understand fast enough. “I mean really see them. From outside.” And Six is shaking his head because they’re not supposed to go outside, especially not out at night, and they’re going to get into a lot of trouble if they leave the house. Six is about to say the words we can’t when Five keeps talking. “We can go to the roof.”
Six blinks. The roof is far. The roof is up. The roof is where the moon is, and maybe the stars too, and he nods to himself because that makes sense. He would be able to see more stars from the roof, and it is part of the house, so it’s not breaking any rules. Except maybe that they’re still awake when it’s late, but still. That’s a good idea. Six smiles at Five and nods to him, too. Six does not know how to get to the roof. Five just looks at him and pats him gently and Six thinks Five knows what he’s thinking.
“I can jump us up there,” Five says.
Six’s eyes go big. “Both of us?” he asks, excited, because Five is very good at jumping, even though sometimes he jumps and doesn’t land right and gets mad and stomps his foot and says stupid, stupid power. But most of the time he is very cool.
“Yeah.” Five looks very sure, which makes Six feel a little better, but then he frowns and says, “Probably.”
Six doesn’t like the sound of probably.
Five grabs his wrist, concentrating real hard. His face scrunches up like he’s trying to push a big heavy door open, and then—
Nothing happens.
Five’s face gets pink. “Hang on.”
Nothing happens again.
Six giggles before he can stop himself.
Five scowls at him. “Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Six says, giggling more.
Five lets go of his wrist and crosses his arms, looking all annoyed, which makes Six giggle even more.
Then Five huffs. “Fine. We’ll just be sneaky.”
And ooh. Yes, Six can be very sneaky.
So, they stand up, and Five puts his finger to his lips, and nods when Six does the same, and they tiptoe out of the room very carefully. Both of them very quiet, very small, very sneaky, up and up and up the stairs, passing by Seven’s room (who has very good hearing so they need to be extra quiet), and then past Four’s room (who is not a good sleeper and tosses and turns and grumbles and sometimes talks in his sleep), and then past Two’s room (he snores a lot, so they don’t worry about him), and then past Three’s room (who might tattle, so they go extra fast), and then past One’s room (who would definitely tattle, so they don’t even breathe), until they finally reach the door to the roof.
Five tries to open it. It doesn’t.
“Just a second,” Five says.
He disappears in a flash of blue. Six is alone.
Then, the door opens, and Five is grinning on the other side. Six grins too because seeing Five happy makes him happy too. He likes seeing his siblings happy. And then Six steps out onto the roof with Five and looks up and wow.
It is even better than out the window because he can see them all at once, everywhere. They’re like little dots on the big dark sky and Six’s heart does a happy little jump because this is the most stars he has ever seen and he loves them so, so much. Six squeezes Five’s hand because this is the best thing ever, and Five looks at him, and Six smiles, and Five smiles a little bit back, which means he is happy, too.
Six sits down on the floor and thinks about lying down and stretching his arms out like a starfish, because he read in a book that starfish are named after stars, which makes sense, because they have points, and stars have points. But the floor is very cold, so he doesn’t, and instead he tugs at Five to sit down next to him until he does. Six tilts his head up and looks at all of the stars shining above.
“We should make a wish,” Six says, because that is what you do when you see lots of stars. Six knows that stars are just big balls of fire, and fire doesn’t have wishing powers, or any powers, not like Six and his siblings, but Six likes the stories about wishing on a star and thinks that he would like to do it too.
Five looks at him, then at the sky. Then back at Six.
He makes a face. “A wish?”
Six nods. “You pick a star. And then you make a wish on it. And if someone else guesses your wish, it comes true.”
“That’s stupid.”
Six frowns. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not,” Six insists, but still very quietly, because even though they are outside, they are still being sneaky. They stare at each other for a long time, but Six is very good at staring because he does during lessons a lot when he’s staring at the paper and doesn’t want to do numbers, so he doesn’t blink, and then he does his best biggest eyes, and Five makes a face like he swallowed a bug and then looks away real fast.
Six smiles because that means he won.
Five sighs, but his eyes go all soft, and that’s Six’s favorite Five look. He likes it best, way more than the serious look or the mad look or that scrunched up look that Five sometimes gets when he’s sad. And Five’s mouth is doing the twitchy thing it does when he’s trying not to smile but Six knows that Five really wants to, so it basically counts as a smile anyway, even if he’s not actually smiling.
“Fine,” Five says, huffing, like Six is forcing him to do something terrible, but he’s still got the soft look, so Six knows he wants to. “Pick one.”
Six shakes his head. “You pick one.”
“I’m not wishing,” Five says. Six pouts at him. “Pick one, Six.”
So, Six tips his face up to the sky and picks the very best, very shiniest star, and he points it out and says that’s his, that’s theirs. Five nods when he sees it, and Six closes his eyes and thinks of a wish. It has to be a good wish, an important wish. Not just for books, or treats, or even for extra hugs (even though Six always wants those). It’s his first wish, so it has to be a special wish, a big wish, something that can fit inside a star. And he thinks that’s really hard, because Six has a lot of wishes, not just one, and oh!
Six has got the perfect one, now.
I wish me and Five always get to do this.
Six opens his eyes.
“What did you wish for?” Five asks.
Six giggles and shakes his head. “You have to guess.”
Five sighs. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
Five squints his eyes and looks at the stars like they will tell him, and Six waits and waits, and then Five looks back at him and says, very seriously, very sure, “You wished for us to come up here again.”
And ah! Six gasps, because that is exactly right, and he stands up and bounces on his feet and smiles widely because Five is so good at guessing, and now it is going to come true because that is how wishes work. Five’s mouth does the twitchy thing again, but bigger this time, and Six knows that means they will come up here again, for the many more wishes that he has.
And maybe, next time, Six can get Five to start making wishes, too.