It was a warm evening, the kind where the air smells of fresh grass and good sleep. Dash, Ziggy, Lily, and Skye were lying on the garden lawn, looking up. They had built a little hoop from a cardboard ring hung on the low branch of the apple tree, and Dash, who was as quick and funny as a bouncing ball, was making the silliest shots.

"Watch this!" said Dash. He jumped, did a twirl, threw the ball backwards without looking, and... the ball landed right on Ziggy's head.

"Ouch!" Ziggy laughed. "Nice basket, too bad the basket was me!"

They all laughed. But suddenly Lily, who had attentive blue eyes, stopped short.

"Wait," she said. "Where did the woods go?"

They turned toward the trees at the end of the garden. Usually, at that hour, the woods glowed with tiny lights: they were the fireflies, dancing among the branches like little flying stars. That evening, though, the woods were dark. No little lights. No dancing. Only silent shadow.

"The fireflies aren't shining anymore," whispered Skye, hugging herself a little.

Just then they heard a sound they all knew well. "CHOO CHOO!" Out of the evening clouds came Toby the Magic Train, shiny and cheerful, with smoke curling into the sky.

Toby the Magic Train whistled and said:

"Good evening, dear children, come hop on with me,
there's a court in the sky, as high as can be!
The stars are the basketballs up in the night:
who jumps and who shoots? It's you four, that's right!"

The four friends looked at each other with shining eyes. Without thinking twice, they hopped aboard. "CHOO CHOO!" And the little train flew up, up, over the rooftops, past the swallows, all the way to an incredible place.

Before them opened the Stadium of Stars: a huge basketball court floating among the clouds. The floor was as soft as cotton, and all around were giant hoops, made of dots of light joined by golden threads. Each hoop had a shape: one looked like a big Bear, one like a Wagon, one like a long glowing Snake.

"They're the constellations!" said Lily. "The pictures the stars make in the sky!"

But there was a problem. The hoops were empty. All the star-balls had fallen and were rolling here and there on the cloud court, half dimmed, sad, lost.

And in the middle of the court, big and round like a giant pillow, was a little cloud, fast asleep. It snored so loudly. "ZZZ... ZZZ... ZZZ..."

"Who's that?" asked Dash, tiptoeing closer.

The little cloud opened one sleepy eye, yawned, and said in a mushy voice: "I'm the Sleepyhead Cloud... I gave a great big yawn... and the whole firmament fell down... what a mess..." And it fell asleep again. "ZZZ... ZZZ..."

"Firma... what?" asked Dash, scratching his head.

The Cloud woke up a tiny bit more. "Firmament," it said. "It means the whole sky full of stars. All together. The firmament." Then it smiled in its sleep and mumbled: "I want cheese pancakes... ZZZ..."

The children burst out laughing.

"I've got it all figured out," said Dash, putting his hands on his hips like a real champion. "The Cloud yawned so hard that the stars fell out of the hoops. And if the stars aren't in their place, the constellations don't shine. And if the constellations don't shine, the fireflies in the woods stay in the dark! We have to put every star back in its hoop. And we'll do it... by playing basketball!"

"YESSS!" they all shouted.

The funniest game in the world began. Dash grabbed a star-ball, took a run-up, jumped, and shot toward the Bear-shaped hoop. The star flew, spun in the air, and... SWISH! In it went! The golden thread lit up with warm light, and one of the Bear's paws began to glow.

"It works!" cheered Ziggy, jumping for joy.

Lily gathered the stars and passed them, Skye calmly pointed out which star went in which hoop, and Dash shot, and shot, and shot. But the stars were as slippery as bars of soap. One slipped away from Dash and rolled between his feet: he stumbled three steps backward, flapped his arms like a windmill, and plopped down on his bottom. "OOPS!"

The star ran off again, and Dash chased it on all fours, but it kept hopping just a little farther away. "Come back here, you tricky ball!" He caught it on the tenth try, all messy-haired, and made a shot while sitting down: SWISH, in! The Wagon lit up a brand-new wheel.

At one point Dash had a wild idea. The belly of the Sleepyhead Cloud, going up and down with its breathing, looked just like a trampoline. "ZZZ..." up. "ZZZ..." down.

"Watch this!" Dash climbed onto the soft belly and began to bounce. Boing! Boing! He jumped super high, and from up there he could slip the stars into the highest hoops. SWISH! SWISH! Two stars in a row!

"You're amazing!" laughed Lily.

But just as Dash was mid-air, the Cloud went "ACHOO!" A huge sneeze in its sleep. Its belly puffed up all at once and Dash shot up doing somersaults, legs in the air, and landed inside a soft little cloud. "I'm okay!" he said, his head poking out. "But I'm doing it again tomorrow!"

Too bad the sneeze had scattered three stars they'd already put back. "Awww," they all went. But they didn't give up. Ziggy passed, Lily ran, Skye chose, and Dash shot with his tongue sticking out from concentrating.

At one point two mischievous stars started bouncing on their own, one this way and one that way. Dash tried to catch them both at once, spread his arms wide, slipped on the cloud, and ended up belly-up, with a star on each foot. "Look! I turned into a basket myself!" he shouted, laughing, and from where he sat he kicked them up, one after the other: SWISH, SWISH! His friends clapped so hard that even a passing swallow stopped to watch.

Little by little the hoops filled up. The Bear glowed all over. The Wagon glowed all over. The Snake sparkled from head to tail. Only one hoop was still dark, the most important of all: the North Star, the guiding star, the one that shows the way to all the little birds and all the fireflies.

But the guiding star was nowhere to be found.

They looked under the clouds, behind the hoops, even inside Toby's smoke. Nothing. It was Skye, always watchful and kind, who spotted it first.

"It's there," she said softly, pointing. "Under the Sleepyhead Cloud."

It was true. The guiding star had gotten stuck right under the Cloud's belly, which slept heavily. "ZZZ... ZZZ..." It barely glimmered, squashed flat.

"Now what?" said Ziggy. "If we pull it out all at once, the Cloud will wake up with a fright and get scared."

Dash thought about it. Fred, his dad, always told him to be careful and never do things by force. And so it came to him that what was needed was gentleness, not muscles.

At that moment, from up high, a thin, silvery moonbeam came down. Dash looked at it, smiled, and took a little piece of it between his fingers, light as a feather.

"Leave it to me," he whispered. And with the moonbeam he began to tickle the Sleepyhead Cloud, on its belly, very, very softly.

The Cloud, in its sleep, felt the tickle. "Hehehe..." It stirred. "Hehehehe!" It began to laugh. It laughed so much that it lifted up into the air, light as can be, shaking with laughter. "Stop it, stop it, hahaha!"

And beneath it, free at last, appeared the guiding star.

"NOW!" shouted Dash. He grabbed the star, took the biggest run-up of his whole life, jumped as high as he could, and with a shot as soft as a kiss he sent it toward the North Star's hoop.

The star flew through the air. Everyone held their breath. Skye clasped her hands. And then...

SWISH!

The hoop lit up with a bright, shining white light. The North Star shone brighter than all the rest. And in an instant the whole firmament lit up: every constellation, every dot, the whole sky together, like a party of light bulbs.

"Look at the woods!" shouted Lily.

Far away, down below, the woods were lighting up again. One firefly, then two, then a hundred, then a thousand. The little lights came back to dance among the branches, happy, as if they were saying thank you.

The Sleepyhead Cloud woke up completely, looked at the sky full of light, and said, deeply moved: "You've put the whole firmament back in place. Thank you, little champions. From now on I promise to yawn very, very gently, so I never make a single little star fall again."

The children hugged it, soft as it was, and it gave one last happy "ZZZ..."

It was time to go home. "CHOO CHOO!" Toby the Magic Train was waiting for them, with its lights on.

Everyone climbed aboard, tired and happy. Toby whistled and said:

"The stars had gone dark, not a twinkle, not one,
but you lit them all up with your love and your fun.
Nature's a treasure, a gift bright and true:
play kindly, take care, it's the best thing to do!"

As the little train glided down through the clouds, the sky behind them was a wonder of lights. When they reached the garden, the sun was about to rise. On the grass, many drops of sparkling dew had appeared, glittering like little diamonds, as if the lawn too wanted to say thank you.

The four friends looked at each other, still messy-haired and giggling, and waved to the faraway woods, where the fireflies kept on shining. They had learned something important: nature, with its stars and its fireflies, is a precious treasure. And a treasure like that is protected with care... and sometimes with a good game of basketball too.