Anita Le Fleur-The Moon Ladder

*Before reading this, please be sure to read the Anita Le Fleur post below it.*

Anita Le Fleur is sitting on the floor of her room. She is drawing away with pens and paper when she hears a noise and looks up. Her Father is outside her second story bedroom window, he waves in at her as he climbs past on a ladder. Anita stares out at him and slowly waves back...

Ruby stares out her bedroom window one night, unable to sleep. She is looking at nothing specific, and thinking of nothing in particular, when suddenly a ladder appears outside. She freezes in terror and stares out the window. Before long, a man appears on the ladder. Ruby is about to yell out in fear, convinced she is done for, but she doesn't have time. The man doesn't even pause at her window, he just keeps on climbing up past it. After a few minutes, when Ruby is fairly certain he's not about to suddenly reappear, she creeps cautiously to the window. Peering out, she can make out almost nothing in the dark, so she carefully opens the window, puts her head out, and looks up. The ladder seems to stretch on and on into the night sky, she can't see the top, and there's no sign of the man. She pulls her head back in, closes the window, gets back into bed, and waits. After a long time feet appear on the ladder, followed by legs, a body, and a head. But just as before, the man doesn't pause or look in the window, he just keeps climbing down and disappears from view. And then the ladder is suddenly gone too! It's like it disappeared behind him.

At work the next day Ruby can't stop thinking about the mysterious man and his apparently magical ladder. She thinks about it all day and wonders if he will reappear that night; and he does! Just like before, the ladder appears, he appears, then disappears up the ladder, then after quite a while he reappears, then disappears, and then so does the ladder. For the next few nights Ruby stays up late and waits for the ladder man, and every night it is just the same. Where does he go? What does he do? Ruby wonders, until finally, one night she waits right by the window, just on the other side of the glass. As the man on the ladder appears she looks right at him and waves. The man sees her and is so surprised he leans back from the window and starts to fall off his ladder, arms windmilling wildly. Ruby quickly throws open the window and grabs him by the front of his shirt, pulling him back to safety. For a minute they just stare at each other, then Ruby says "I'm Ruby, who are you? And why do you climb this magical ladder? And where does the ladder lead?" The man stares back at her, then says "My name is Paul and I climb the ladder up into the night sky, where I light the moon." Ruby blinks. "But the moon is always light; you can even see it during the day sometimes." To which Paul replies "Yes, but it's brighter at night isn't it? Someone has to turn up the brightness, well that someone is me." "Oh" Ruby says, then pauses. "Can I come up with you?" After a long moment of thought and deliberation Paul decides to let Ruby join him, just this evening, to light the moon.

Ruby climbs out the window behind him and together they climb and climb until they stand at the top of the ladder, beside the moon. Paul lets go of the ladder and jumps lightly onto the surface. "Let go" he says, reaching out his hand. Ruby is nervous, she looks out at the stars, then back at Paul, then she lets go of the ladder and floats towards the surface of the moon. Paul takes her hand and guides her down. Her feet touch the surface, it's smooth and a little bit soft, she smiles. Paul shows her the contraption, with all its levers and dials, which he uses to turn up the brightness of the moon, and how it then slowly fades until he turns it up again the next night. "Why is the moon brighter some nights than others?" Ruby asks. "Well, sometimes it's the weather, you can see it better on some nights than others, but mostly it depends on my mood. Sometimes, if I'm happy and in a good mood I like to make it a bit brighter." He smiles at her, then turns the brightness right up, she smiles back. Ruby and Paul spend almost all night on the brightly glowing moon, admiring the stars and picnicking on moon cheese. Finally, they climb back down the ladder to Ruby's bedroom window. "Well, good morning Ruby" he says. "Good morning Paul, see you tomorrow night!"

Every night after that Ruby met Paul at her window to talk before he climbed up to light the moon. Over time, they fell in love, and then Paul lived with Ruby and she would see him off every night at their bedroom window as he started climbing the magical ladder... The moon had never shone so brightly.

Anita Le Fleur is enjoying the view from the roof of her house very much; she leans her head back and stares up at the sky. Just then, her Father reappears at the top of the ladder. He stares at her, mouth hanging open. "Anita?? What are you doing up here?? How did you even get up here? Right, wait there I'll come and get you and carry you down, your Mother's going to have a thing or two to say about this I shouldn't wonder..."