🌟 Cola Counts the Stars

The moon was round and silver, and the house was quiet. Cola sat on the windowsill with her dark little face pressed close to the glass. Her blue eyes looked up and up and up.

"What are you doing?" asked Fuzz, padding over with a soft yawn. His tongue was out, as always, and his bell gave the smallest jingle.

"I am counting the stars," said Cola. "One, two, three..." She counted all the way to twenty-seven, then she got muddled. "Was that one twenty-seven or twenty-eight?"

Fuzz squeezed onto the windowsill beside her. "I'll help," he said. "You count the stars on the left, and I'll count the stars on the right." Cola fluttered her long eyelashes. "Deal."

They counted together. "Thirty," whispered Cola. "Thirty-one," whispered Fuzz. A cool breeze hummed softly past the window. The stars twinkled as if they were winking back.

"Forty-two," said Cola slowly. "Forty... three..." said Fuzz, even more slowly. His big sideways ears drooped. Cola's eyes closed and opened, closed and opened, and then just stayed closed.

The two friends curled up together on the windowsill, a brown stripy ball next to a creamy one. They never did finish counting the stars. But the stars did not mind. They kept twinkling all night long, watching over two sleepy cats purring side by side.