Once upon a twinkling, there lived a beautiful girl named Moonlight. Despite her beauty and the fact that she was born with a golden spoon in her hand, she never had the vice of greed.

Citizens of the whole space adored her, but the seven stars? Nope, not a chance! They were not as kind. They couldn’t even look at her without their judgy eyes.

“Look at her,” said the first star.
“Oh! Such a bragger,” said the second.

But Moonlight believed that people chose to talk about others because when they talked about themselves, no one listened, and she ignored.

One day, the third and fourth stars devised a plot. But all of a sudden, their murmurs turned into a pair of boisterous stars. Soon, the plan was shared. It was – PETRIFYING! TERRIFYING! DISTURBING! But am not telling you yet what it was!

The stars conglomerated when the clock struck 12, and Moonlight was in a relaxed slumber. They formed a constellation, ready with their potent powers to drain the light of her soul.

But what happened next will leave you dumbfounded!
The stars made a gargantuan mistake!
The attempt was to make an Ursa Minor, but they ended up creating an Ursa Major!
Can you believe it?
It was a catastrophe!

Soon, the constellation grew bigger and bigger and bigger and then…

Boom! Boom!
The stars exploded from the energy, enormous waves of moonlight flashing everywhere.
The light reflected off a small ball, and as soon as the light reflected, one could hear a twinkling of star dust around that luminous ball.

Do you know what that ball was?

It was the Moon!
Yes, the Moon. From that day, the celestial body was known as Moon, and perhaps a new story started there…
But that, we’ll discuss another day.

Author: Aarna Bajaj, 11 years old

Note – This story was penned by the author as a part of our ‘Reimagine Folklore’ workshop held in Off the Shelf Bookstore in Hyderabad in April 2025