My classmates and I had been let loose all day; mountain biking, hiking, swimming, the lot. As typical twelve yearolds, we'd ran amuck until well past our bed times. It was my second week at a new school and the entire yeargroup was at an Alpine camp for Orientation.

Being the second 'intermediate' year, there were only a dozen other new boys starting at the school. Mostly we were from other schools around town, except Freddie. Freddie was from Hong Kong and had cried nonstop since the day he'd been dropped off at the school's Boarding House.

The teacher, a man-mountain rugby player and coach known as The Fridge, had his patience slowly burning away with a teary, incommunicative and distressed tweenager. More than once, Freddie had been returned to the Boarding House in the middle of the day as he was so inconcolable.

At the Alpine camp, things hadn't improved much. Freddie had been on a few walks but he was still struggling to come to terms with his new life. Hardly surprising; we were twelve years old.

The first night, Freddie sat, awake and miserable, outside on the fort. The Fridge went and sat with him. They talked about moving and school and that sort of thing. Freddie asked what the white dots in the sky were. The Fridge was genuinely stunned. Freddie had never seen stars before; the light and air pollution meant that for a city-dwelling kid, the stars were a thing of mystery.

Freddie cried. Not from sadness or loss. For mystery and awe. The Fridge went to bed and Freddie sat up until the stars faded with dawn. He didn't cry in class after that night.

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Earlier this year, my father had his lenses replaced. Not the ones in his glasses, the ones in his eyes. A few weeks later, I was home to visit. On the first night, after a late dinner, as we strolled across the garden he looked up. And kept looking and looking.

Freddie hadn't seen the stars in twelve years of life. Dad wouldn't have seen them properly in the last forty years. He tells me they're sharper and brighter than they used to be.