We Dream of Space Read online

  Bird was already back at the door when Fitch finally turned away from the game and went outside. His parents glared at him from the front seat. Fitch and Bird got in the back, where Cash cradled his injured hand. Bird was right—it was swollen. Not quite as big as a basketball, but big enough.

  “What happened?” Fitch asked.

  The family’s Chevy Cavalier pulled out of the arcade lot onto Main Street and picked up speed heading toward New Castle County Memorial Hospital.

  “I slipped on ice,” Cash said, his head rested against the window, his face tight.

  “Idiot.”

  “Hey! Language,” their father said.

  “At least I spend time in the real world,” said Cash, without looking at his brother. “With three-dimensional friends.”

  “Maybe if you had a three-dimensional brain you wouldn’t be failing seventh grade for the second time,” Fitch said. “Good luck getting any homework done with your right hand in a cast. Not that you know how to do it anyway.”

  The heat in Fitch’s chest sparked and popped. He’d had three lives left. Wasted. All because his brother was a moron.

  “You’re lucky my hand’s broken, because otherwise I’d punch you in the face,” Cash said, sliding down in his seat.

  A chorus of responses rose up at once—Fitch, with a comeback; their mother, scolding; father, saying, “Hey! Language!”—but the loudest was Bird.

  “I finished another issue of Bird’s-Eye View, if anyone wants to see it when we get home,” she said.

  “No one wants to see your drawings,” Fitch said.

  The car quieted.

  What kind of twelve-year-old drew diagrams for fun?

  I wish I was adopted, Fitch thought.

  FAMILIAR ENERGY

  Everyone was exhausted by the time they got home—everyone but Bird. Partly because she’d slept into the afternoon and partly because the X-ray machine that scanned Cash’s wrist had enchanted and mystified her. She’d thought she wouldn’t get to see it, but she’d asked and asked, and finally her mother said yes and took her along while Fitch and Dad waited in the emergency room.

  She wanted to riddle the radiation technician with a million questions, but she’d only managed to ask three before her mother told her to hush because she was “disturbing the nice young man,” though as far as Bird could tell, the nice young man didn’t mind answering her questions at all. When Bird asked how X-rays worked, he patiently explained about electromagnetic waves of energy. When she asked what the inside of an X-ray machine looked like, he said he wasn’t sure, “but maybe something like a camera with a radiation beam.” Her mom shushed her right after she’d asked how the beams were produced.

  The drive home was quiet. Her father said one thing—“I wonder how the Sixers did”—but no one responded. Bird took advantage of the silence by imagining the X-ray machine disassembled in front of her. When they got home, everyone siphoned off to their respective rooms, including Bird, who spent who-knows-how-long drawing and redrawing the innards of an X-ray machine (or what she thought it looked like, at least). By the time she looked at the clock, it was 1:40 in the morning. Not good. School tomorrow.

  “Tea,” she said, aloud to herself.

  Chamomile tea was good for sleeplessness. Ms. Salonga had told her that.

  She walked quietly on the balls of her feet, trying not to wake anyone, but someone was already awake. There was a sliver of light under Cash’s door.

  Bird knocked lightly.

  No reply.

  She knocked again, turned the knob, and peeked inside.

  Cash was on his bed, still dressed, even his high-tops. He was staring at the ceiling with his plastered wrist draped over his chest.

  “Are you okay?” Bird stepped inside and closed the door. Cash’s room was tidy—just as tidy as hers, in fact. Nothing like Fitch’s, which was an explosion of dirty clothes, soiled socks, half-read books, and Atari cartridges. Nothing like the rest of the house, with clutter tucked in every corner and stacked on every flat surface.

  “I’m fine,” Cash said.

  “Are you going to school tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. No.”

  “I’ll ask Ms. Salonga for handouts and copies and stuff,” said Bird. “And I can get homework from your other teachers, if you want.”

  Cash said nothing.

  “Are you gonna get people to sign your cast?”

  No answer. “Yeah, I guess,” he finally said.

  “I have a permanent marker if you need one.”

  A familiar energy filled the room, as if there were many things to say but no one knew what the words were. The Thomas family was like its own solar system. Planets in orbit. No, not planets. More like meteors or space junk. Floating objects that sometimes bumped or slammed into each other before breaking apart.

  Time to drift back to my orbit, Bird thought.

  “Thanks, Bird,” Cash said, just before she left the room.

  ONE REASON

  Here’s what Cash wanted to say: What’s the point?

  What was the point of going to school? He was already struggling, had already flunked once, and now his hand was in a cast—the hand he needed to take notes and do homework, two things he was already no good at doing. He was okay at PE, the only subject he didn’t despise (if it could be called a subject), but how would he dribble a basketball like this?

  Not that it mattered.

  He wasn’t exactly Julius Irving.

  Playing basketball was the only thing he’d liked about school. At first, anyway. He’d even kept up his GPA to stay on the team. There was just one problem: he hadn’t scored a single point. It quickly became clear that he didn’t add any value to the Park Warriors, not like Brant and Kenny, who sank free throws, three-pointers, and endless jump shots. Halfway through the second season, Coach Farnsworth finally articulated what everyone had been thinking.

  “You can run, but you can’t shoot,” he’d said. “And if you can’t shoot . . . ” He shrugged.

  Coach didn’t cut him from the team. No one ever got cut unless their grades dropped. You just got benched. Sometimes Coach put him on the court, but only if the Warriors already had a clear victory. Being dropped from the roster was a merciful end to Cash’s basketball career once his grades—always on the brink of disaster—finally fell below the mark.

  Coach is right, Brant had said, Cash can run fast. He runs from his homework every night. That was a favorite joke for a while.

  So really. Why even go?

  Well. There was one reason, he supposed.

  Penelope Barnard. Also known as Penny.

  She sat in front of him in Ms. Salonga’s class. She said hello to him every morning—a quick “hey,” like the chirp of a bird—then sat down and swept her brown hair off her neck until it dangled over the back of her chair. A waft of shampoo exploded into the air every time, and Cash wondered (every time) what scent it was.

  Penny Barnard wasn’t one of the popular girls, but she wasn’t unpopular, either. Sometimes Cash wondered if anyone else ever noticed the way her freckles dotted her nose, or how her hair smelled, or how she smiled at everyone when she walked into a room.

  And now he had a legitimate reason to talk to her.

  He imagined how it would go.

  Him: Hey, do you wanna sign my cast?

  Her: Sure. Do you have a marker?

  Him: Yep. Right here.

  Her: What should I write?

  Him: You can just sign your name, if you want.

  Her: How did you break your wrist, anyway?

  Him: I was just goofing around with the guys, and I slipped on a patch of ice.

  Her (mildly alarmed): Did it hurt?

  Him: Nah. I had to go to the ER and everything.

  Her: That’s terrible!

  Him: The worst part is, I can’t really take notes.

  Her: I’ll make a copy of my notes for you.

  Etcetera.

  Maybe he’d talk to h
er tomorrow.

  Maybe he’d wait until Monday. The start of a fresh new week.

  Maybe the cast would be worth something after all.

  Thursday, January 2, 1986

  FAMILIES ARE COMPLICATED MACHINES

  For a machine to work the way it’s supposed to, all the parts have to do their jobs. And what is a family but a complicated machine? One loose bolt, one badly oiled gear, and the whole thing gets cranky, loud, and unpredictable. Bird prided herself on being the most reliable gear in the Nelson Thomas Family Device, so when she walked into the kitchen the next morning, she was cheerful—as cheerful as she could be at seven-thirty in the morning, anyway—but ready for anything.

  Fitch was at the kitchen island, eating raw Pop Tarts, while their parents hurriedly gathered lunch items to take to work.

  “He had a long night. I don’t think it would hurt to give him the day off,” their father was saying.

  “But his grades . . . ” their mother said. She tucked a can of SlimFast into her bag.

  “I told Cash I’d pick up his assignments from his teachers,” Bird offered. She set her backpack on the empty seat next to Fitch and poured a glass of orange juice while her father reached around her for an apple.

  “You don’t even have the same teachers,” said her mom.

  “We both have Ms. Salonga,” said Bird.

  “Fitch has Ms. Salonga, too,” her mother replied. She snapped her fingers in Fitch’s direction. “Fitch, don’t you have a bunch of classes with your brother?”

  “We don’t have any classes together.”

  “But you have some of the same teachers, correct? Not just Ms. Salonga.”

  “Yeah,” Fitch said, his mouth full. Crumbs tumbled onto his new Members Only jacket. He brushed them off absently. “Like, four, I think.”

  “Can you pick up Cash’s assignments?” she said, slipping a can of Diet Tab next to the SlimFast. Tammy Nelson Thomas often lectured Bird that looks were not important, yet she seemed preoccupied with them anyway—specifically her weight, which had ticked upward over the years, and Bird’s weight, which had not ticked anywhere, but apparently could skyrocket at any moment.

  “I don’t mind doing it,” said Bird, before Fitch could complain. He was one of the squeakiest of the Nelson Thomas gears.

  “That wouldn’t make sense. Not when Fitch has four of the same teachers,” their mother said. “Besides, you need to learn that you don’t have to take care of everyone just because you’re a woman.”

  Their father threw his head back in mock exasperation.

  “Bird isn’t a woman yet, Tam,” he said. “Don’t put ideas in her head.”

  Mrs. Thomas stopped fidgeting with her lunch bag and crossed her arms. “What ideas, exactly?”

  The gears squeaked quietly, lightly.

  “All these ‘equal rights’ ideas,” he replied. “Next thing you know she’ll be burning her bra in the backyard.”

  “I don’t even have a bra,” Bird said quickly, desperate to change the subject.

  Fitch shoved his hands inside the sleeves of his jacket and covered his ears. “Can we please not talk about my sister’s bra?”

  Bird forged ahead: “In health class we learned that girls develop at all different rates. I may not get my period or boobs for a while.”

  Fitch groaned. “Make it stop. Make it stop.”

  Mrs. Thomas unfolded her arms, reached over the island, and pinched his arm.

  “If you promise to get Cash’s assignments, we promise to stop talking about bras,” she said.

  “I’ll pick up anything you want,” said Fitch. “I’ll rob a bank if I have to.”

  “Just the assignments will do!” their mother said, smiling.

  The gears quieted.

  Malfunction averted.

  AMANDA PIPER

  It all started with Darth Vader’s TIE fighter. If he had never drawn the stupid ship in his stupid science notebook, nothing would have happened. But on the last day before winter break, while Ms. Salonga droned on about NASA’s Teacher in Space Project, Fitch lifted his pen and drew the inverted wings and blaster cannons. He even sketched detailed panels with his ballpoint pen.

  That’s when he heard it. The compliment that shifted Earth on its axis.

  “That’s really cool.”

  Amanda Piper. She sat next to him. Big, curly, brown hair around a broad, round-cheeked face. A smatter of pimples. A smatter of freckles. She was taller and broader than the other girls in the class. A pinch of fat folded over her jeans. Her hands were thicker than his.

  Some of the guys at school, including Vern, had names for her. And now here she was, talking to him.

  Fitch mumbled “thanks” and thought that would be the end of it. But as soon as he sat down on their first day back after break, he knew something weird was going on and he wasn’t the only one who noticed it.

  Vern, who sat behind him, tapped his shoulder then leaned forward and whispered, “Chewbacca is staring at you.”

  Fitch already knew that. She was looking at him like she was waiting for something. For what? He didn’t know. Eye contact, maybe, so she could talk to him.

  He kept his eyes forward.

  “Hey . . . ” she said. Quiet. “Henry?”

  Ugh. No one at school called him Henry except substitute teachers. No one.

  Eyes forward. Avoid eye contact.

  Ms. Salonga closed the door as Rachel Hill—always the last to arrive, always smiling and smelling like bubble gum, always a side ponytail draped across her delicate shoulder—breezed in and took her seat.

  Why couldn’t Rachel Hill give him a laser stare? Why did it have to be Amanda?

  A louder whisper: “Hey. Henry?”

  He had no choice. He had to look at her. When he did, she smiled and reached over the aisle with something in her hand.

  Oh god. Was it a note?

  No, it was a sticker the size of his palm. Darth Vader clutching his lightsaber with both hands. The saber glowed bright red against Vader’s black robes. It was a pretty cool sticker, but not worth the price he was gonna pay. He could practically feel Vern’s laughter behind him.

  “For your notebook,” Amanda said.

  The sticker may as well have been a ball of fire. He dropped it on his desk and roiled with conflicting emotions. Embarrassment, dread, mortification, and yes, guilt. Guilt because it was a nice gesture—the first gesture a girl had ever showed him, actually—and he wanted no part of it.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  He slid the sticker between the pages of his notebook and focused on Ms. Salonga, who was writing a date on the board: January 23, 1986. Underneath she wrote “Challenger Launch!” in her distinctly loopy handwriting.

  She tapped the board with her chalk.

  “I hope you’re ready for liftoff,” she said.

  NOT A PRETTY THOUGHT

  Sometimes Bird wished Ms. Salonga was her mother. It wasn’t a pretty thought, but there it was.

  There was nothing wrong with Tammy Nelson Thomas, who insisted that all her children have her maiden name as their middle names, who complained about work all the time, who constantly “watched her weight,” but she was a squeaky gear and Ms. Salonga was so . . . even-tempered. Calm. Predictable. Ms. Salonga was organized and often talked about “best-laid plans” and their importance to science. She had even applied for the Teacher in Space program. Ms. Salonga had told the story many times.

  It went like this: Ms. Salonga and her family ate dinner together every night. There was a rule that no one could argue at the dinner table, and everyone had to listen to what everyone else said. Despite these rules (which seemed beautifully foreign and mysterious to Bird), Ms. Salonga didn’t expect a warm reaction when she said she wanted to be the first teacher in space. She imagined all the things her husband and children would say: Space! You don’t even like to ride the Ferris wheel! Or You, an astronaut? Get serious! But she underestimated them. They were excited. They asked a mil
lion questions and Ms. Salonga answered each one, all while they passed mashed potatoes and chicken around. The following week, they got her a card. On the front it said “Good Luck!” and inside they wrote: “To the first teacher in space and our favorite astronaut!”

  At this point in the story, Ms. Salonga would pause and say, “People are full of surprises.”

  Generally, Bird did not like surprises. But she wouldn’t mind a surprise like that.

  Ms. Salonga kept the card on her desk, standing upright, even though they all knew that her application had not been accepted and that she wouldn’t be the first teacher in space after all. President Reagan had picked Christa McAuliffe instead.

  That didn’t dampen Ms. Salonga’s enthusiasm for space travel one bit.

  Today, as promised, she was launching Space Month! As part of Space Month!, the class would be split into three separate flight crews with jobs that mirrored those on the space shuttle Challenger.

  “There are seven possible job assignments per crew,” Ms. Salonga said. “Each crew has one pilot, one shuttle commander, three mission specialists, and two payload specialists.” She lifted a small paper bag and shook it. “All the jobs are in this bag. Reach in without looking. Pick one.”

  Bird’s leg shook under her desk when Ms. Salonga arrived at her row. She closed her eyes and repeated the same two words over and over: shuttle commander, shuttle commander, shuttle commander. If she said it three times, maybe she could wish it into being.

  Devonte Harris, who sat in front of her, reached in the bag and rifled around with his tongue sticking out. Bird tried to read the sliver of paper over his shoulder, but Ms. Salonga quickly moved on and blocked her view.

  “Your turn, Bird,” she said, smiling.

  Bird crossed the fingers on her right hand and reached into the bag with her left. Her fingertips brushed the scraps. They all felt the same. Finally she pulled one out.

  mission specialist

  Bird frowned. She hoped Ms. Salonga would feel bad enough to let her choose again, but instead she moved on to Danielle Logan.

  Bird didn’t want to be a mission specialist. She wanted to be shuttle commander. The shuttle commander was the person in charge, the person who made sure all the machines worked properly.