A Raccoon Bedtime Story: The Stars in the Washbasin

Read this original raccoon bedtime story: Rory tries to wash marks from a basin and discovers that the night sky has joined his chores. The full story comes with one optional way to add a detail from your child’s imagination.

The Stars in the Washbasin

Rory the raccoon washed his garden tools at the end of the day. He filled a wide blue basin, laid a towel beside it and lowered the muddy trowel into the water.

Swish, rub, rinse. Soon the trowel shone. The little rake came next, followed by a flowerpot with a stubborn ring of soil around its rim. By the time Rory finished, the sky above the yard had turned dark blue.

He emptied the muddy water and filled the basin again to rinse the towel. That was when he noticed the white spots. They floated across the surface, small and bright, in places where there had been no spots before.

Rory dipped a paw. The spots broke into trembling pieces. When the water settled, they returned. He rubbed the bottom of the basin with his cloth. The spots stayed exactly where they were.

"Soap?" he wondered. He sniffed the water. It smelled of water.

His neighbor Finch landed on the fence. "Are you washing something invisible?"

"Something stubborn," Rory said.

Finch looked into the basin. Then she looked up. Then she looked at Rory, who was carefully chasing a bright dot with the corner of his towel.

"Try standing over here," she suggested.

Rory moved around the basin. The dots seemed to move too. Finch pointed her beak toward the sky. Above the fence, stars had appeared between the branches. Rory looked down, then up again.

"Oh," he said. "I have been washing the sky."

"A small piece of it," Finch agreed.

Rory sat on the step. He had been planning to put everything away, but the basin looked rather good where it was. He moved the clean tools into the shed and hung the towel over a rail. Then he returned with a cushion.

Finch settled beside him. A breeze crossed the yard, and the reflected stars stretched into short silver lines. When it passed, they became points again. Rory kept his paws in his lap this time.

Eventually he emptied the basin and leaned it against the shed, ready for morning. The white spots disappeared from its blue surface. Overhead, the stars remained exactly where they belonged.

Rory looked up once more before going inside. His tools were clean, his towel was drying, and the sky had managed perfectly well without his help.

Choose one familiar detail

Your child can choose the basin's color or the shape of Rory's towel. Keep the reflection reveal simple: the stars are overhead, and their light appears in the water. A listener may know the answer before Rory does. Let that be part of the fun rather than asking them to wait until the character catches up.

Day2Tale creates personalized, narrated stories.

Sources: Day2Tale support and product features