When I was younger, I remember during the summer, I loved the hot days, but the cool nights were my absolute favorite. One summer evening I looked up from dinner with my three cousins and my family next to me, eating. I remember looking through the open window to the backyard. It was growing dark.  My tree house was a black shadow in the tree and I wouldn’t go up there now. I was too scared. But something flickered there, a moment—I looked, and it was gone. It flickered again, over near the fence. “Fireflies!” I shouted.

“Don’t let your dinner get cold,” said my mom, knowing I had the urge to go outside. My cousins and I stuffed our food into our mouths.

“Please, may we go out? The fireflies—“

My mom and dad and aunt and uncle all agreed and nodded. “Go ahead,” they said. We ran from the table, to the cabinet to find a jar. I knew where to look, right by the cooking utensils. The jars were slightly dusty, so I polished one clean by using my shirt.

“Holes,” my oldest cousin, Vanessa, remember, “so they can breathe.” As she poked several holes in the lid of the jar, I was very excited top go outside.

The sliding door slammed behind us as we ran from the house. Not caring if we left the door wide open, I called to my friends across the street, “Fireflies!” But they were already outside with polished jars, and others were joining them. The sky was darker now. My ears rang with noisy crickets, and my eyes stung from staring too long. I blinked hard as I watched them—Fireflies!  Blinking on, blinking off, dipping low, soaring high above my head, making white patterns in the dark. All of us ran like crazy, barefoot in the grass. “Catch them, catch them!” we cried, grasping at the lights.

Suddenly a voice called out above the other, “I caught one!” and it was my own. I thrust my hand into the jar and spread it open. The jar glowed like moonlight and I held it in my hands. I felt a tremble of joy and shouted, “I can catch hundreds of them!”

Then we dashed about, waving out hands in the air like nets, catching two, five, ten—hundreds of fireflies, thrusting then into jars, waving our hands for more. Then my mom called from the house, “It’s getting late guys.  Come on inside,” and others called from other houses and it was over. My friends and cousins took jars of fireflies to different homes.

I climbed the stairs to my room and set the jar on a table by my bed. “Mom look how many I caught!” I exclaimed with a large grin on my little face. My mom smiled, kissed me on the forehead and turned off the light. “I caught hundreds,” I whispered.

Daddy pushed open the door, so a corner of light came into my room, “Did you have fun tonight sweetie?”

“So much fun daddy!”

He laughed and replied “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let he bed bugs bite!” and closed the door.

In my dark room, I watched the fireflies from my bed. They blinked on and off, and the jar glowed like moonlight.

But it was not the same.

The fireflies beat their wings against the glass and fell to the bottom, and lay there. The light in the jar turned yellow, like a flashlight left on too long. I tried to swallow, but something in my throat would not go down. And the light grew dimmer, green, like moonlight under water.

I shut my eyes tight and put the pillow over my head. They were my fireflies.  I caught them. They made moonlight in my jar. But the jar was nearly dark. So I flung off the covers.  I went to the window, opened the jar, and aimed it at the stars.

“Fly!” I shouted, as I let them free.

Then the jar began to glow, green, then gold, then white as the moon. And the fireflies poured out into the night.

Fireflies! Blinking on, blinking off, dipping low, soaring high above my head, making circles around the moon, like stars dancing.

I held the jar, dark and empty, in my hands. The moonlight and the fireflies were the only things to be seen and even though I was a little unhappy, I was still smiling.