The Universal Tree is so tall that the smiling clouds drift beneath its highest branches. And at Christmas, everyone on Dogavios wants to decorate it.
The gang arrived bright and early, each carrying a box. Bolota brought red baubles. Tico brought ribbons. Pigúiça brought a garland of flowers that she had stitched herself.
The dinosaurs showed up soon after. Trici, the baby triceratops, came trotting in with baubles hanging from all three of her little horns. Rex followed behind, his tiny arms carrying a box that nearly fell, thud.
“I'll hang them on the low branches,” said Trici, and she started hanging them, one bauble on each twig. Fofuxo, big and gentle, lifted Pigúiça onto his back so she could decorate at eye level.
When they were done, the tree was beautiful halfway up. The very top was still bare, where the star was supposed to go. It was so high that nobody could reach it.
Rex tried. He stretched his little arm as far as it would go. Nothing. He tried jumping. Thud! The leaves shook, but nothing. “I wanted to help,” he said, hanging his head. “But my arms are too short.”
That was when they heard a sound, thump, thump, thump, very slow, like the steps of a mountain. It was Mrs. Longneck, the big diplodocus, coming along with a neck so long that her head arrived before the rest of her body.
“I heard there's a star waiting for a neck,” she said, in her usual calm voice. And she picked up the golden star very gently in her mouth.
She stretched her neck, and stretched, and stretched, past the smiling clouds, who made way. When she reached the very top, she set the star on the tip of the tree, hanging from a long ribbon. Ping! The star lit up.
But the ribbon swayed in the wind. “We need someone down below to tie the end of the ribbon to the trunk, nice and tight,” said Mrs. Longneck. “Someone with small, strong little arms.”
Rex lifted his head. He ran over, hugged the trunk, and tied a snug little knot, the way only a short-armed dinosaur can. The ribbon went still, and the star stayed steady.
They all looked up. Every bauble reflected the light of the star, and the Universal Tree glowed as if it were full of tiny sleeping suns.
“It was Rex who made the star safe,” said Mrs. Longneck. Rex puffed out his chest, and his green cheeks turned a little pink.
They all lay down under the tree. Mrs. Longneck curled around them, like a long, warm cushion, and began to tell a story, very softly. Trici heard the first sentence. Rex heard the second. Pigúiça never got to the third.
The star up high blinked slowly, once, as if saying good night. And the whole forest fell asleep.
