Nora and the Moon

Nora kept a notebook under her pillow. Not just any notebook — a thick, green one with a rubber band around it and a pencil stuck through the spiral binding, ready to go at a moment's notice.

She was an investigator.

Last month, she had investigated the ants that marched along the kitchen windowsill. She drew maps of their trails. She timed them with her dad's stopwatch. She discovered that they always turned left at the crack in the tile — always, every single one — and she filled three whole pages about it.

Before that, she had investigated the dripping sound in the bathroom. It turned out to be the faucet, but also — and this was the important part — it dripped exactly four times, then paused, then dripped exactly four times again. She counted for thirty-seven minutes to be sure.

But now Nora had a new investigation. The biggest one yet.

The moon.

It started on a Tuesday. Nora couldn't sleep, so she climbed out of bed and pressed her face against the cool glass of her bedroom window. And there it was — the moon, perfectly round and glowing white, hanging above the Hendersons' roof like a giant marble.

Nora grabbed her notebook.

Tuesday. Moon is round. Very round. All-the-way round. Located above Hendersons' roof.

She drew a little circle and colored it in with her pencil. Then she stared at it for a long time, feeling satisfied, and went back to bed.

The next night, she checked again.

Wednesday. Moon is still round. Moved a little to the left. Now above the big oak tree.

She drew another circle.

Thursday — round again. She drew another circle.

But on Friday — Friday was when things got interesting.

Nora pressed her face to the window and squinted. The moon was there, above Mr. Patterson's chimney now, but something was different. The right side looked like someone had taken a tiny bite out of it. Just a sliver, like when you nibble the edge of a cookie and try to pretend you didn't.

Nora grabbed her pencil so fast it flew out of her hand and rolled under the bed. She scrambled after it, bumped her head on the bed frame, whispered "Ouch" very seriously, and then wrote:

Friday. SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED TO THE MOON. Small bite missing on right side. WHO DID THIS.

She underlined "who did this" three times.

Saturday night, the bite was bigger.

Sunday — bigger still.

Nora sat cross-legged on her bed with her notebook open, flipping between the pages. Circle, circle, circle, then bite, bigger bite, BIGGER bite. This was not good. Something was eating the moon, and it was getting hungrier.

On Monday, she marched into the kitchen where her dad was washing dishes and humming a song that wasn't really a song — just humming.

"Dad," she said, in her most official investigator voice. "Something is eating the moon."

Her dad turned off the water. "Eating it?"

"I have evidence." She held up her notebook and flipped through the pages of circles, showing how the bite grew night by night.

Her dad looked at the drawings. He tilted his head one way, then the other. "Huh," he said.

"Do you know what's eating it?" Nora asked.

"Well..." Her dad dried his hands on the towel slowly, the way he did when he was thinking. "I don't actually know. I mean, I know it does that, but I don't know exactly why it looks like that."

"You don't KNOW?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

Nora stared at him. Dads were supposed to know things about the sky. This was very inconvenient.

"I'll keep investigating," she said, and walked back to her room with great purpose.

Tuesday night, half the moon was gone. Just — gone. A perfect half circle, like someone had sliced it down the middle with an enormous knife. Nora pressed her nose against the window so hard it left a little smudge.

Tuesday. Half the moon is missing. HALF. This is an emergency.

Wednesday, more than half was gone.

Thursday, there was just a skinny curved sliver, like a fingernail clipping glowing in the sky.

And then — Friday night. Nora pulled back her curtain and looked out the window, and her stomach dropped.

The moon was gone.

She looked left. She looked right. She pressed her face against every corner of the glass. Nothing. Just darkness and stars.

Friday. The moon is GONE. Completely gone. Something ate the WHOLE THING.

She sat on her bed and stared at the page. She had drawn a circle where the moon should be, but she couldn't color it in, because there was nothing to color. She felt a wobbly, worried feeling in her chest, like when you lose something important and you're not sure you'll get it back.

She went to her dad's room. He was reading in bed with his little lamp on.

"Dad. The moon is gone."

He looked up from his book. "Gone gone?"

"All the way gone. There's nothing there."

Her dad got out of bed, and they walked together to Nora's room. He leaned down and looked through her window at the dark sky, and he was quiet for a moment.

"Yep," he said. "Gone."

"Aren't you worried?" Nora asked.

Her dad sat on the edge of her bed. "You know what, Nora? Keep watching. That's what investigators do, right? They keep watching, even when they're not sure what's going to happen."

Nora frowned. That was not a very helpful answer. But she wrote it down anyway.

Dad says keep watching. Not helpful. But will do it because I am an investigator.

Saturday night, Nora opened her curtain expecting nothing.

But there, hanging just above the Hendersons' roof — a sliver. Thin and bright, like a little curved smile.

But on the OTHER side.

Nora almost dropped her notebook. She flipped back through the pages — yes, YES — the bite had been on the right, and the moon had gotten smaller and smaller from the right. But now this little sliver was growing from the LEFT.

Saturday. THE MOON IS COMING BACK. Tiny sliver, left side. IT'S COMING BACK.

She may have also done a small, quiet victory dance, but she did not write that down because it was not scientific.

Sunday, the sliver was bigger.

Monday, bigger still.

Every night, Nora watched, and every night the moon grew, like someone was carefully putting it back together piece by piece. She filled page after page with her drawings — crescents getting wider, half-moons, three-quarter moons — and she taped them all to her wall in a long line so she could see the whole story at once.

On the second Tuesday — two full weeks after her investigation began — Nora looked out the window.

The moon was round.

Completely, perfectly, all-the-way round. Glowing white above the Hendersons' roof, right back where it started, like a giant marble.

Nora stood at her window for a very long time. Then she picked up her pencil.

Tuesday. The moon is back. Full and round. It took exactly two weeks to disappear, and two weeks to come back. Nobody ate it. It just does this. It comes and goes and comes back again.

She looked at her wall of drawings — all those little moons in a row, shrinking and growing, shrinking and growing. It was like the moon was breathing.

She went to find her dad. He was in the kitchen again, humming his not-really-a-song.

"Dad. I figured it out."

"You did?"

"Nobody ate the moon. It just does this. It goes away and comes back. Every time." She held up her notebook, and her dad looked at the long row of drawings — the slow shrinking, the empty night, and then the growing, growing, growing back to round.

"Every time?" he asked, smiling.

"Every time," Nora said. She was already thinking about next month, when she could watch it happen all over again. Maybe she'd time it with the stopwatch.

Her dad looked at her drawings one more time and shook his head, still smiling. "You know, Nora, I've looked at the moon my whole life and never once thought to just sit and watch it like that."

Nora closed her notebook and tucked the pencil back through the spiral binding.

"That," she said, "is why you need an investigator."

Then she went to bed, and the moon — round and bright and whole — watched over her window until morning.