The girl who was too bright

There was once a little girl, named Luminella, who shone very brightly. The day she was born it was as if a light had been turned on in the room.

She shone, with a sun-like luminescence from the golden hair upon her head to her toes like spreading rays and brightest of all the things about her was her smile.

But her parents were afraid of her strange light and they feared that shining so brightly would only get her into trouble, so they dressed her in a long dress that covered up her arms and legs and made her wear gloves upon her hands that looked like five pointed stars and they even placed a mask over her lantern like face and dark glasses over her jewel like eyes and a wig over her shining golden hair.

In fact, the only thing which they could not cover up was the light from her smile which was still dazzling.

“Please, Luminella”, they begged her, “Please do not smile so brightly; people might think it strange to see light coming out of your smile”.

And so she tried her best to frown and to hide her smile behind the fringe of her long dark wig but it was very hard because she was such a joyful child and the light of her smile would always come bursting through.

Then, one day, there was a knock at the door of the house where she lived and, when the girl’s mother answered it, she saw a strange, very portly but also very jolly looking gentleman standing at the door.

“Good day, madam”, he said, beaming, “I just happened to be walking past your house when I couldn’t help noticing a little girl sitting and looking out of one of its windows and how bright her smile was. I’ve never seen a little girl with a smile quite as bright as that before and I’m an admirer of bright things; a stargazer you might say and so I wondered if I might examine her smile more closely”.

But the mother only became frightened because she didn’t want anyone to know about her daughter’s strange brightness.

“No, you may not. Good day sir”, she said, upset and angry, slamming the door in his face and bolting it securely.

Then she shut the curtains of her daughter’s room and told her to come away from the window, frightened that the man might look in and see her.

But, though the man went away, he did not give up his interest in that little girls shining smile for, the next night, as the girl lay in bed, she saw a bright light, even brighter than her own coming in through her curtains and, curious as to what it might be, she ran to the window and opened the curtains wide.

To her amazement, outside, she saw the portly gentleman with the jolly face but his face glowed just as hers did beneath her mask and, when he slipped off his gloves, she saw that his hands just like hers were radiant and star-like.

She opened the window of her room to speak to him.

“What are you?”, she asked.

“I am a thing just like you, little girl”, he said, “I glow with that same light that you do”.

“But what am I?”, asked the girl.

“Come with me and I will show you”, said the man.

So then the girl crawled out of the open window of her ground floor room and the man, pointing one of his fingers towards the sky made it stretch out until it became a beam of light, then he lifted her up and she climbed onto the glowing beam and they slid together upwards, along it, higher and higher, travelling faster and faster until they reached the speed of light and until they reached the dark blue sky and then suddenly, all around her, to her wonder and her astonishment, the girl saw hundreds of golden shining men and women; boys and girls with their limbs spread out and happy smiles upon their faces.

“They’re the stars”, said the man, “They shine brightly for all the world to gaze upon because, you see, their brightness is a beautiful thing, not anything to be afraid of or ashamed of and you are a star like them”.

“But who are you? Are you a star too?”, asked the girl.

Then the portly and jolly gentleman revealed himself to her entirely and she saw the large round, shining full moon with a smile spread across his face.

And, from that night onwards, the little girl shone with the other stars, using the light within her to bring brightness to the world.