My Life with a Star

Written and Illustrated by Jenny Kim

About the Author

Jenny Kim is the author and illustrator of My Life with a Star.

She is 8 years old and in the third grade. Her birthday is on July 30th,

2003. She lives in La Canada with her parents and her little brother.

Her favorite hobby is to sketch imaginary animals or things from the

sky (that is how she got the idea for her story). Other than writing

stories, her talent is painting art. She also plays musical beauties on

the cello. If you are interested in more stories by Jenny, she has also

written another story, called The Whale and her Little Friend. She

hopes that all her readers will enjoy her stories and be inspired to

create their own.

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Chapter 1: Meeting Twinkle

One hot summer vacation day, my family was going to camp

with my cousins. I was really excited to play with them, but I felt

like exploring while waiting for them to arrive. When the sun was

setting, my cousins were not here yet. So I made the decision

explore the forest.

After dinner, I headed for the dark woods. As I started

walking through the trees, I tripped a lot and got many bruises –

OUCH! Suddenly, up ahead of me, I saw a very bright light that was

falling from the sky onto the ground. When I got closer to the

object, it was… A STAR! The second I picked it up, it said, “Hi!”

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I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming, but it wasn’t a dream.

Since I wasn’t sure what to make of this, I decided to return to my

family and gently lowered the star onto the forest floor.

Just as I turned to leave, it cried “Wait! Please don’t leave me

here. I am really lonely when I’m not in the night sky!”

I stared at the star. It said that it was a girl and that I could

name her any name that I wanted. Feeling sorry for her, I decided to

keep her and named her Twinkle.

When I got back to the camping site with Twinkle in hand, my

cousins were already there. I decided to keep Twinkle’s existence a

secret. We ate dessert and went to sleep.

The next day was my last day of summer vacation. I woke up

and Twinkle was already awake. I wanted to ask her a question, so I

started to ask, “Who is your friend?”

She replied, “My best friend is Tom.”

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Chapter 2: Off to School

It was the first day of third grade. I wondered how to hide my

star friend. My teacher was Ms. Bachmuth. I was really excited to

go actually, to see if my close school friend might be in my class. My

wish came true! My friend was in my classroom.

At recess, I figured out that my friend was hiding something. I

wondered if she had a talking star too. After a moment, I finally

gathered up the courage and asked her if she had… a magical

object from the sky. Right when I asked her, she made a surprised

expression, and revealed that she had a moon named Tom! As we

talked about our new celestial friends, Twinkle and Tom were

laughing and playing. It was really, really weird. Then, recess ended.

When we sat down in the classroom, it was time for sharing.

My friend went first to share. As she stood up, she accidentally

dropped her project, and we all heard a big, “OUCH!” That was

when Tom fell out of Patience’s bag and rolled all the way across

the room to Ms. Bachmuth’s sparkly toes.

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Red with anger, she got super mad at Patience for bringing

something that was alive and sent her home. Worried that the same

might happen to me, I whispered to Twinkle, “Don’t make a single

peep.”

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Chapter 3: OH MY GOSH!!!

On the weekends, Twinkle and I had lots of fun. She taught

me a lot of space games, like Mars, Mars, Jupiter (Duck, Duck,

Goose), Hide-Saturn-Hide (Hide-and-Seek), and Alien Freeze Tag

(Freeze Tag).

One day, my grandpa fainted because he heard a very, very

loud SLAM from my little brother’s clumsiness. Just then, Twinkle

went up to my grandpa and shook her little star bottom around. He

immediately woke up and jumped up to his feet. He began to salsa!

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Am I imagining it, or am I actually seeing this? I took Twinkle in

my hands and spoke, “OH MY GOSH!!! How did you do that?! Why

didn’t you tell me you had special powers?!!”

With an innocent look on her face, Twinkle replied, “I don’t

know.”

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Chapter 4: A Close One!

Later on, I found out that Twinkle had not one, but two

special powers! I found out about the other one while I was

studying. When I was in the middle of science homework, I suddenly

noticed that I was floating midair with my desk! Then, I saw Twinkle

closing her eyes and she was pointing at me! Right when I was about

to shout, I remembered that my dad was sleeping.

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So I just floated back down to get my laptop to email Patience.

I succeeded in grabbing my laptop, but as soon as I got it, I floated

upwards again into the air.

Some time passed, and I got really tired of waiting. At first, it

was a bit exciting, but then it got really boring to just float in the

air and do nothing.

I wonder when it will wear off…

I looked over at Twinkle, and she had a facial expression that

also looked really bored. Then, before I could say anything, my mom

knocked on my door, “Are you okay in there?”

I nearly fell to the ground, had I not been floating in the air.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Please don’t come in!” I said quickly.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“PLEASE! I’m doing my homework!” I begged.

“Alright then, I’ll be downstairs when you need me,” she replied.

I yelled, “Thanks mom!” as I thought, Whew, that was a CLOSE

ONE.

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Chapter 5: Star Food

The next few days, it was really hard to keep Twinkle a secret.

Because we got closer and she was comfortable around me, she

used a lot of her magic dust. Though it was cool that she was doing

magic, I noticed a change in her personality. I was really surprised

that Twinkle didn’t talk and giggle the way she used to.

One day, I finally realized that I actually forgot to ask her

what she likes to eat. Perhaps it was because she was hungry that

her mood changed! So, I sat her down and asked her what she

enjoys for food.

She replied, “I eat space strawberry with space yogurt, Milky

Way bars, Starburst, and Mooncakes.” She showed me some

pictures of them.

Right at that moment, I heard a growl. It sounded like a belly

rumble. I had a feeling that it was from Twinkle. Before she said

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anything, I dashed into the kitchen, got some fresh-cut strawberries

and some space yogurt. I wondered if she would enjoy it as I handed

it to her.

She took one bite, and all of a sudden, became so bright that

the light burned my eyes. Delighted, she exclaimed, “It is wonderful!”

I was happy that she liked it.

After she finished, she said, “I forgot to tell you something.”

“What is it?” I asked.

She softly stated, “I came from a constellation and I kind of

miss them. We played a lot of games like ‘Get Your Places,’

‘Constellation Says,’ and the other games I taught you. I wish I

could be with them again.”

I felt kind of sad and sorry that she had to miss her friends.

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Chapter 6: Madness and Sadness

Maybe she will feel better if I give her my old glowing toy star,

I thought to myself. It always cheered me up when I was sad. I ran

to my room, swung open the toy chest, and dug into the abyss of

toys. Where is it? Why isn’t it here? When I finally got to the very

bottom of the chest, I found Twinkle, and she was playing with the

toy! By the look on her face, I could tell she felt a little better, at

least for the time being. That was really creepy – how did she get

from the living room to the bottom of the toy chest? It still remains

a mystery to me to this day.

Though the glowing toy star helped Twinkle feel better

momentarily, the happiness did not last very long. The very next day,

I heard a very loud CRASH! that made me bolt up from my bed. The

next moment, I saw Twinkle on the floor of my room, with my

bookshelf knocked over next to her.

“AAAAARRRRRGGGGHH!!” I shouted.

She just stared at me with the look of a person who got

separated from their family. Twinkle was greener than ever. I was

very stunned. She never got too green before. Then she finally

spoke, “I want to go my friends again!! RIGHT NOW!!”

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I fell real silent for several minutes. In reality, it was only about

three minutes, but to me, it felt like three hours. After some deep

thought, I decided that I would let her go tonight. I had no choice

even though I didn’t want to let her go. I couldn’t force my friend

to stay sad in my house, away from her star friends and family. So,

with a sigh, I said sorry and told her I would send her back into the

sky. She said sorry too, for not being able to stay with me.

That night, as I went to bed, I cried. I think I heard Twinkle

crying a little too.

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Chapter 7: Good-Bye

“Dinner’s ready!” yelled my mom down the hall. Twinkle and I

ran to the dining room to find a table ready with spicy Korean soup

and fresh-baked moon pies. MmmMMmm, it smelled delicious.

Although the food was great, I couldn’t help but to be sad as I

ate. It would be our last meal together. I promised her. I promised

her, I said to myself over and over again.

After dinner, we walked to my backyard.

“So, how do you get up?” I asked.

“I think you boost me up,” Twinkle replied. Then she pointed

to the sky to show me which constellation she was from. The

constellation shape was a heart.

So, we tried the “boosting.” The first time we did it, it did not

work. The second time, not even close. But the third time, it almost

worked – we were so close! However, the fourth time, nope. It was

no use. Then I finally said, “Let’s rest for a minute.”

“Yeah,” Twinkle said, with a short breath.

I tried to think of an idea that could actually work. After a

few minutes, a great idea popped into my head! We could use her

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floating dust to get up to Skyland where moons and stars live! I

shared my idea with Twinkle and we got to work.

The idea actually worked! Twinkle began to float higher and

higher until I could almost barely see her. Right when she went up

to the portal, she waved goodbye and flew up into her place in the

sky. She sprinkled something in the pitch black sky. Stars lit up in a

formation that spelled, “THANK YOU.” After I looked at it, I

smiled and went back inside and wrote down everything that

happened from when we first became friends.

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Epilogue

Eight years later, while I was looking for my folder for

geometry class in my room, I picked up this crooked pieces of paper.

I noticed that there was a lot of dust on the papers, so I blew on

them. When the dust fluttered around, I suddenly remembered that

I had an awesome time with my old pal Twinkle. I didn’t remember

writing it down, but after a lot of thinking I guessed that Twinkle

wrote it down and hid it somewhere. The next day, when I went out

to the bus, I saw Twinkle waving at me on top of the bus. I was so

happy, but also about to faint. After school, we had lots of fun.