The Storyteller by Aaron Starmer Page A

on a radish, Dr. Hoover cocked her head and shrugged. “Seems perfectly healthy. She’s small. A juvenile. Maybe she’ll grow out of it. Or maybe it’s some sort of genetic mutation.”
    â€œCooool,” Hamish said, because all the genetic mutations he knew about were from comic books and resulted in superpowers.
    It was hard to say whether Luna’s glow counted as a superpower, but it certainly got her plenty of attention. Rosie and Hamish would walk her on a leash along the roads of the island, where cars and bikes would stop and people would gawk.
    â€œShe’s a wonder, isn’t she?” Rosie said to a man who slowed down his convertible to have a look one afternoon.
    â€œShe most certainly is,” the man replied, and he handed Rosie a business card.
    Rosie read the writing aloud. “Hal Hawson, Hollywood Producer.”
    â€œI’m heading back to LA tomorrow, but call the number on the back. That … whatever that thing is … needs to be on TV. And I’ve got the perfect project in mind. It might mean your parents can quit their jobs.”
    Before Rosie could flip the card over to read the phone number, the convertible was speeding away.
    *   *   *
    A week later, their family was in California. Luna was fitted for a tuxedo and scheduled to appear on Pocketful of Hullabaloo , a daytime variety show popular with folks who thought women in leotards juggling chain saws was the height of human achievement. Luna’s job there was a simple one: sit at the back of the stage, tuxedoed and atop a Grecian pillar. And glow. That was it.
    It became a regular gig. There was a promise of paychecks that Hal Hawson honored with a wink and a smile. And for one hour a day, Luna wasn’t Luna. She was a wombat lamp known as Mr. Nickelsworth.
    Sometimes, one of the performers would turn to Luna and say, “What do you think about that, Mr. Nickelsworth?”
    Luna, being a wombat and all, couldn’t reply, so she simply sat there on the pillar glowing, and the performer would invariably make some joke like, “Well, you’re very bright, Nickelsworth, but you aren’t very bright.”
    The studio audience found these jokes hilarious every time.
    The family bought a house near the TV studio, and Rosie ferried Luna to work in the basket of her bike. Every other Tuesday, they’d stop to deposit Luna’s sizable paycheck in the family account at the Sunfirst Bank, where Rosie always told the teller, “Soon as this wombat can talk, we’ll cut her in on the dough.”
    Without fail, the teller would chuckle and shake his head and stamp the receipt.
    But back at home, Rosie’s father was noticing something. “Is it just me, or is Luna not growing?”
    Her mother was noticing something too. “Is it just me, or is Luna’s fur getting even brighter?”
    It wasn’t just them. Luna was the same size she was the afternoon they’d found her, which was tiny for a wombat, but her fur, once mocha-brown, had more of a shine to it every day, a neon green tinge.
    It hardly mattered, though. Luna was famous, or as famous as a wombat could be. The studio audience at Pocketful of Hullabaloo would hold up signs that said things like A NICKELSWORTH IS WORTH A DOLLAR, AT LEAST ! And after each taping of the show, they’d ask for autographs. Hamish would take the scraps of paper, the photos of Luna, and anything else the fans wanted signed and he’d bring them backstage, where he’d sign them himself.
    Shine on! Love, Mr. Nickelsworth, he’d always write. And people were more than grateful. All things considered, there were worse fates than being a shiny runt of a wombat.
    No one ever asked Luna how she felt about her life, though. If they had asked, she might have wiggled her feet and showed her teeth, which was the only way she knew how to communicate. She would have tried her best but failed to