At Christmas, Pigúiça's house filled up with good smells: pumpkin soup, gingerbread cookies, and pine leaves. But that year, one smell was missing. The smell of Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Pigúiça's grandparents lived on the other side of the big river, many nights' walk away. The road was too long for grandparent legs. This Christmas, they wouldn't be able to come.
Pigúiça sat by the window with her chin on her paws. “They'll spend Christmas without me,” she said. “And I'll spend it without them.” Fofuxo sat down next to her. His eyes turned deep blue. “You know what we can do? Write a letter.”
Pigúiça took a sheet of paper and a pencil and thought for a while. She wrote slowly, with her tongue sticking out: “Dear Grandma and Grandpa. I drew a picture of you. I ate two cookies, but I thought of you with the first one. I miss you a lot, but my love is bigger. Hugs from Pigúiça.”
Then Fofuxo showed her how to fold paper. Fold here, fold there, and the sheet became a five-pointed star, with the letter tucked inside.
“And now, how will it get there?” asked Pigúiça. “Tonight is the night when someone travels across the whole sky, carrying good things,” said Fofuxo, with a smile. “Let's leave the star on the window.”
Pigúiça set the paper star on the windowsill, right in the middle, with a little note: “For Santa Claus to take to my grandparents, please.” Then she went to bed.
She tried to sleep. She turned over. She turned back. The house was so quiet she could hear the little stone humming in the corner of her room, hmmm.
In the middle of the night, a tiny bell rang, softly. Ting. Pigúiça opened one eye. At the window stood a big red shadow, with a sack on his back and a white beard.
He picked up the paper star very carefully, the way you'd hold a butterfly. He read the note and looked at Pigúiça. He didn't say a word. He just put a gloved hand over his heart and nodded.
Then he held a finger to his lips, asking for quiet, and winked. And he was gone, with a teeny tiny ting.
Pigúiça smiled in the dark. Far away, on the other side of the big river, she imagined a window lighting up, a grandma opening a paper star, and a grandpa reading slowly, with his glasses on the tip of his nose.
She pictured two smiles, just the size of hers. It was almost like having them right there, sitting on the edge of her bed.
She pulled the blanket up to her chin. In the sky outside, one star shone brighter than the others, close to the moon. Maybe it was just a star. Maybe it was a message coming back.
“Merry Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa,” she whispered. And she fell asleep, with the little stone humming and the certainty that love travels faster than any sleigh.
