Maya’s mum studies the sky. That winter, she took Maya with her to a research station in the far north of Canada, where the snow squeaked under their boots and the sun only peeked out for a few hours each day.

Every afternoon, Maya helped Mum check the instruments. One of them measured the wind from the Sun. “The Sun doesn’t only send us light,” Mum explained. “It also throws out tiny particles, bits of matter far too small to see. When lots of them reach Earth, something magical can happen.”

“What kind of magic?” asked Maya. Mum smiled. “Wait and see. The forecast says tonight might be the night.”

After dinner, they put on their thickest coats, two pairs of socks and warm mittens, and walked out onto the frozen shore. The sky was black and full of stars. Maya waited. Her nose grew cold. Nothing happened. She began to think the forecast was wrong.

Then a faint green ribbon appeared above the hills. It grew brighter and wider, and it began to wave like a curtain in the wind. Pink edges flickered along the bottom. Maya gasped so hard that a cloud of breath puffed out of her mouth.

“The particles from the Sun are bumping into the air high above us,” Mum whispered. “That makes the air glow. People call it the aurora, or the northern lights.”

Maya didn’t say a word for a long time. Later, in her sleeping bag, she wrote in her notebook: “Tonight the sky danced. When I grow up, I want to study it too.”

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