First and foremost… why mantimoon?

Stories are everywhere and this is no exception. This one doesn’t start with once upon a time, but rather….

I am four years old and sitting in the back of my parent’s car. I am looking out of the window. The world looks so big from my booster seat. It is night time and the sky is so dark it looks like it could swallow me whole. We’re going very fast and trees, bus stops and pavement whizz by. Everything looks like it’s running away from us at top speed. I have just been to see grandma. Her house has a big grandfather clock in the hallway that chimes on the hour. I like the way she puts green grapes in jelly and always hope that is what we will have for pudding when we visit. I am tired, it seems like I have been up for days and days. It is long past my bed time but it’s exciting to travel late at night. I look up at the moon, white and round. I think how much I like it.

‘The moon,’ I say to mum. I stretch out my arm and point at it, tapping on the window.

‘Yes, the moon,’ she says. ‘It’s a romantic moon tonight.’

‘Mantimoon?’ I say.

She twists round in her seat to look at me and laughs. Her face is warm and smiling.

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘A mantimoon.’

I smile back at my mum and wonder if the mantimoon will follow us home.