Luna was back home after her big trip to New York. She sat by the window and looked outside. The town was quiet. The streets were small. Everything was the same as always.
But Luna was thinking about something new.
“New York was wonderful,” she said to herself. “But there is another city I want to see. A city with red buses, old bridges, and a big clock that everyone knows.”
She was thinking about London.
The next morning, Luna packed her small bag again. Her toy mouse went in first. Then a little snack. Then her favourite scarf, because she heard London could be cold.
She took a plane this time. It was her first flight. She sat by the window and watched the clouds go by. They looked like soft, white blankets in the sky.
“Not so different from a rooftop,” she thought, and smiled.
When the plane landed, Luna stepped outside and felt something on her nose. A tiny drop of rain. Then another. She looked up at the grey sky and laughed.
“Ah,” she said. “So this is London.”
She took a bus into the city. A big, red, double-decker bus. She sat at the top and looked out at everything.
Old stone buildings. Green parks. People walking quickly with umbrellas.
Then she saw it — a huge clock tower standing tall above the river.
“Big Ben,” Luna whispered. “Just like in the pictures.”
She walked along the river Thames. The water was dark and wide. Boats moved slowly through it.
Seagulls flew above her head. She crossed a bridge and stopped in the middle to look both ways — the tower on one side, the city on the other.
It was beautiful.
Luna spent the afternoon exploring. She found a small street full of colourful houses. She sat in a park and watched a man feed the pigeons. She smelled something warm and sweet coming from a bakery.
She went inside and tried a scone. It was soft and buttery and perfect.
“New York had hot dogs,” she thought. “London has scones. I love travelling.”
As the evening came, the sky turned a deep, dark blue. The streetlamps switched on one by one. The city began to glow.
Luna started to feel tired. She needed to find a place to sleep.
She walked down a quiet street and found an old building covered in dark green ivy. There was a small ladder on the side. Luna looked up. She could see a rooftop garden — with flowerpots, and a little wooden bench, and soft moss growing between the stones.
She climbed up.
The rooftop was peaceful and still. From up there, she could see the clock tower in the distance. Every hour, she knew, it would ring out across the city. And the river was glowing softly below the lights of the bridges.
Luna curled up on the bench. She wrapped her scarf around herself. The air smelled like rain and flowers and old stone.
“New York was loud and bright and full of energy,” she thought. “London is quiet and old and full of stories.”
She liked both. But they were very different.
Far away, Big Ben rang once. A deep, slow sound that moved through the night air.
Luna closed her eyes.
She was safe. She was warm. She was exactly where she wanted to be.
And she slept, and she dreamed of the next city she would visit someday.
Goodnight, Luna. Goodnight, London.