Dad had an idea. They were going to go camping.
Real camping. A tent. Sleeping bags. Stars above. The whole thing.
"The backyard," said Dad.
Sophia considered this. "That's not really camping, Dad."
"It's exactly camping," said Dad.
Amelia had no opinion. She had already climbed into the rolled-up tent bag and was sitting in it like a caterpillar.
Putting up the tent was harder than Dad remembered. The instructions were in six languages and helpful in none of them. There were poles that went in some places and not others, and several pegs that kept pulling out of the grass.
The tent fell down twice.
The third time, it stayed up, at a slight angle, but up.
"That's for ventilation," said Dad.
Sophia looked at Mum.
Mum looked at the sky.
Sophia helped bang in the pegs with a rubber mallet, which she found deeply satisfying. Amelia tried to help by removing the pegs that were already in, one by one, as fast as she could.
They reached a kind of equilibrium.
Dad made a small fire in the fire pit. They sat around it as the sky went dark and orange and then deep blue and full of stars.
Dad produced marshmallows. Long sticks. This was the best part.
Sophia toasted hers perfectly — golden brown, just the right amount of char. She ate it very slowly to make it last.
Amelia's marshmallow caught fire immediately. She watched it burn with enormous interest. Then she ate it anyway. It was entirely black.
"Mm," said Amelia.
She held out her stick for another one.
They sat there for a long time, the four of them, the fire crackling, the stars coming out one by one, the neighbour's cat sitting on the fence watching them with flat disapproval.
They got into the tent. All four of them, in sleeping bags, in the leaning tent, in the backyard.
It was cosy. It smelled like canvas and the outside. Through the mesh at the top, they could see actual stars.
"Those are our stars," said Dad. "Same ones, every night."
"Even when we're not camping?"
"Even then. They're always there."
Amelia was asleep in thirty seconds, sprawled diagonally as always, one foot on Dad's face.
Sophia lasted until the cat made a noise outside that sounded, she decided, exactly like a ghost. She lasted another two minutes after that, which was very brave.
They moved inside at half past nine. The tent stayed up in the backyard, leaning slightly, empty, making quiet canvas sounds in the breeze.
From her bed, Sophia could see it through the window. Their tent. Their stars. Their backyard that was also, entirely, the great outdoors.
She fell asleep smiling.
