Hulotte the owlA night bird with big round eyes, who sleeps during the day. has a very important job, the most important in the whole forest. Every evening, she counts the stars. She settles on her favourite branchThe long wooden arm of a tree, where birds like to sit., the one that creaks a little when she moves, and looks up at the big dark sky.
“One, two, three...” The stars come out slowlA night bird with big round eyes, who sleeps during the day.y, one by one, like little lamps being switched on inside houses.
“Ten, eleven, twelve...” Down below, the forest falls asleep. The stream talks to itself and the leaves barely move. “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two...” The wind slips between the trees. Hulotte fluffs her feathers tightly around her neck.
“Thirty-five, thirty-six...” A bat waves as it passes, hanging upside down. Hulotte does not answer: when you are counting, you do not talk.
“Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty...” Her eyelids grow as heavy as two big river pebbles. “Fifty-eight... fifty-nine... sixty...” Her voice goes very small.
She gives a great big owlA night bird with big round eyes, who sleeps during the day.y yawnOpening your mouth wide without meaning to, when you are very sleepy., so big you can see all the way down her beak.
“Sixty-one... sixty... erm... sixty something...” She has already forgotten where she was. And off she goes, asleep on her branchThe long wooden arm of a tree, where birds like to sit., head tucked into her feathers, one foot folded up beneath her.
Tomorrow evening she will start again at one. Some things are too big to ever finish, and that is quite all right: they give us beautiful dreams every night.
The end, sweet dreams.
