The Moon Bunny

The Moon Bunny

Once upon a time, though not too long ago, in a small town there lived a little girl named Mia. Despite her young age, she always tried to be good. Sometimes, however, she would get fussy and refuse to go to bed in the evening, which made her parents quite upset.

Mia would protest, “You always say that being lazy is bad!” So why should I waste time doing nothing? Going to sleep, especially so early, is terribly boring and even silly! I’ll miss out on all the most interesting things!”

Her mum and dad explained that people need to sleep at night to give their brains a chance to rest and process information. Without proper sleep, she wouldn’t have the energy for playing or learning the next day.

Mia tried to argue back, claiming she wasn’t tired at all and didn't need any rest. But, in the end, not wanting to upset her parents too much, she obediently went to bed.

One evening, after a long debate, Mia’s parents finally tucked her in, closed the door, and left the room. Mia lay in bed, sighing heavily. Sad thoughts filled her mind: “It’s so unfair!”

She wasn’t sleepy at all. Out of boredom and frustration, she began staring out the wide window. In the dark blue sky, she could see bright, twinkling stars. The longer she stared, the more stars she noticed. Besides the big ones, there were smaller ones and even tiny ones no bigger than a dot.

Some of the stars were white, others shimmered with green, blue, or orange hues. There were so many stars that Mia thought, “And this is only part of the sky – the bit I can see from my window. I wonder… is it even possible to count all the stars? Or would you need a huge, enormous computer for that?”

While she was studying the sparkling dots and pondering this, the edge of a giant yellow moon suddenly appeared in the patch of sky she could see through her window. It seemed as though the Moon had been hiding and then abruptly emerged to peer into Mia’s room. Instantly, everything grew brighter.

Seeing the Moon, the girl tried to remember the text her older brother had been practicing for his school lesson: “The Moon is the satellite of our planet. It is located at a distance of…” But no matter how hard she tried, the rest of the words simply wouldn’t come back to her.

“Oh… what comes next?” Mia whispered to herself. “It really seems like my brain is tired – it can’t find the rest of the text in my memory.”

She paused, then continued her train of thought:

“By the way, the Moon looks like cheese… it even has little holes!”

Although she could only see part of the satellite, it was enough to notice the bumps and craters on its surface.

“What if the Moon really is made of cheese? Oh, I hope it isn’t…” Mia whispered sadly.

Her lips pursed as she remembered how on weekends her mum made cheese sandwiches for breakfast – a treat everyone loved except her.

Thinking about this unpleasant possibility, Mia suddenly caught sight of a yellow spot in the corner of her room – a tiny circle of moonlight, as if cast by a torch beam. She stared at it for a long time, trying to figure out where the light was coming from. To her surprise, the spot started to grow. At first, Mia thought she was imagining things, but the spot truly grew larger, eventually turning into something resembling a fluffy pompom from a winter hat.

For a moment, Mia fought the urge to call her parents, but then decided she wasn’t a helpless little baby anymore and could handle the situation on her own.

She also remembered how her dad always taught her to look for a reasonable explanation.

“Maybe it’s just a reflection of moonlight on the wall, though it’s a bit strange. Like a little beam of light broke away from the Moon and ended up in my room,” Mia reassured herself in a childish way.

But then the ‘pompom’ began to move! Mia looked toward the window. The Moon seemed to be perfectly still, but the fluffy ball was hopping around! It leapt onto the windowsill, then jumped down and darted across the wall. What on earth was happening?

Still, Mia was a brave little girl, so she called out loudly, “Who’s there?”

The glowing visitor scampered about even faster and let out a squeak.

“Who are you?” the girl asked sternly.

“Don’t be scared!” he answered in a thin voice. “I’m a moon bunny. My name is Lunar Fluff. What’s your name?”

Mia hesitated. She remembered how her dad once showed her a little trick with a beam of sunlight: it reflected off a small mirror and danced across the wall as if it were alive.

“Look, Mia – hop, hop!” he laughed.

“That’s a sun bunny!” Mia said happily, because the reflected light looked soft and shimmering to her, like a tiny creature made of sunshine – and it hopped just like a bunny.

Ever since then, that’s what she had always called them. After all, when sunlight reflects off a mirror, it really does make dancing, sparkling spots of light on the wall. People usually call them ‘sunbeams’, but to Mia, those bright flashes of light were always her little sun bunnies.

“I’m Mia,” she finally said. “Well, moon bunnies don’t actually exist! There are only sun bunnies, the ones you make with a mirror.”

“Ah, Mia, Mia! Of course moon bunnies exist! And sun bunnies too – they’re just brighter than we are.”

Mia noticed that he actually had long ears and little paws. He even had a tiny, round tail, just like a real rabbit.

“So, did you come here straight from the Moon?” the girl asked.

“Straight from it.”

“Do you really live there? I’ve never heard of any bunny houses on the Moon,” Mia said thoughtfully.

“That’s because when you look up at the Moon, you only ever see one side of it. We live on the far side, the side you can never see from down here.”

“Wait a minute, bunny…” Mia said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “If the Moon goes around our planet, doesn’t that mean it’ll turn its far side toward us someday? The side where your houses are?”

A triumphant sparkle flashed in her eyes.

“Aha, gotcha, you little moon fuzzy! Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

“I’m not a liar!” Lunar Fluff protested, sounding rather offended. “Let me explain. The Moon is always spinning, just like that spinning top over there,” and he pointed a tiny paw at the toy lying near Mia’s chair. “But the Moon also circles your planet. And here is the whole secret: it spins on its own axis at the exact same speed as it travels around the Earth! That’s the only reason why you people down here never see the far side, where our houses are. Do you understand now?”

“So the Moon spins like a top and also orbits the Earth. Got it!” Mia replied in delight.

“That’s right!”

“But why did you come down from the Moon to visit me?”

“I visit kids who don’t want to go to bed on time and end up spending the whole next day sleepy and cranky.”

“So… are you here to scold me?”

Mia looked as if she were about to cry, but the bunny quickly stopped her. He nimbly hopped from the windowsill onto her bed and said, “Of course not, Mia! I’m here to help you fall asleep.”

“Oh, Fluffy, if only you knew how much I hate sleeping! What’s the point? You just lie there and sleep – it’s so boring!”

“Wait, wait!” the moon rabbit interrupted her. “But I bring children wonderful, unforgettable, beautifully joyful dreams! Listen to me – there are so many exciting things you can do in your dreams! For example, you can eat sweets and cakes without limits, ride on carousels as much as you want, or jump higher than the clouds. You can swim in a deep ocean with colourful fish or roll around in the snow – and you won’t even feel cold, because none of it is real!”

“That sounds amazing!” Mia exclaimed happily.

“But if you don’t get enough sleep,” Lunar Fluff continued, “you’ll definitely miss out on all the most interesting things. Children who go to bed early and wake up early are full of energy and smiles all day long.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that before… But why does it only work after you’ve slept?” the little girl asked, her voice tinged with sadness.

“Sleep is needed so your brain can sort through all the new information and put everything in its proper place in a special storage. It also needs to do a bit of repair work in your body and recharge it. During the day, people get tired, and at night they rest and gain energy.”

“It’s like putting a phone on the charger for the night?”

“Hmm… something like that, Mia,” the rabbit replied.

“And what kind of dream will you show me?”

“Choose any one you like. Look what I’ve got!” And with these words, the moon bunny jumped onto the windowsill, letting the moonlight shine brightly on him. His fur began to glow even more and sparkled.

He turned toward the wall and began making quick, slightly comical motions with his little paws, like a magician. In that instant, strange shadows drifted across the wall as if on a movie screen – silhouettes of animals and fantastical characters danced about.

Mia chuckled softly, thinking, “He’s probably trying to impress me with a shadow theatre, though I’ve seen that a hundred times already.”

However, the girl decided to be polite so as not to upset the bunny. He’s so sweet and trying so hard, she thought – why not watch his show?

More and more shadows appeared. They slid across the walls and overlapped one another. Then, at a certain point, they transformed into colourful, three-dimensional figures. Suddenly, the images began to detach themselves from the wall.

Now the pictures floated around the room and, as if wrapped in a soft mist, ended up sealed inside small transparent spheres. Inside the spheres, miniature characters moved as if they were alive. There were fairies in beautiful dresses, flying unicorns, dragons, amusing creatures, and countless fantastical animals.

“Well, would you look at that! These are dream holograms!” Mia whispered in awe.

“Look, look, dear Mia!” the moon rabbit repeated excitedly as he moved the spheres of dream stories through the air. Despite his small stature, he handled them with surprising skill – even tossing them up and juggling them. “Just choose where you’d like to go, and I’ll send you into that dream,” Lunar Fluff chirped.

Still wary of upsetting the little fluffball, Mia cautiously said, “Sorry, bunny… I already know almost all of these characters. But maybe you have a dream about the Moon?”

“About the Moon?” the rabbit repeated in confusion, looking up at the girl.

For a moment, Mia caught a glimpse of his puzzled expression and almost laughed – he looked so funny and adorable.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “and please tell me, what’s the Moon made of? Is it cheese, by any chance?”

“No, of course not! Definitely not cheese. It’s made of rocks, mostly. And there’s lots and lots of dust on the Moon.”

“Good thing it’s not made of cheese. But where does all the dust come from? Doesn’t anyone clean it up?”

“Of course we clean it up. But rocks from space – big ones and smaller ones – often fall onto the Moon. And when one of those rocks crashes down, it sends up a huge cloud of space powder! There’s so much of it, we can hardly keep up with cleaning. Sometimes it settles and even turns into tiny glass beads.”

“It must look very fancy over there, with all those little beads!” Mia said cheerfully.

“Honestly, not really. It’s a rather dull grey landscape. But just as people on Earth love looking at the Moon, we love admiring the Earth. From the Moon, it looks like a beautiful blue sphere.”

“Magnificent! I wish I could see the blue Earth too! At least in a dream. And I’d jump on those glass beads while I’m at it. Higher than the clouds!”

“You’ll get your dream about clouds and the blue Earth!” the rabbit replied. “You know, I’ll tell you a secret: there are no clouds on the Moon at all. But if you ever get to visit it in real life, you’ll actually be able to bounce much higher than on Earth. The Moon’s gravity is much weaker, so you will weigh almost six times less up there!”

“Wow! My dad says that soon people will fly to the Moon. In the future, they might even be able to live there.”

“Great, then perhaps we’ll meet on the Moon someday. For now, close your eyes – your dream will start soon.”

“Wait, Lunar Fluff! You won’t leave when I fall asleep, will you? You’re so cute and so clever – it’s so interesting being with you! I don’t want you to go,” Mia said sadly.

“I’ll stay here with you until the Moon sinks below the horizon – I need to make it back home before then.”

“But you’ll come visit me again, won’t you? Please!”

“I’ll come, I promise. We lunar folk never break our promises.”

By then, Mia’s eyes were already beginning to close, but before sleep finally overtook her, she could still see the sweet little face of the lunar bunny sitting beside her pillow. Half-asleep, she reached out and gently took his tiny paw, just to make sure he was still there. The rabbit felt as soft and light as a cloud. Moments before falling asleep, Mia smiled to herself: “Of course he’s Lunar Fluff… he’s just so fluffy!”

Author’s illustrations