Looking at the stars

 

Darren was on his way home from school after football practice. It was dark now. It always got dark early in the winter months leading up to Christmas. With his muddy football boots hanging around his neck and wearing his shorts, he felt cold and tired. He thought about what his Granddad had told him about the King. The King is coming. Coming from where? Coming to where? Granddad said the king has also already been. It's so confusing. But one thing was for sure Darren had a small scrap of paper, which is obviously part of an ancient manuscript, and he was going to find out what it was all about.

A car passed along the road and its headlights made him squint. He didn't notice the shadowy figure in front of him until it was too late. Thump! With his football boots swinging around his head and a painful bump just above his eye he fell to the floor dazed. "What was that?" He murmured. His eyes focused. Standing in front of him was a boy.

"Sorry, I didn't see you there. I was busy you see, looking at the stars and wondering if I could see the Plough and the Orion, sorry" said the boy.

Darren quickly realised by the squeaky voice and the blabbering that this must be Tommy Big Brain the class swot. Darren looked up. In Tommy's hand was a long stick, which looked like a rounders bat. He shielded his head.

"You’re not going to hit me with that are you, because if you are I think you ought to know that if you do I’ll flatten you," Darren said in the toughest voice he could find.

Tommy looked worried, "Sorry," he said again in a quiet voice "I didn't mean to hurt you. I was looking through my telescope at the stars".

"Well you certainly made me see stars," said Darren, beginning to laugh a little. “That was a good joke”, he thought. Tommy laughed nervously. Darren noticed this and as his head did not hurt any more he felt he should put Tommy at ease. "Show me what you can see through your telescope. Please," he said after a short pause.

"OK," said Tommy, who seemed pleased that someone was showing an interest. Darren got up from the floor and put the telescope up to his eye. "You need to look up there”, said Tommy as he gently turned Darren and the telescope into the direction where he had been looking at the night sky. "See. Can you see the star formations?"

"The what"? Asked Darren.

"The star formations,” repeated Tommy, “Can you see Orion, the one that looks like a warrior with a sword fighting a battle?"

Darren took the telescope down from his eye, "What like a king or a knight" he said "fighting with a long sword and a shield, riding a white horse?" Darren's eyes were wide and he wondered if this might have any connection with Zion's king

"No” said Tommy “just a few stars that vaguely look like a man with a sword", he said quietly.

"Oh" said Darren feeling very foolish. “I must go” he said, “I haven't been home yet, football practice you see and mum will be worried, bye. Um nice telescope, thanks for letting me look, bye." Darren ran quickly down the road, thanking the darkness for covering up his embarrassment as he realised that he had nearly given away his secret about the coming king.

The door slammed in the hallway. “Hello dear,” called Darren's mum. “How was football?”

 "Er, yeah good," said Darren, “is Granddad here?"

"No dear, not until tomorrow night." His mum replied

"Oh yeah of course, tomorrow night." Darren was disappointed.

At school that day Darren kept clear of Tommy. He said a quiet hello to him in the morning but didn’t say anything else. He felt in his pocket for the piece of paper, the manuscript. It was still there.

"Don’t forget to hand in your homework tomorrow," Miss Smith said just as the class were running out of the door. Darren ran off across the playground to the school gate. “Homework”, he thought, “I haven't done it yet”.

As Darren got to his house he quietly put the key in the door. He turned it and pushed the door open slowly. Down at the end of the hallway he could see  his mum’s back. She was doing the ironing and swaying to the music being played on the radio. “Good”, thought Darren. He pushed the door back gently turning the latch so as not to let it click as the door shut. He gently put his bag down and slipped around the corner to the living room door. It was open, and Granddad sat looking at the newspaper. He looked up from the paper. "Hello Darren," he said as Darren quickly closed the door as quietly as possible, hoping that mum had not heard.

“Hello," said Darren.

"How did the football go last night”? Granddad asked, "Did you show them how to play?"

"Oh yeah," mumbled Darren, "We showed them how to play alright.”

"Looks like you got hit by the ball judging by the red mark you have over your eye, son. Did you get in the way?" asked Granddad.

"Oh!" said Darren suddenly remembering why he wanted to see his Granddad. "No, I bumped into Tommy Big Brain's telescope. He was looking at the stars. He said that there were some stars in the sky that looked like a knight with a sword. He called it Orion, I thought that sounded a bit like Zion. Have the stars got anything to do with the King that’s coming back. Granddad?"

"So it wasn't Tommy who saw stars, but you after that knock on the head, eh boy?" said Granddad, ignoring his question.

“Er, yeah" said Darren, trying to raise a little laugh as if he hadn't heard that joke before. "Well, what do you think? Have I discovered something else about the King?" asked Darren.

Granddad thought for a moment. "Well," he said, "There is a story told about some men, from a far off country somewhere to the east of Zion, who used to spend a lot of time looking at the stars."

They would search the sky every night and mark down all of the bright stars that they saw onto a chart. Each night they would check the chart and then add stars that they had not noticed before. They would see that some stars, if they traced them in the sky, were like giant dot-to-dot puzzles and they formed a picture, just like Orion who looks like a hunter with a belt and a sword. Every night they would check for the stars. These men, scholars, they called them, were very rich and clever. Then one night they looked out at the sky and found a star that they had never seen before. They checked their charts, but it was not on it.

“Was it Orion”? Darren asked.

“No, not Orion”, said his Granddad.

“This was just one star. They stared in wonder at the star, for it shone so brightly, much brighter than any of the other stars in the sky. Each night they charted its position. This was a special star, they knew that for sure. The star was like a message that told them that something very special was going to happen. In the past there had been stars come and go and they had marked the birth of great kings, but this star was so bright, so beautiful, this star was special and it came to give a special message: a king was to be born, not any king, but the greatest of all kings. The King is coming”

“Zion’s King” asked Darren excited.

“Yes” said his Granddad.

He continued “After a while they noticed that the star was no longer in the same place. It was moving across the sky. Now it is quite normal for the sky to change, as the stars appear to move as the earth rotates, but this star was moving more quickly than the others. It looked like  it was going somewhere to the west. The men decided that they were going to follow that star so that they could go and see this great king.

“I am sure that they had many adventures as they crossed the desert and the hills and mountains, they would have met many people from tribes and countries that they did not know existed. They would have had to learn new languages and stay in  strange places. Until one night as they followed the star, they noticed that it had stopped in the sky.

“In the distance they could see a city on a hill. On the top of the hill they could see a great temple set against the night sky. The star seemed to be shining from behind the temple. They made their way towards the city, but when they got there they found that the gates were locked, because it was night.

“All night they stayed outside of the gates at the city wall. Many people looked over and stared at them. The men looked strange to their eyes and they could not understand why they had travelled at night. The scholars did not sleep much as the people kept staring at them from the wall, and their minds were busy with thoughts about what sort of king they were going to meet who was so great that he had the brightest star in the sky showing the place where he was born”.

“Where were they Granddad”, Darren asked.

“Not so fast son, let me tell the story”. Granddad replied.

Just then the living room door opened and Darren’s mum came in with a cup of tea for Granddad.

“Darren,” she said in surprise, ”I didn’t know you were home. Have you any homework tonight”?

“Yes, mum”, said Darren.

“Well you had better get on with it hadn’t you” his mum replied.

“Oh,” said Granddad “Darren and I were just talking about -”

“Doing my homework”, blurted out Darren, thinking that Granddad was going to reveal his secret.

“Well good”, said his mum, “Now go to your room and get on with it”.

Darren looked at his Granddad. Granddad smiled and Darren went out of the room to do his homework.

In his room Darren pulled out the paper with the homework written on it and read. “Write about an adventure that you would like to have”. Darren smiled, picked up his pen and began to write. He called the story “Searching for the King”.