Star Girl

by Henry Winterfeld

  “Miss Tim is a teacher,” Mo said quickly. “She has a canary bird. She wanted to cage me in too!”

  “I didn’t want to cage you in at all, child,” Miss Tim objected laughingly.

  Mo’s father winked at her reassuringly. “Why did Miss Tim want to lock you up, Mo?” he asked.

  “She thought that I rolled my eyes and that I ran with no clothes on through the streets. I never do that, do I, Father?” said Mo.

  “No,” smiled Mo’s father. “Besides, we have no streets.”

  “And then we climbed up a mountain,” Mo continued, “and we were very licked. And Lottie dreamed of potato soup. Isn’t Lottie sweet? And Otto’s glasses stank, and …”

  Mo wanted to tell a great deal more, but her father broke in to say: “Mo, you can tell me about it all on the way! We will have to leave now; otherwise we’ll never get back to Asra.”

  “Oh, good heavens!” exclaimed Mo, and clapped her hands. “I’m probably talking too much baloney!”

  “Now say good-by to the children and thank them for all their help,” said her father.

  Mo went up to the children and shook hands with each of them, just as she had learned to do on earth. “So long, Willy! I thank you! So long, Erna. I thank you! So long, Gretel. I thank you! So long, Lottie. I thank you!” she said each time.

  Lottie began to weep. “Sooh-llong!” she sobbed. “Do you really have to leave so soon?”

  Walter was the last in line for the handshake. “So long, Walter. I thank you!” She hesitated, then added quickly, “I like you very much!” and then ran to her father. He took her by the hand and walked toward the space ship.

  “Mo, Mo!” Walter suddenly shouted frantically. “Your necklace! Your necklace!” He pulled it out of his pocket and waved it in the air. He was shocked that he almost had forgotten to return it to her.

  “Good Lord!” called out the neighbors. “The necklace worth a million!”

  “And the lad just carries it around in his pants pocket!” Mr. Hofer stammered, completely bewildered.

  Mo and her father stopped. Mo was talking to him at a great rate, and several times they turned to look at Walter. Then Mo quickly climbed into the space ship.

  Her father came back. “Are you Walter?” he asked.

  Walter nodded and handed him the necklace.

  “You may keep the necklace,” said Mo’s father. “Mo wants to give it to you.”

  “Oh,” groaned the neighbors, overcome. Mr. and Mrs. Brenner were stunned. Miss Beck, who meanwhile had come to, almost passed out again, except this time out of envy.

  “I cannot keep the necklace,” stuttered Walter. “Isn’t it worth a million?”

  “Mo shall get another one from me,” her father said.

  “I—I can’t accept it,” Walter protested, in a faint stammer.

  “But don’t you want to help your parents?” asked Mo’s father. “Mo told me that they are poor. You could sell the necklace.”

  “You really want me to have it?” Walter asked, not trusting his ears.

  “Yes,” said Mo’s father. “It would make Mo very happy.”

  “Oh, I thank you very much!” said Walter and sighed.

  “Only you must promise me to give something really nice to your friends who helped you so wonderfully,” said Mo’s father. “Agreed?”

  “You bet,” said Walter, with a full heart. “And again thank you ever so much.”

  “I must thank you? Mo’s father said cordially. “You steadfastly believed in my daughter. But for that I might never have seen her again. And I thank you too, children!” he called to the others.

  Otto and Willy bowed, while Gretel and Erna curtsied. Only Konrad stood planted like a nitwit. It all was just too much for him.

  Mo’s father now motioned to the police sergeant, and Mr. Klotz limped up in a hurry.

  “You’re the police?” Mo’s father asked sternly.

  “At your service, your excellency!” stammered the sergeant. “Chief sergeant of the district police Klotz reporting, sir!” He stood at attention and even snapped his hand to his bald head in a military salute. He did not even notice that he was still holding his cap in the other hand.

  “Sergeant, you are witness to the fact that this young man has legally received this necklace as a present! Is that understood?” Mo’s father said· crisply.

  “At your service, yes, sir, your excellency!” blurted the sergeant, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets with subservience.

  “All right,” Mo’s father said in a somewhat more friendly tone. “And from now on you’ll be very kind to the children. They are good children.”

  “At your service, yes, sir!” cried the sergeant obediently.

  “Good-by, children!” said Mo’s father. “Good-by!” he called to the crowd and turned to walk away.

  “Just a moment, please, Mr. Kalumba!” begged Miss Tim nervously. “It just so happens that I have a few books with me. I intended to take them home. Perhaps you don’t have enough to read on your long trip, and I thought …” She quickly pulled three books from her knapsack and gave them to Mo’s father.

  “Most kind of you,” said Mo’s father, and accepted the books with obvious pleasure. “But I won’t be able to return them soon, as I shall not be back for another fifty years.”

  “Oh, that’s quite all right,” said Miss Tim. “I can wait. The books belong to me.”

  “Many thanks!” said Mo’s father, and gave her a hearty handshake. Then he hastened to his space ship. He signaled to his friends, who had been standing patiently near their ships. They stepped aboard, and almost at once the space ships took to the air like rockets and soon disappeared. Mo’s father now climbed in, but his space ship at first rose slowly. A porthole opened, and Mo leaned out. Her father stood behind her, holding onto her with an iron grip lest she fall out again.

  Mo took off her cap and cheerfully waved to the children.

  “Yoohoo! Yoohoo! Yoohoo!” she called, but then the space ship began to pick up more and more speed. Soon it was nothing but a fiery dot, which finally vanished.

  “Mummy! Mummy!” Gretel cried, and embraced her in ecstasy. “Now we’re rich and famous!”

  “Will we, too, have roast goose for Sunday dinner?” Lottie peeped excitedly.

  “Roast goose every day!” shouted Gretel, and stuck out her tongue at Otto.

  Walter held the diamond necklace in his hand and stared at the sky without moving. “We’ll have to pay the farmer’s wife for the chickens,” he murmured. But his thoughts were somewhere else.

  www.doverpublications.com