As I look up at the starry night sky I feel so small. Lying there in the soft, springy grass of my backyard I see hundreds of bright and shining stars. There is no moon out and the sky seems so dark, which makes the stars look even brighter. I wish that I could float among those stars and speak to them. If I did, whatever would they say?

The twinkling stars are mesmerizing, and I soon became dazed in fascination. I lost sense of time, and I imagined myself up in the sky as one of the stars. I whizzed out of sight of the earth and made my way out of our solar system and into the great universe beyond. What lies there? I wondered. What’s out there? I fantasized.

The vibration of the cell phone in my pocket brought me back to reality; back to earth, our planet; back to my backyard. I knew that it was my mother calling, demanding that I come inside the house this instant and go to bed. Well, this moment was just too magnificent to miss out on, so I stayed.

My cell phone buzzed six more times before my mother finally stepped out onto the back porch of our house. She had a flashlight, and she soon spotted me. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she hollered, “Trevor, what on earth are you doing? Boy, come inside the house and go to bed!” When I made no sign of getting up, she screamed, “RIGHT NOW!!!”

For the sake of the neighborhood in which we lived, I got to my feet and began to walk across the yard to the back porch. I was reluctant to leave my front-row seat to the best show on earth (or not on earth, depending how you look at it) so I walked really slowly. When I finally arrived my mother looked irritated and angry.

“Why didn’t you answer your cell phone when I called you?” she asked impatiently. I shrugged. “I called you seven times, boy. SEVEN TIMES. That’s right. And you ignored me, didn’t you? You thought it would be funny, didn’t you? Well, Trevor, I’m not laughing!”

She looked at me with a confused expression on her face, like a toddler who couldn’t understand why the square block just wouldn’t fit into the circle hole. When she saw that she wasn’t going to get a reaction out of me, she continued.

“Son, what were you doing out there for so long?”

“Why, I was stargazing.”

“Stargazing?”

“Uh-huh.”

“For two hours?”

“Yeah.”

My mother looked at me and said, “Trevor, what am I going to do with you.” I shrugged once again. “Just go to bed, okay?”

With one last look at the star-studded sky I opened the door to the house and walked on in. I scurried up to my bedroom, and after my mom saw that I was tucked neatly into bed, I leaped up and ran to my bedroom window. I grabbed my pillow and a blanket set up a make-shift in front of the window. I was at the perfect angle to look up into the moonless sky and to see hundreds of bright stars shining.

Looking up at the starry sky made me feel so small, even as I fell asleep.