“Whoa,” I breathed, running my hand over the largest one. “This is a Tyler-Weimer. They’re like, eight bajillion dollars.”
“Abigail,” Dad hissed.
Dr. Lacamoire smirked. “Not quite eight bajillion. But close.”
“Wow,” Dad said, admiring his setup. “This is amazing.”
“You’re all set for the eclipse, huh?” I asked him. “Did you get your glasses already? I’ve had mine for weeks.”
He snorted and pulled out what looked like binoculars. “These are sunoculars. Specifically designed for eclipse viewing. They’re what I always use.”
“You’ve seen a total eclipse before?” I asked, my jaw dropping. “That’s, like, a once-in-a-lifetime thing!”
“Nonsense. They happen once every two years or so. I usually just need to travel. I’ve observed total eclipses in Bangladesh, Auckland, and Tokyo—but never here in the U.S.”
“Careful with those,” Dad warned me as Dr. Lacamoire handed over the sunoculars.
I turned them over in my hand. “These are sweet.”
“And expensive,” he said, plucking them back out from my hands. Then he looked nervous. “But—if you’d like to see them— I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“Dinner!” hollered Simone.
Dr. Lacamoire looked thankful for our interruption. “Come then, Abigail, Gary. Dinner is served. After, when it’s darker, you can look through the Tyler-Weimer if you’d like.”
“That would be amazing. And it’s Abby,” I told him. “Just Abby.”
The thing about lasagna is that you always eat more than you mean to. Pasta in general, really. You can’t just eat a normal-person amount; you have to eat, like, three helpings. I wished I had leggings on.
“Ugh,” Simone groaned, clearing the table. “Carb overload.”
“It was delicious, though,” Mom said.
“There’s ice cream, too, but I can’t eat another bite,” said Simone. “Anyone need some sugar?”
“I’m stuffed,” I admitted. “I don’t think I could fit it in.”
“Coffee?” she asked my parents.
“I think I’m okay,” said Mom, and Dad nodded in agreement.
“Abby? No, what am I saying. You’re twelve.”
“My best friend Sophie drinks coffee,” I said. “But it’s mainly flavored creamer.” My best friend. Ha. She was about as much my best friend as the bus driver was now.
“Well then,” said Dr. Lacamoire, “let’s make ourselves more comfortable, shall we?” The guy was being weird. He was jittery, asking us questions with wide eyes and then interrupting with new ones halfway through. He wanted to know when my parents moved here, when they opened up the resort, when the library was built . . . it was like his mind was constantly sparking off in new directions. He was never fully paying attention to what anyone was saying. And he’d barely touched his food, but the rest of us had eaten enough to make up for it.
We went into the living room. My parents and I sat on the leather couch, which my mom had spent months picking out from Crafting the Woods, and Dr. Lacamoire delicately slid into the armchair. Dad kept glancing around, and I could tell it made him feel weird to be in one of his own cabins as a guest instead of there to fix a toilet.
The office cell phone suddenly rang.
“Sorry,” Mom sighed, pulling it out. “We’re completely booked this month, so things have been a little crazy. I should take this.”
She stepped back toward the kitchen, murmuring into the phone, while Dad and Simone chatted about the best places to grab breakfast in town. Dr. Lacamoire and I sat there awkwardly.
“I’ve been trying to get that fireplace going,” he said, nodding to it, “but I can’t find the switch. I wouldn’t think we’d even need a fireplace in August, but goodness, that nighttime air can bite through the windows.”
“The switch?”
“To turn it on. Do you know where it is? It’s one of your houses, after all.”
“Um . . .” Making stupid people not feel stupid was one of my specialties. Trevor King had been my lab partner last year, and let’s just say he wasn’t the reason we got an A-. “There is no switch, sir. Although it’d be great if there were. You have to take wood from out back and set it on fire.”
“Oh my goodness, really? I assumed all fireplaces were electric now. This is a quaint little town, isn’t it?”
I smiled. “Sure is. Do you want me to show you how to get one started? I’m a pro.”
“No, no. Unnecessary. But, er, now that you mention it . . .” He glanced at Simone and my dad, who was showing her a photo of a restaurant on his phone. “There’s something you can help me with.”
Mom suddenly burst back into the room, looking frazzled. “I’m incredibly sorry, but we’re going to need to cut the evening a bit short. Gary, that was J.J. The guests in Robin’s Egg apparently decided to go on a little joyride without a boating license. And with beer. And no concept of how to follow buoys to avoid rocks on the lake.”
Dad groaned. “This is why next summer, we’re not accepting any bachelor parties.”
“We need to handle this. One of us should go help J.J. haul the boat out, and one of us needs to drive the boys back to the cabin.”
“Thank you so much for having us,” Dad said. “Sorry about this.”
“But I didn’t get to look in the Tyler-Weimer!” I burst out. I couldn’t leave without looking through the telescope, and a few stars were finally starting to peek out.
“Another night,” Mom promised me.
“But . . .” Dr. Lacamoire glanced at Simone, a look on his face. Worry? Fear?
“If you all don’t mind, I’d be happy to walk Abby back if she wants to stick around and take a look through the scope,” said Simone.
Mom and Dad looked at each other.
“I’d hate for her to be a bother,” said Dad.
“Um, I’m right here,” I said.
“Not a bother at all!” Dr. Lacamoire assured them.
“Ten minutes,” said Mom, pointing at me. “Then get out of their hair. Text me when you’re home. And Obi needs to go out.”
“Ten minutes,” I repeated back.
“Whoa.”
It was like when you didn’t realize how dirty and sunscreen-smeared your sunglasses were until you wiped them off. I’d never seen the stars so clearly, sprinkled across the sky as if by design.
“Can you spot Aquila? Seems appropriate, given the name of our cabin,” said Dr. Lacamoire. “Eagle. Start with—”
“Altair,” I said, fixing the telescope on one of the brightest stars in the sky.
“Wow,” said Simone, organizing some papers on the desk. “You really do know your stars.”
“My dad takes me out stargazing a lot,” I said. “He would love this.”
“You’ll have to bring him back a different night. He’s more than welcome,” said Dr. Lacamoire. He leaned forward, his eyes affixed out the window. But once again, he wasn’t looking at the stars. He was looking back across the lake.
“Thanks for showing this to me,” I said.
“You know what I love about the stars, Abigail?” said Dr. Lacamoire.
“Abby.”
He continued. “They’re a sort of map. They let you know where you are in the world. There are constellations we can see here that they can’t see in Antarctica right now, or in Ethiopia. And if you go on a sailing trip across the ocean, the stars can guide you the entire way.”
“It’s pretty amazing,” I agreed.
We stood in silence, me looking through the telescope and him gazing out the window, until Simone spoke up.
“For cripes’ sake, Leo, get on with it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I got her here. I made her dinner. I’m not doing this part for you.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
Simone pointed at him. “We could have stayed in Cambridge. Had a nice, relaxing summer. Done some press for the eclipse, worked on your book. But no.
You had a quest. I told you, she’s the best person to help with it.”
“She’s a child,” snapped Dr. Lacamoire.
“Uh, she’s right here,” I said.
And then, Dr. Leo Lacamoire did his signature thing. He leaned forward, ever so slightly, staring out the window as if he were looking for one of his new planets. The key to a new galaxy, out there spinning among the stars.
“Abigail,” he said slowly, “I’m on a quest. And you may be the only one who can help me.”
“Me?” I asked, surprised. Because as much as I’d felt like Dr. Leo Lacamoire was my summer adventure, that this MIT professor and brilliant astronomer was going to unlock some kind of new world right here in Moose Junction, it’s not like I thought it would actually happen. I thought summer would come and go, the tourists breezing in and out with their sunscreen and fishing licenses, the eclipse blazing across the sky and a million eyes glancing up. And then Dr. Leo Lacamoire would be gone, back out east where he came from to find new planets out there in the sky. And I would stay here, in a dot, in northern Wisconsin. Friendless. Sisterless. Like something drifting around in space.
A word like quest sounded a lot like destiny. And that was a word I wanted nothing to do with.
“The library,” he said, turning to look at me. “Moose Junction Library. You go there a lot. Nearly every day. You’re friends with the librarian.”
“Well, yeah. There’s not a lot to do here when it rains.”
“No! It’s more than that. You love that place. I can tell.” He tapped his forehead. “I’m a professor. I notice things that other people miss. The library is special to you. You know it very, very well.”
That was true. The library—to me, it meant peace. Escape, a one-way ticket out of the world’s smallest town. I could read words from people who understood loneliness and heartbreak, those big feelings that were so hard to put into words. I didn’t have a Big Summer Adventure, but I could make one of my own on those beanbag chairs. It was my favorite building in the entire world.
I nodded.
“This sounds ludicrous.” He shook his head. “But listen to me. Twenty years ago, something was buried in front of the library. It was a Moose Junction time capsule, to be rediscovered in one hundred years.”
A time capsule.
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes. All kinds of things were buried in it. Baseball cards, pressed flowers . . .” He waved a hand in the air, as if to say nonsense. “But also! A telescope.”
I froze.
“Why would someone put a telescope in a time capsule?” I asked. What good was a machine meant for looking at the sky buried underground?
“Not just any telescope. A Star-Gazer Twelve.”
A Star-Gazer Twelve wasn’t a telescope. It was a magic wand. It made stars and planets feel as if they were inches away. I’d never seen one in my life, except at the planetarium in Chicago during our fifth-grade field trip there. I hadn’t even looked through it; it was just part of some demonstration. Trevor King had been making fart noises every time the astronomer bent over to look through it.
I must have made a face, because he smiled proudly.
“Aha! Yes, I knew you were the girl for the job,” Dr. Lacamoire said, beaming. “I told you, Simone, didn’t I? I told you! The girl is smart! She knows her telescopes! She knows the importance of seeing what is out there in the world and understanding it!”
“I believe I told you,” said Simone flatly.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”
Dr. Leo Lacamoire crossed his arms, cool as a cucumber. All his plans were falling into place. His research was finally paying off.
“We’re going to find where that time capsule is buried. We’re going to dig it up. And we’re going to restore that Star-Gazer Twelve to its rightful owner.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Me.”
7
LAST JANUARY
Twelve years old
Almost seven months before Dr. Leo Lacamoire reeled me in with garlic bread and invited me to join his quest, before he nearly shed a tear over the disappearance of his beloved Star-Gazer Twelve and hatched a plot that would return it to its rightful owner, Blair had the biggest audition of her life.
The Joffrey Ballet School Trainee Program was a four-year apprenticeship meant to take devoted ballerinas and turn them into superstars. After the program, they’d be whisked away to Paris or Moscow or Los Angeles and dance with the most elite companies in the world. They would stretch higher, bend further, and point longer. They would be molded into professionals, after dancing for eight hours a day for four long years in New York City.
The Joffrey was all Blair had ever wanted since she was a little kid. For as long as I could remember, Blair had been dancing, first at Sweet Toes Ballet School in downtown Cedar Valley before getting plucked out and put on a real company team in Milwaukee. Aleksander planted the Joffrey seed and steadily watered it, letting it grow and grow like a weed that took over her whole brain. She’d get wide-eyed, talking about it and pulling up photos of the Joffrey dancers. All of them so tall, elegant, strong.
Thin.
Our family was always so excited about When Blair’s in New York. We’d all go to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We’d see the Rockefeller Tree lighting. It seemed so sure, as if we had looked into a crystal ball and sealed the future ages ago. But that feeling was getting further and further way. The Joffrey was becoming less a plan and more of a desperate hope we were all clinging to. Like if only Blair could get into Joffrey and go to New York, all her issues would magically disappear. She couldn’t be in such a competitive program if she was sick, so obviously, she would get better. This wasn’t just another recital or competition. This was her dream. This is everything I’ve worked for, Blair would say, staring in the mirror.
The audition tour was making a pit stop in Chicago, and Aleksander had secured Blair a spot. She would be taking a class from a Joffrey instructor while another one took notes on everything from the size of her head to the point of her toes. Blair couldn’t just be great, she had to be the best; spots were limited and she needed to land a scholarship, too. I helped her count fouettés at night in her room—forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine—until she collapsed on her bed in a pile of exhaustion.
In the fall, Blair was in her company’s production of Giselle, playing Myrtha, queen of the ghostly spirits. She’d been so disappointed that she hadn’t gotten the role of Giselle, but Myrtha was still known as one of the hardest parts to dance in all of classical ballet. Her performance was supposed to be stunning and spooky. Instead, it seemed like she couldn’t stretch as high or keep her legs as straight as she used to. She even tripped out of her final arabesque, and she sobbed about it on the car ride home.
You were amazing, Mom had promised her, and she was. But nobody said that she stole the show.
After her Myrtha performance, Blair became even more obsessed with getting into the Joffrey. Everything seemed to hang on this one audition, this one moment. It was the reason for her extra rehearsal time in Milwaukee, the reason for her new leotards, and the reason she had to wake up at 5:00 a.m. every morning to do stretches. It was her Get Out of Jail Free Card, too. Blair didn’t have to help in the office because she had to practice. Blair was allowed to snap at Mom and Dad because she was stressed about her audition. She didn’t have to do homework because she needed to focus on Chicago. If I so much as rolled my eyes at Mom, I was sent to my room, but Blair could stomp around like the entire world was against her and we were all just supposed to nod sympathetically. Even I was starting to get annoyed.
Blair had begun therapy soon after landing her Myrtha role because talking to someone “would help with her stress,” Mom had told Jade and me, but I knew it was really because Blair was disappearing inch by inch. Every time I hugged her, there was less to put my arms around. Weeks before the Joffrey audition, however, she
stopped going. Apparently she didn’t have time when she needed to be perfecting her grand jeté. She wasn’t even answering phone calls from Caleb.
The night before we left for Chicago, Dad and I watched some baseball movie on Netflix.
“Hey, Dad?” I asked as some actor stepped up to bat.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think Blair’s okay?” I don’t know why I brought it up just then. Maybe it was that hope, taunting me. Maybe it was the possibility that things really could be okay.
He didn’t move an inch or look away from the TV, but I know he heard me.
“Dad.”
“Why do you ask, Abs?”
“She’s just . . . she’s sad, Dad. She’s sad all the time.”
He sighed, pausing the movie. “Blair is one of the strongest people I know, even if she’s not behaving that way right now. But I think things are on the up and up. I do. Everything will be okay once she gets into the Joffrey.”
Look, I wanted to scream. Look at Blair. Look in her eyes. Nobody is looking. The spotlight on her was blinding. She was a whirl of tutus and toe shoes, disappearing into the wind.
“It’s my job to worry about your sister. It’s your job to be a kid. Okay? We’ve got this.” He reached over and patted my knee. “She will be just fine.”
Just fine, like a Band-Aid over the blisters on Blair’s feet. Just fine. But not fine. Not fine at all.
“You guys still doing your comic thing?” Dad asked. “She always loves that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We are. Sometimes.”
“Good.” He flipped the TV back on, exhaling. “If we keep going like we believe things will work out, then they will, I think.”
We watched the fake team lose and the fake coach learn some fake life lesson, neither of us thinking about baseball anymore. We were Blair’s corps de ballet, dancing behind her in unison.
Our whole family rode down to Chicago the next day in my dad’s truck. It was supposed to be a family vacation—whoop-de-do—the farthest place we’d gone in ages. But we weren’t exactly feeling the Happy Family vibes. For weeks leading up to the trip, every night at dinner Blair would get all testy with Mom about whether or not she bought the low-fat yogurt, and why her chicken had to be cut into a million pieces, and my stomach hurts, you’re so mean, leave me alone, I’m not a kid. Lately, everything with Blair and food had been an argument. It was like when Jade and I babysat Meggie Saunders across the lake, begging her to eat dinner and promising a later bedtime in exchange for some vegetables. Mom had to police Blair, giving her the third degree: Did you even take a bite? What did you have for lunch? What about protein? Jade rolled her eyes so much they were practically stuck that way. We were all getting frustrated with her. Open mouth, insert food, swallow. Blair got straight As. She knew how to eat. This shouldn’t be that hard.
What Happens Next Page 6
