It was a warm and clear evening, one of those where the air smells of fresh grass and it is neither hot nor cold. In the garden, Skye, Ziggy, Lily, and Dash were playing "catch-a-star." Each of them had a glass jar full of water, and they ran around trying to catch the reflection of the first stars lighting up in the sky.

"I caught one!" shouted Ziggy, jumping like a spring. But when he looked inside the jar, the little star had run away.

"You have to be calm," said Lily, steady, holding her jar as still as a rock. "You can't catch stars by running. You catch them with patience."

Skye, instead, was not running. She sat on the grass, quiet, and looked at the sky with soft eyes. "They are so beautiful," she whispered. "They look like lots of little lights. I wonder who makes all those lights."

Dash did a somersault and landed with his bottom in the water of a jar. "I caught a star with my pants!" he giggled, and everyone burst out laughing so hard they almost fell over backwards.

That was when they heard it. From far away, among the bushes, came a familiar sound: "CHOO-CHOO! CHOO-CHOO!"

"Toby!" they all cried together.

From behind the hedge came Toby the Magic Train, with his little lights sparkling and a cheerful whistle. He stopped in front of them and said:

"Good evening, dear children, what a beautiful night,
the sky full of stars fills your eyes with delight!
Climb up here quickly, come take a seat,
we'll ride to your dreams where the soft breezes meet...
soft, gentle dreams that drift by so slow,
to a faraway factory - off we go!"

The children clapped their hands and climbed aboard in a rush. Toby whistled happily and set off, up along a ribbon of stars, higher and higher, past the rooftops, past the clouds, all the way to a strange house that seemed made of glass and clouds.

"This is the Midnight Dream Factory," Toby explained as he stopped.

The four friends climbed down with their mouths wide open. The Factory was a great glowing lantern, with enormous funnels that gathered the light of the stars and let it slide inside like silver rain. There were soft ribbons that flowed slowly, and on those ribbons the dreams traveled before being closed in little colored boxes, ready to fly away.

But something was wrong.

"Oh, no..." murmured Skye.

All the dream-toys in the workshop had turned gray. A gray teddy bear. A gray little boat. A gray little horse. No color anywhere. The Factory made no sound. It seemed to be asleep.

"How sad," said Lily. "It all looks switched off, like a television that's unplugged."

At the back of the room, resting on top of a big machine full of paintbrushes, there was a little cloud. It breathed softly and went "Puuuf... puuuf..." Every now and then it yawned and, instead of air, colorful soap bubbles came out of its mouth.

"Look!" said Dash. "A cloud that's sleeping!"

They came closer on tiptoe. The cloud smelled of warm cookies, fresh from the oven.

"Um... excuse me?" said Ziggy, touching it with one finger.

The little cloud opened one eye, then the other, and gave a frightened jump. "Oh! Who... who are you?"

"We are Skye, Ziggy, Lily, and Dash," answered Skye in a kind voice. "Why is the Factory all gray?"

The cloud lowered its eyes. "Because it's my fault. I am the color driver. My job is to color the dreams. But I can't do it anymore. I feel all... faded."

The children looked at each other, puzzled.

"Faded?" asked Dash. "What does that mean?"

The cloud sighed. "Faded means with pale colors, almost gone. Like a drawing left too long in the sun, that gets lighter and lighter until you can hardly see it anymore. Well, that's how I feel."

"And why don't you color the dreams anymore?" asked Lily.

The cloud trembled. "Because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of making a mistake. What if I pick the wrong color? What if I ruin everything? So, to avoid making a mistake, I fall asleep. That way I don't try, and I can't be wrong." Another colored bubble came out of its mouth, trembling.

Ziggy couldn't stay still for a second. "I'll wake you up!" And he began to jump and make noise. "Come on, come on, cheer up!"

Lily tried to shake it, gently. "Come on, cloud, get moving!"

Dash did three somersaults in a row and made a funny face. "Look at me! Have a laugh!"

But the cloud closed up more and more, like a little snail inside its shell, and yawned to fall asleep again.

Then Skye did something different. She didn't jump, she didn't shake, she didn't do somersaults. She sat down beside the cloud, slowly, and took a soft little tip of it between her hands.

"You know," she said in a low voice, "sometimes I'm scared of starting things too. When there's a big thing to do, it seems too hard, and I want to run away."

The cloud looked at her, surprised. "Really? You too?"

"Yes. But I discovered a secret." Skye smiled. "We don't have to color everything. Let's color just one thing. The smallest one of all."

The cloud swallowed. "Only... one?"

"Only one," Skye nodded.

Outside the great windows, though, something was happening. The stars in the sky were beginning to go out, one after another, like little candles blown out.

"Quick!" said Toby the Magic Train, looking up worried. "If the dawn comes, the gray dreams will stay gray forever!"

The children's hearts skipped a beat. They had to hurry.

"We need a drop of every color," the cloud explained, pointing to the machine. "Colors from everywhere."

So everyone got busy. Ziggy took a very high leap all the way to the window and caught a red ray of the last sunset, which was a little warm like the sun. Lily, steady, leaned right inside a funnel and didn't let go until she had gathered a blue drop of dew, cold and shiny. Dash ran so fast he made the wind blow and pulled bright yellow off a button on his jacket. And Skye, calmly, found a little green leaf that had fallen onto a ribbon and picked it up with two fingers.

Red, blue, yellow, green. They put them all in the color bowl. But the cloud was still trembling, and couldn't pick up the paintbrush.

"I can't do it," it whimpered. "I'm too scared."

Outside, only three stars were left. Then two. The room grew brighter and brighter.

Skye understood that someone had to take the first step. And she understood that someone had to be her.

Gently, she picked up the paintbrush herself. She dipped it in the red. And she chose the smallest thing of all: a tiny gray teddy bear, no bigger than a finger.

Her hand trembled a little. And sure enough she slipped: the red went a bit outside the lines, onto the little paw.

But Skye didn't get upset. She looked at the red teddy bear, a little crooked, and smiled. "See?" she said to the cloud. "I trembled too. I went outside the lines too. But look... the first step is done. And nothing bad happened."

The cloud looked at that red teddy bear, imperfect and beautiful. And something inside it melted like butter in the sun. It was so, so moved that it yawned a whole cloud of colorful bubbles, all at once, that flew around the room like confetti. It was its way of saying "thank you."

"If you did it," it whispered, "I can try too."

And it picked up the paintbrush.

The first brushstroke was small. The second a little less so. Then, as if by magic, the fear went away, and the cloud began to color fast, happy, laughing. Red, blue, yellow, green, and a thousand other colors born from mixing them all together!

The teddy bear turned all red. The little boat turned blue. The little horse turned golden. Ziggy, Lily, and Dash ran to help too, passing the brushes and mixing the colors in the bowl, while the cloud painted faster and faster. The colors came back in rivers, running along the ribbons like lots of cheerful little streams, and one after another all the dreams lit up with a thousand shades. The whole Factory lit up again, bright and alive, with a soft hum of happy machines, just as the last star went out in the sky and the first pink ray of dawn peeked out.

They had done it. Just in time!

The recolored dreams were closed in the little boxes and sent up, along the ribbons of stars, toward the pillows of all the children in the world.

The cloud was no longer faded. Now it glowed, it smelled of warm cookies more than ever, and it swayed happily like a little boat on the sea, leaving behind a trail of little stars.

"Thank you, Skye," it said. "You taught me that you just have to start with one small thing." And it gave her a tiny little star, to keep in her pocket forever.

Skye held it to her heart, her eyes a little shiny with happiness.

Then Toby the Magic Train whistled gently. It was time to go home.

The children climbed aboard, waving goodbye to the cloud until the Factory was only a tiny glowing dot far away. And as they came down slowly toward home, Toby said:

"What a wonderful night, what a grand adventure too,
the cloud isn't scared anymore, good as new!
If ever a job seems too big to be done,
just start with one piece - the small, easy one...
one little step is the hardest of all,
then everything's easy - you won't even fall!"

The children fell asleep, rocked by the swaying of the train, with a smile on their lips. Skye held her little star tight in her hand, and dreamed all night of colors coming back, one after another, simply because someone had found the courage to begin.