I looked down at myself nervously, played with the cuffs of my sleeves and adjusted the necktie I wore as a good luck charm. The embroidered porcupine stared back at me, an amused look forever on his pointed face. I grinned to myself. But I still had that uncomfortable feeling, the way you'd expect a mouse to feel at its first notion of a cat creeping up behind it. I had been milling about the airport for about fifteen minutes, killing time before my flight to Seattle, where I would attend a conference with some colleagues about what would hopefully be a substantial milestone in my career as a set designer. But somehow I knew it was something else that was making me uneasy.

Whether it was a sorely missed face or a sweeping wind that scattered bits of star, someone stepped out from behind a display board.

My first thought was 'She hasn't changed a bit.'

Followed by 'She's an entirely different person.'

Her outfit was a shade less wacky, a pastel polo shirt that softly sported every color of the rainbow, with a deep purple skirt that reached down to her knees. Flip-flops the color of her hair (which was now only an inch or two past her shoulders) slapped the ground quietly as she took one...two...three breathtaking steps closer.

The sunflower handbag was faded and worn, as was the name, strange and unsteady on my lips with fifteen years' disuse.

"Stargirl?"

"StarShadow."

I thought about that. Maybe she had outgrown the name, just as she had done with Mud-pie and Pocket Mouse. I blinked a few times and studied her again. No, she wasn't Stargirl anymore. But she wasn't a shadow. She shone with her own light like nobody I've ever known. Yet somehow the name fit her perfectly.

"Were you following me?" I asked. In lieu of a answer, she flashed a mischievous grin.

She changed the subject. "Did you forget about me?"

"Not for a second."

"I didn't forget you, either." She reached into the collar of her shirt and pulled out a fossil necklace.

'The Loyal Order of the Stone Bone...' I whispered.

Our eyes met.

"Where have you been all these years?" I asked

"Well, my family moved to Minnesota. Then, when I got older, I moved about fifteen minutes away, into a little house with a good amount of backyard and a large garage."

"Why a large garage?"

"I need someplace to park my Silver Lunch Trucks."

"Didn't you tell me in high school that was your dream career? So it worked out?"

StarShadow nodded. "There are two of them. My neighbor drives one, and I drive the other. The trucks themselves are actually brown and white, but we call ourselves 'The Silver Lunch Truck Company'"

We were silent for a minute. She glanced at her watch, which, unsurprisingly, was decorated with sunshine yellow flower petals all around the edge.

StarShadow leaned forward and kissed my cheek briefly. Too briefly. She stepped back and whispered, rather sadly, "I have to go now, or I'll miss my plane."

"Where are you flying to?"

"Iceland." And before I could ask why, she was striding away gracefully. I had a sudden desire to call after her, to tell her all about my life (although for some reason I suspected she already knew) and maybe even ask her if we could ever get back together.

She was a shadow. A faint expression of something more solid, but a beauty in itself, too. Unable to be caught or held, and gone at the mere setting of the sun. But real. As real as it gets.

Iceland. Hadn't she said something to me once about Iceland?

...

She squeezed my hand. "Did you know there's a country with officially designated 'enchanted places'?"

"No," I said. "Where would that be? Oz?"

"Iceland."

"Imagine that."

~From Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, page 89