That morning the sky was covered with grey clouds, and it really looked like it wanted to rain. Lily looked out of the window with her arms crossed and her lips tight. "Ugh," she grumbled, "I wanted to play in the garden, not stay stuck inside.".

But a little later something wonderful happened. A ray of sun poked through the clouds, like a golden finger opening a curtain. In a moment the sky turned blue and clear again, and the air grew warm, that perfect temperature where it's neither hot nor cold.

"Hooray!" shouted Ziggy, who had just arrived and was bouncing like a spring. "We get to play outside!"

Skye and Dash were already in the garden. They had found a bottle of soap bubbles and were having a contest to see who could blow the biggest one. Dash ran after a huge bubble, tripped on a tuft of grass and fell flat on the ground, laughing his head off. "Almost got it!" he said, with two blades of grass on the tip of his nose.

Skye, on the other hand, blew very calmly. A round bubble rose high into the sky, shimmering with all the colors. Everyone watched it with their noses turned up, until POP, it burst into a shower of tiny droplets.

It was right then that they heard it. A faraway sound that those four children knew very well.

"CHOO CHOO!"

"Toby!" they all shouted together.

From the far end of the garden came Toby the Magic Train, with shiny wheels and a puff of smoke shaped like a heart. He stopped in front of the children, whistled happily and said:

"CHOO CHOO, dear friends, come climb aboard with me,
I'll take you to a meadow, wait and see!
A bridge, a rock, a touch of magic bright,
and the sky tonight will dance with pure delight!"

The children looked at each other with shining eyes. A meadow? A rock? And why on earth would the sky be happy? Nobody knew, but they really wanted to find out. They hopped aboard in a flash and Toby set off, racing through the fields with his cheerful CHOO CHOO.

After a while the little train slowed down and stopped. The children climbed down and were left speechless.

In front of them spread a huge meadow, full of red, yellow and purple flowers, with butterflies dancing from one petal to another. The air smelled of honey and fresh grass. In the middle of the meadow ran a stream that sparkled as if someone had tossed in a handful of glitter. And beyond the stream rose a gentle green little hill.

"What a wonderful place," whispered Skye, with her hands on her heart.

"Look at the bridge!" said Lily, pointing. Over the stream there was an old wooden bridge. But something was wrong: some planks had fallen, others were rotten, and in the middle there was a great big hole. The bridge was broken, and you couldn't cross it anymore.

While they were looking at it, they heard a tiny voice. So thin, so light, that at first they thought it was the wind.

"Pssst... welcome to the Meadow of Fallen Stars..."

The children spun around quickly. On a flower, in the center of a web shaped exactly like a star, there was a little spider. He wasn't scary at all: he had kind eyes and eight delicate little legs that seemed to be bowing.

"I am Weaver," whispered the spider, speaking softly, as if every word were a precious secret. When he spoke, the threads of his web trembled slightly and tinkled like tiny bells.

"Why do you talk so softly?" asked Ziggy, coming closer on tiptoe.

"Because the most beautiful secrets," answered Weaver in a thread of a voice, "are told in a quiet voice."

"And what secret do you have?" asked Lily, who loved mysteries.

Weaver pointed a little leg at the hill beyond the stream. "Tonight, from up there, the stars will fall. Golden trails crossing the sky. It's the most beautiful show of the year. But to see it... you have to get to the other side."

"But the bridge is broken!" said Dash.

"There is another way to cross," murmured Weaver, and here his voice grew even thinner. "But you must move what no one, alone, can move." And he said nothing more. He just swung on his web, mysterious.

The children looked at each other. What did he mean? But Lily was not the type to give up. She looked around with her careful blue eyes, and saw something: nearby, on the bank, there was a huge rock. It was smooth and round, as big as a nice plump piglet.

"I've got it!" said Lily. "If we move that rock to the narrowest spot in the stream, where the water is shallow, it becomes a stone to step on to reach the other side. A ford!"

"A what?" asked Skye, who had never heard that word.

"A ford," explained Lily. "It's a place where you can cross a river by walking on stones, without getting your feet wet. My dad Luke taught me."

"What a fantastic idea!" said Ziggy.

So they all gathered around the rock. Lily counted: "One, two, three... PUSH!"

They pushed with all their might. Their cheeks turned red, their feet slipped on the grass. But the rock didn't move even a tiny bit. No luck at all.

"It's too heavy," said Dash, panting.

"We'll never do it," sighed Skye, with slightly sad eyes.

For a moment everyone was quiet. It really seemed impossible. But Lily clenched her fists. "No," she said in a firm voice. "We won't give up. There must be a way. Let's think about it together."

And that was when a little light switched on in Ziggy's eyes. "Wait!" he exclaimed. "I have an idea! My dad, when he has to move a heavy rock in the garden, uses a long stick. He slides it under the rock and pushes hard. It's called a lever!"

He ran to the edge of the meadow and came back dragging a sturdy branch, long and strong. He slid it under the rock, rested the branch on a smaller stone, and then all together they pushed the other end downward.

Creeeak. The rock moved! It slid forward a good way.

"It's working!" shouted Dash, full of energy, jumping on the spot.

But just as they were cheering, the rock did something they didn't expect. It started to roll sideways, toward a slope, and it looked like it was about to end up straight in the stream, far away from the right spot!

"Oh no!" shouted Skye. "It's getting away!"

Everyone's heart went thump thump thump. If the rock rolled into the deep water, it would all be over. Lily threw herself in and put a hand on it, Dash put in a shoulder, but the rock was too strong and dragged them along.

"Let's stop it!" yelled Lily. "Everyone on the same side! NOW!"

In an instant the four children threw themselves on the same side of the rock and blocked it, digging their feet into the grass. The rock stopped, teetering right on the edge of the slope. By a hair.

Everyone breathed out. "That was close," said Ziggy, with his heart in his throat.

But now the rock was in a tricky spot. It had to be moved just a little bit more, to the narrowest point of the stream. And it had to be done all at the same moment, with the right push.

Skye, who until that moment had been trembling a little, took a deep breath and said in her gentle voice: "We can do it. There are four of us. If we join our strength together, no rock can win against us."

Her words warmed everyone's heart. Even Weaver, from his web, stopped swinging and looked at them with his kind little eyes.

Lily took charge. "On my count of three, all together, with all the strength you have. Ready? One... two... THREEE!"

And they pushed. Dash with his overwhelming energy, Ziggy working the lever with the branch, Skye never letting go of her grip, Lily shouting "Come on! Come on! Come on!" All in the very same instant, like a single child with eight arms.

The rock slid, rolled and stopped with a perfect THUD right in the middle of the narrowest point of the stream. It had become a stepping stone, a stone bridge to cross to the other side.

"WE DID IT!" they all shouted, hugging each other and jumping for joy.

Weaver, deeply moved, got straight to work. In a flash he wove a long, thin thread, from one bank to the other, right above the stepping stone. And that thread, as if by magic, began to glow with golden light, forming a star-shaped web that served as a shining handrail.

"A handrail," whispered Weaver, "so you can cross while holding on tight. Thank you, children. On my own I never could have done it."

One after another, holding onto the golden thread, the children crossed the stream walking on the rock. And they climbed the little hill just as the sun was going down and the sky was turning pink and purple.

Then, all of a sudden, it happened. A star crossed the sky leaving a golden trail. Then another, and another. They were the shooting stars! The sky looked like a party of lights raining down from above.

The four children lay down close together on the grass, their heads touching, watching that wonderful show. Skye, tired and happy, dozed off almost right away.

"You know what, Lily?" said Ziggy in a low voice. "The most beautiful view isn't this hill."

"I know," answered Lily, smiling. "The most beautiful thing was getting here. All together."

And in that moment they understood Weaver's secret. The shooting stars were splendid, it's true. But the most precious gift of the whole day had been the time spent together: pushing, making mistakes, laughing, never giving up, side by side. That would never pop like a soap bubble. That would stay forever.

When the evening grew darker, they heard a gentle whistle. Toby the Magic Train was waiting for them. They climbed aboard, their eyes still full of stars, and Toby said:

"CHOO CHOO, let's go home, climb up, little friends,
the stars up high all bow as the day ends!
The finest gift of all, today you found:
it's the time together, with love all around!"

And as Toby raced toward home, one more star fell in the sky, just to say goodnight.