Konpeito

cuna was all ready. There was nothing left to do but wait for the one night that comes once a year.
Tonight it will come, cuna thought, and opened the window, and got into bed.

When the town and the forest had all gone quiet, something struck cuna on the forehead — tock, tock.
It's here, she thought, and rubbed her eyes: falling stars had come in through the window and scattered across the room.

cuna threw off the covers and, just to be sure, turned the pages of the book she had read so many times: How to Turn Falling Stars into Konpeito.

· Falling stars melt the moment the morning sun touches them, so gather them while it is still night.

She snatched up a sack, hurried outside, and began to pick up the falling stars.

Held in the hand, a falling star trembles — thrum.
Looking into the sack, she found them shivering with a sound like a sparkler, tchi, tchi, tchi.

cuna carried it carefully back to her room, set the sack down, and turned the page.

· Dip the falling stars in the sap of the konpeito tree, then dry them well on a clean cloth.
· If you can, leave them where the air moves.

Two konpeito trees grow near cuna's house. In summer they bear sweet konpeito.

All night the trees draw water up through their roots, and towards morning a sweet sap seeps from the tips of the branches. The summer sun hardens the sap, and it becomes konpeito.

cuna had cut into a branch beforehand and hung a glass bottle beneath it. So she had the sap as well. Everything was ready.

She took the stars from the sack, dipped them in the sap with tweezers, and laid them out on the cloth.
They shone like a small Milky Way.
cuna gazed at them a while, then set the cloth beneath the window to dry.

That's that, thought cuna, satisfied, and got into bed.
By tomorrow morning the star konpeito would be done.

The last page of the book says this.

· Star konpeito, tied to the end of a twig, will do for a torch.
· You may eat it if you get hungry, so it is best of all for a long journey.

When autumn comes, cuna will set out on a long journey, to return the book.
She meant to make a great many of these before then.