Advent Day 1: Bramble and the Lost Star 🦔

Bramble the hedgehog was snuffling through the frosty leaves when something bright caught his eye. Tucked between the roots of the old oak tree, glowing like a warm ember, was a star. Not a pretend star or a torch or a shiny sweet wrapper. A real, actual star.

"Oh my prickles," whispered Bramble.

The star was about the size of an apple. It hummed softly and gave off a gentle golden light that made Bramble's nose feel tingly and warm. He touched it very carefully with one paw. It didn't burn. It felt like holding a mug of hot chocolate — the perfect kind of warm.

"You've fallen down, haven't you?" said Bramble. The star pulsed, as if to say yes.

Bramble knew he had to get the star back to the sky. Christmas Eve was tomorrow night, and the sky needed all its stars for the most important night of the year. But Bramble was very small, and the sky was very, very high.

"I'll need help," he decided.

First he visited Owl, who lived in the tall pine at the edge of the meadow. "Can you fly this star back up?" asked Bramble. Owl turned the star over in her talons and shook her feathery head. "I can fly high, Bramble, but not that high. You need someone who can reach the very top of the world."

Next he tried Squirrel, who could climb anything. Squirrel scampered up the tallest tree in the forest with the star tucked under one arm, but when she reached the very tip-top, the sky was still miles and miles above. "Sorry, Bramble," she called down. "It's too far, even for me."

Bramble sat in the snow, feeling rather sad. The star seemed to be getting dimmer. He wrapped his little paws around it to keep it warm. "Don't worry," he told it. "I won't give up."

Then he heard something. Sleigh bells. Faint at first, then louder, jingling through the cold night air. A great red sleigh swooped down over the treetops, pulled by reindeer whose hooves sparkled with frost. And sitting in the sleigh, with rosy cheeks and a hat that had slipped slightly sideways, was Father Christmas himself.

"Well, well," said Father Christmas, landing gently in the clearing. "I've been looking everywhere for that little star. She slipped off the edge of the Milky Way during a particularly strong gust of northern wind."

"Can you put her back?" asked Bramble, holding up the star hopefully.

"I can indeed. I fly higher than anyone on Christmas Eve." Father Christmas took the star carefully in his big mittened hands. It blazed brighter at once, happy to be found. "Thank you, Bramble. You kept her safe and warm when she needed it most. That's a very special thing."

He placed the star in a velvet-lined pocket inside his sleigh, then reached into his sack. "I believe you deserve an early Christmas present." He handed Bramble a tiny lantern that glowed with the same golden light as the star.

That night, Bramble walked home through the woods with his lantern lighting the way. And when he looked up, he could see the star, back in her place in the sky, twinkling down at him as if to say thank you.

The siren went off at half past four on Christmas Eve, just as Arthur was trying to hang a paper chain across the Anderson shelter. He'd made it from strips of old newspaper coloured with his sister Dot's crayons — red and green alternating, the way Mum used to do before the war.

"Down you come," said Dad, scooping Dot off the kitchen floor. She was five and treated the air raids like a mildly inconvenient bedtime. Arthur grabbed the biscuit tin — not because it had biscuits in it (it hadn't for months) but because it held the family's important things: ration books, identity cards, and a photograph of Mum in her ATS uniform, smiling in a way that made Arthur's chest hurt.

The shelter was cold and smelled of earth and damp wool. Dad lit the paraffin lamp and wrapped Dot in the tartan blanket. In the distance, the first bombs began to fall — a low crump-crump-crump that made the corrugated walls vibrate.

"Will Mum telephone tomorrow?" asked Dot.

"If the lines are working, love," said Dad.

Arthur sat on the wooden bench and stared at his paper chain, which was drooping badly. This was going to be the worst Christmas ever. No tree, because you couldn't get trees. No turkey, because you couldn't get turkey. No Mum, because she was stationed somewhere in Hampshire doing something important that she wasn't allowed to talk about. And now, no sleep, because the Luftwaffe had decided to bomb London on Christmas Eve.

But Arthur had made a promise to himself. He was the man of the house while Dad worked nights at the factory. He was going to give Dot a proper Christmas, whatever it took.

He had been planning for weeks. He'd traded his last three marbles to the boy next door for a tangerine — a real tangerine, unimaginably exotic, smuggled home inside his coat like contraband. He'd whittled a tiny wooden horse from a piece of fence post, sanding it smooth with a scrap of sandpaper he'd found in the rubble of number 42. And he'd written a letter, pretending to be Father Christmas, in his best handwriting (left-handed, to disguise it), telling Dot that she was the bravest girl in London and that her mum was very proud of her.

The all-clear sounded at eleven. They climbed back into the house, which was still standing (you never took this for granted). Arthur tucked Dot into bed, then crept downstairs to set up.

He hung the paper chain across the kitchen. He placed the tangerine on a saucer with a sprig of holly from Mrs Kowalski's hedge. He put the wooden horse and the letter inside one of Dad's old socks (there were no stockings to be had). He arranged everything on the kitchen table and stood back.

It wasn't much. In the dim light, with the blackout curtains drawn and the paper chain already coming unstuck at one end, it looked a bit sad, actually. Arthur felt his throat tighten.

Then Dad appeared in the doorway. He looked at the table. He looked at Arthur. And his eyes, which had been tired and grey for months, went bright.

"Arthur," he said quietly. "That's the most beautiful Christmas I've ever seen."

On Christmas morning, Dot came downstairs and screamed with joy at the tangerine as if it were a chest of gold. She galloped the wooden horse across every surface in the house. She read the letter from "Father Christmas" three times and then made Arthur read it to her twice more.

At noon, the telephone rang. It was Mum. The line crackled and faded, but they could hear her voice, and she could hear them, and Dot sang "Jingle Bells" down the phone while Arthur and Dad sat at the kitchen table under the drooping paper chain, eating reconstituted egg and toast, and it was — Arthur decided — actually a pretty good Christmas after all.