Up You Come, Moon

On top of a hill there was a small kingdom. In the kingdom there was a castle. And in the middle of the courtyard there was a deep stone well, with a silver bucket and a long rope and a handle to turn.

The Moon slept at the bottom of that well all day.

Every morning it came home from the sky. It dropped into the well with a soft plop, bobbed about on the water like an apple in a tub, and went to sleep.

Every evening, Rosa brought it up again.

Rosa was the smallest person in the castle. Her dad kept the well, but Rosa was the Keeper of the Moon Bucket. Nobody else was allowed to turn the moon handle. Not the cook. Not the guards. Not even the King.

Each evening Rosa polished the silver bucket with her sleeve. She let it down, and she waited. When the Moon was ready, it hummed a low round note, mmmmm, like a big cat purring by the fire.

“Up you come, Moon,” said Rosa.

Then she turned the handle. It took forty-two turns exactly. Rosa knew, because she counted every one out loud. Up came the bucket, and in it sat the Moon, round and silver and a little bit damp. Rosa tipped it out, and it floated away over the castle roof to hang in the sky.

The King watched every night from his bench by the well. He was a round, kind king in a striped nightcap. He never went to bed until he had seen the Moon come up.

“There it goes,” he said each night. Then off he went to bed, and so did everybody else.

* * *

Tonight was the night of the full moon.

Rosa polished the bucket. She let it down. The Moon hummed.

“Up you come, Moon,” said Rosa, and she turned the handle forty-two times.

Up came the silver bucket. There was nothing in it but water.

Rosa looked down the well. Tonight the Moon was so round and so full that it would not fit in the bucket at all.

“Oh dear,” said the King. “Too much moon.”

Rosa ran to the kitchen for the cook’s biggest soup pot. It still smelled of carrots. She tied it to the rope and let it down. The Moon hummed.

“Up you come, Moon,” said Rosa. Forty-two turns.

Up came the soup pot, with nothing in it but water and one carrot.

“What is the very biggest thing in the castle?” said Rosa.

The King thought. “The Queen’s bathtub,” he said.

It took four guards to carry it out. It was gold, with four curly feet.

“Up you come, Moon,” said Rosa, and they let it down.

The bathtub went down, and down, and then, clonk. It turned right over and stuck fast, halfway down, with its four curly feet in the air like a dog that wants its tummy rubbed.

Everyone laughed. The guards laughed. The cook laughed. The King laughed so hard that his nightcap slid down over his nose. Even the Queen laughed, and it was her bath. Down below, the Moon hummed, and it sounded a little like laughing too.

The four guards and the cook all pulled on the rope. Heave. Heave. Up came the bathtub at last, dripping, with its feet still in the air.

The stars were out and the lamps were lit, but there was a round empty place in the sky where the Moon should be. The King gave an enormous yawn.

“I shan’t go to bed,” he said. “Not till I have seen the Moon.” But his eyes were very droopy.

Rosa sat down by the well and thought.

She thought about the Moon coming home every morning. She thought about the plop. She thought about the bobbing.

“The Moon floats!” said Rosa. She jumped up. “If the water comes up, the Moon will come up too!”

By now half the kingdom had come up the hill to see what was keeping the Moon.

“Please,” said Rosa, “everybody fetch a cup.”

They made a long line from the duck pond all the way to the well. The baker came with a jug and a floury nose. The goose-girl came with the geese’s water dish, and three geese came with her, honking. Rosa’s dad came with his watering can. Last of all came the King, in his slippers, with his tooth mug. His toothbrush was still in it.

They passed the water from hand to hand and into the well. Slosh. Slosh. Slosh.

Rosa counted the cups, because counting was her job. When she got to forty-two she stopped, because there were going to be a great many more.

Cup by cup, the water rose. And the Moon rose too, round and bright. Its light shone on everybody’s faces.

The King tipped his tooth mug very carefully, so the toothbrush stayed in.

At last the water reached the very top.

“Up you come, Moon,” said Rosa softly.

The Moon bobbed right at the rim, humming. Rosa put out her own two arms and lifted it over the edge. It was cool and smooth, and lighter than a pillow.

It was also very, very wet.

The King hurried inside. He came back with his best tablecloth, the one kept for birthdays. He dried the Moon all over, gently, the way grown-ups dry small people after a bath.

Then Rosa let go.

The Moon floated up over the castle roof, up and up, into the round empty place in the sky. The whole hill went silver.

The King clapped his hands. “There it goes,” he said. “Now I can go to bed.”

But first he lifted Rosa up onto his shoulders. “The Keeper of the Moon Bucket is going to bed too,” he said.

Everybody walked home down the hill with their empty cups. The geese tucked their heads under their wings. The King’s best tablecloth went on the washing line, and for a whole week after, it smelled of moonlight.

The King carried Rosa up the stairs, with his nightcap tassel bobbing. Her dad came behind with the lamp. The King and her dad tucked her into bed.

“Thank you, Rosa,” said the King. “I am glad the Moon has you.”

Moonlight came in at her window and lay on her pillow. She began to count. One. Two. Three.

She was fast asleep long before forty-two.

And the whole kingdom slept in moonlight, under the roundest, brightest, driest Moon there ever was.