Luna had something special. It wasn’t just her hair, which changed from blue to silver depending on how the sunlight hit it, nor her violet eyes full of curiosity. What made Luna unique was her love for discovering how the world worked. She always had questions swirling in her mind, especially about things like stars, light, and the universe.
One afternoon, while she was walking through a park with her grandmother, Luna saw something that sparked her curiosity. It was a huge, shiny structure. It was made entirely of mirrors, and as she got closer, Luna noticed people going in and out, laughing and sometimes stumbling.
"What is that, Grandma?" she asked, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
"It looks like a mirror maze," her grandmother replied. "They’re a lot of fun. Would you like to try it?"
Luna nodded, intrigued. “Mirrors... I bet there’s something interesting to learn in there,” she thought.
She entered the maze with determined steps. At first, everything seemed easy, but as soon as she turned the first corner, she found herself face to face with her own reflection. And not just one! Suddenly, there were many "Lunas" everywhere. It was as if a thousand versions of herself were waiting for her.
“Wow! This is going to be trickier than I thought,” she murmured, laughing.
She walked a bit further, trying to find a way out, but every turn led her to another mirror. She bumped into one and stopped, feeling a bit frustrated. That’s when she remembered something she had learned in class: light reflects off mirrors following a very precise rule. It always bounces at the same angle it arrives.
Luna stood still for a moment, watching how the sunlight entered the maze and reflected from mirror to mirror. "If I can understand how the light is reflecting," she thought, "maybe I can find the way out."
Determined to use what she knew, Luna focused on a beam of light coming through a small crack at the top of the maze. That beam hit a mirror at an angle and then bounced off toward a nearby mirror. Luna followed it with her eyes and realized that every time the light touched a mirror, it followed the same rule: the angle it came in was the same angle it went out.
“It’s like a bouncing ball!” she said out loud. “If a ball hits the ground at an angle, it bounces back into the air at the same angle. Light does the same thing with mirrors.”
Now that she understood how it worked, Luna decided to follow the beams of light. She moved more carefully, watching how the light reflected from mirror to mirror. Instead of walking randomly, she paused, calculated the angle of the reflections, and tried to predict where they would lead her.
At one point, she reached a crossroads where three mirrors surrounded her. Sunlight was bouncing off one of them, but Luna knew that if she didn’t calculate the angle correctly, she’d end up lost. So she paused, looked at the light again, and decided to follow the reflection that seemed to bounce in a straight line toward a darker corner of the maze.
"This must be the way!" she told herself, feeling sure.
As she moved forward, she began to feel more confident. Every time she came to a new mirror, she no longer just saw her reflection but also how the light was behaving. She could clearly see how the rays bounced following that simple rule: the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.
After what felt like an eternity of twists and turns, Luna reached one last mirror. This one didn’t just reflect light—it showed a small space beyond it. Luna smiled. “That must be the exit!”
With steady steps, she headed toward that reflection and, sure enough, there was the exit! She stepped out of the maze, feeling a mix of excitement and pride. It hadn’t just been a game of reflections. She had used what she knew about science to solve the puzzle.
Her grandmother, who had been waiting for her outside, smiled when she saw her.
“How was it, my little scientist?” her grandmother asked with a smile.
“It was amazing, Grandma!” Luna exclaimed, excited. “I discovered that mirrors follow a rule! The light always reflects at the same angle it arrives. I used that to find my way out.”
“Looks like you’ve learned something important today,” her grandmother replied proudly.
Luna nodded. Now she not only knew more about how light behaved, but she had also learned that sometimes, the answers are right in front of us if we look with the right kind of curiosity.
And so, as the sun reflected off the windows and the small puddles in the park, Luna and her grandmother walked back home together. Luna knew there were still many mysteries to uncover, but for now, she was happy to have solved one.