As they vanished Billy thought he heard a sob, and glancing about, saw the Evening Star sitting in the branches of a low palm and crying as if her heart would break.
“Oh, I’m afraid! I’m afraid!” she wailed. “If the Equator should come back and find me here when you’re gone he’ll turn me into a Comet; I just know he will!”
Nimbus’s face grew serious at this.
“There is danger of that,” he said. “Yes, he would be just about contemptible enough to do that very thing.”
“But how could he?” inquired Billy, his bewilderment steadily increasing.
“Easiest thing in the world. He has only to set fire to her hair, and it would stream out behind her in a fan of flame. Then she’d be so frightened that she’d go wandering off through space and become a Comet.”
“Then,” said Billy, “I think we had better take Miss Evening Star with us, don’t you? Unless her father, Mr. Sun, can look after her.”
Nimbus frowned at Billy impatiently.
“My dear boy,” he said, “don’t you know that the Sun never does any night work of any kind? Besides, just now he’s busy on the other side of the world. Yes, we’ll take her with us.”
So Nimbus and the Evening Star and Billy went off to the yard where the Meteors off duty and on part time were assembled.