Hundreds of voices rose up into the sky, laughter and chatter that filled the night; while countless colourful lights brought the landscape beneath the moon to life. People were everywhere: children running; couples strolling hand in hand, and groups of teenagers weaving amongst the brightly painted clusters of stalls and attractions.

This was the night of amusement, the lucky one's paradise. This was the night of the fair.

The night of the fair and Sarah Littleton was in the middle of it all.

Her long, dark hair rippled in the warm breeze and her wide eyes sparkled with both the flashing colours of the lights around her, and a wonder entirely their own. She was but twelve, and to her the fair was a night of freedom and amazement; for her to walk amongst the extravagant stilt-performers and stalls offering to play a game and win a prize, was like being in the presence of a queen.

It didn't bother her that she didn't have a fluffy swirl of candy-floss or a sticky toffee-apple, to her all that mattered was to be there amongst it all.

A tiny gasp escaped her lips as she rounded a corner, and her wide-eyed gaze fell upon the slowly-turning splendour of the night's main attraction: the Ferris Wheel. For a few seconds she just stood, lips slightly parted, staring in wonderment, before she seemed to remember herself and walked on.

The same peculiar event happened a number of times: at a colourfully painted magician's booth, behind which a man with a waxed moustache dazzled onlookers eyes with a velvety top hat and white rabbit; at an intricate blue and gold tent, inside which a gypsy promised to unlock the future; even at the scraggy, scarlet posts to which three old ponies were tethered, directly below a sign declaring ' penny a ride'.

Perhaps it was for lack of that penny, or perhaps for a different reason whatsoever, little Sarah stopped, gazed starry-eyed at the marvels before her, then simply continued as though deep in cloudy thought through the thickening crowds. The fifth time this act was repeated though, a significant change occurred. Sarah paused outside the entrance to a magnificent bouncy castle, it's four golden pillars bending and heaving beneath the weight of about fifty rebounding children, but instead of surveying it as she had with the previous abundance of stalls and attractions, she thoughtfully dug deep in the front pocket of her navy pinafore. Had the owner of the attraction not been familiar with that deep navy-blue, had he not had the knowledge that the colour belonged to the uniform of the local orphanage, he would have approached greedily, a predator on the hunt for an additional customer, but he knew that orphans were not made of money, and believed Sarah to be no different.

Indeed, when the young girl's hand returned from the pocket, it was not money she held, but a rather crumpled, yellowed scrap of paper. She squinted down at it with intent concentration. It read:

'Julianette Littleton

Collector of unusual objects'

The child whispered the words to herself, folded up the scrap, and returned it to it's habitat, before striding determinedly on. Past yet more fluorescent lights and tempting smells she marched, past yet more laughing families she longed to belong to, yet knew she was no part of.

Eventually the booths began to thin out; the lights faded and became dimmer. Brightly painted kiosks and vendors squabbling for customers gave way to miserable shack-like structures with peeling paints that spoke of knowing better days, their tired owners sitting outside and gazing at passers-by with narrowed eyes.

Sarah's eyes, on the other hand, were now wide with anxiety as well as amazement. Her breaths became rushed and ragged, each footstep being hurried. It was only when she was at the furthest edge of the fair, where there were few lights but the stars above, that she stopped with a long- awaited sense of conclusion.

Her tiny silhouette could just be seen outlined against the worn fabric wall of a tall, tattered-looking tepee, it's dust-smudged material walls now more brown than the pale cream they must have originally been. The large stretches of goatskin that the makeshift walls were made from were knocked into the dry ground, held in place by seven metal spokes, and a wispy curl of grey smoke twisted into the night air from a hole somewhere in it's top.

Pinned to the top of the tent was a sign made from similar material to the tightly-pulled walls, and emblazoned on it in bold letter-face was a phrase that made Sarah's heart soar.

Unusual Objects from Around the World.

Her eyes sparkled and her hand reached forward, pulling back the flap of material that served as the tepee's door. Gingerly she stepped inside.

The smell of a thick, musky smoke hit the top of her mouth before her eyes managed to adjust to the gloom inside the tent. It didn't take long for the source of the smoke to become unveiled to her: at the tepee's centre was a small fire dancing around a group of carefully-arranged dark-wood logs, not only providing the air with heavy incense, but also giving the tent a meagre amount of yellow light.

From inside, the tepee appeared to be much larger than from out, Sarah noticed, despite the uncountable wooden shelves that lined the walls. Some were tall and thin, knocked together with ancient, greying planks of wood; others strong and sturdy, made of thick boards of dark, smooth oak. Perhaps a selected few were meant to be bookshelves, but their contents ranged far beyond rows of neatly arranged novels. In fact, as Sarah grew accustomed to the shadowy environment around her, the objects residing on the shelves took her notice, and immediately grabbed her curiosity.

Drowned in shadows on a crooked light-wood shelf to her left was what appeared to be an arrangement of various telescopes: one of the tiny gold cylinders shone in the firelight behind a huge, worn – looking telescope, it's grubby lens reflecting the tripod of yet a third, this one black and compact. On a tall shelf opposite this one, a pile of scrolls sat smugly next to the unmistakeable figure of a pirate's hat, and below these, the flickering firelight ricocheted among a multitude of mirrors: some carefully detailed with sparkling beads and sequins, others picked out with patterns of silver and gold.

A glance to her right awarded Sarah with the sight of a bundle of peacocks feathers bound together with a thin leather cord, lying aside another pile of bird's feathers she could only have described as belonging to a phoenix, with their deep red and flashy gold hues. She could have been in a dream, everything seemed so unreal, and perhaps she would have believed that she was asleep, had a bright voice not roused her from her thoughts.

'Hello… How can I help you?' The voice was polite, spiced with curiosity, and the person it came from was a tall, young woman, her fawn-coloured hair hanging just past her shoulders, her brown eyes studying Sarah carefully. She had high check-bones and a slender frame, and for a moment Sarah was lost for words, as though the thought that another being having entered the tepee of dreams was impossible. It didn't take her long to remember herself.

'You're Julianette Littleton, aren't you? I'm Sarah, and that means you're my aunt! My only living relative! I've been researching our family name for months!' The air rang with this sudden burst of energy, but for a moment was filled with silence, as Sarah awaited the coming answer impatiently, eyes bright, and the woman gazed at her with a slightly shocked expression.

'Aunt huh? Hmmm… well, are you sure about that?'

'Of course! I've been researching the name Littleton. I'm an orphan, you see, and I had to find out who my relatives are!'

'I don't know…'

But Sarah was not to be defeated; a stubborn determination lit up her eyes. 'Please! You must be my relative! Littleton seems such a common name, I know, but it really isn't! I've spent so long-'

'Hey, it's alright!' The woman's eyes were kin; as were her hands as she put them on Sarah's shoulders to guide her to a worn mat in front of the small fire on the floor of the tepee. 'I'm Julianette Littleton, I know that much, but I had no idea I had any living relatives! Who knows, we may be related, but if you ask me, that's not really the point, is it?'

Previously starting to brim with tears, Sarah's eyes were now concentrated on Julianette, her features more serious than upset.

'What do you mean?'

Julianette rose, her long limbs unfolding and long skirt swaying dangerously close to the flames, yet not touching them.

'Look around you,' she began, pacing slowly around the fire. 'All of these objects I have collected, they're from great journeys.'

For a second she paused and Sarah saw the dancing flames reflected in her eyes, and then Julianette turned on her heels and reached up to a shelf, pulling down a well wrapped bundle. Peeling off the paper, she turned the object carefully over in her hands, before handing it to Sarah.

'A compass. From the World's first arctic expedition.'

The girl examined it with interest, fingers tracing the gaps were glass met metal.

'And that over there…' Julianette marched to the other side of the tent; 'Galileo's own telescope! Or the flag on you're right… yes, that one! That belonged to the captain of a ship named the Sea Biscuit. I'll never forget him, inspiring man…'

'What about that?' Sarah was pointing to an object hanging from a tattered leather cord from the tepee's roof. It was battered, dented, looked fit to fall apart at any second, but was undoubtedly a pen. 'Is that from a journey?'

'Ah… My personal favourite. The first fountain pen.' Julianette looked at Sarah with a puzzling expression, almost as though wondering wether she could make the connection between the writing instrument and an amazing journey. 'Who says journeys have to be made by horse or boat?'

It seemed almost a challenge, and mischief glinted in her eyes. 'Think of the journey they must have gone through inventing that. All the design, the mechanisms, the imagination!'

'Imagination?'

'Well, before we started writing with those, people were writing with feathers! That's quite a big leap!' The tall woman crouched down so that her eyes were level with Sarah's, and her long skirts swept the dusty ground.

'The point is, it's not where you come from, it's what you do. It's the journeys you make that count, and they all do, even the smallest ones.' She took Sarah's hands gently in hers, and the girl felt something drop into her palm. Glancing down she saw a tiny copper pin.

'The first ever-' She didn't have to finish the question, because the look in Julianette's eyes gave her the answer. The first ever pin. Someone had had to go on a journey to make that too.

'Sarah, just remember,' Julianette said, her eyes locked to Sarah's, 'You can make a difference in this world. Every journey counts.'

As Sarah walked out into the night, away from the blaring lights and fading music of the fair, she felt transformed. Certainly different from the lost little girl she had been when walking in the opposite direction earlier that day.

A strong determination had grown inside her; a bright, enthusiastic, glowing feeling that her visit to the tepee had granted her. Perhaps if she hadn't made that journey she wouldn't have realised it at all, but now she knew that every journey counted and made a difference, and felt ready to sail away in any boat life would give her the ticket to, over any sea.