We Dream of Space

by Erin Entrada Kelly

  “She should’ve made me switch,” Fitch said. “I’m the one who . . . ”

  He let the sentence float.

  When Rachel Hill came into the room, he didn’t even notice her smile at him.

  KID ON THE MOVE

  Mr. Wills, the famously monotonous social studies teacher, gave Cash a hall pass with little fanfare. When Cash wandered into the hall, he felt a strange jolt of adrenaline. He didn’t need the hall pass, of course. But anything was better than being in class, where teachers asked questions he never knew the answers to, and he spent most of the time feeling like an idiot. Out here, in the hall, he wasn’t stupid. He was just Cash Nelson Thomas, kid on the move.

  After going into the boys’ bathroom, where he washed his hands and stared at himself in the mirror for longer than he’d ever admit, he made his way to the trophy case. He wanted to look at the basketball trophy again. He didn’t understand why he tortured himself this way, but there it was.

  The trophy was on the second shelf, as always, standing tall with the others. A shiny reminder that the team didn’t need him to win.

  You can run, but you can’t shoot. And if you can’t shoot . . .

  Well. If you can’t shoot, what’s the point of playing basketball? That was the long and short of it.

  He was still staring at that stupid trophy when a voice shot over his head, making him jump.

  “How goes it, Thomas?”

  Cash knew who it was before he even turned around, and sure enough, there was Coach, standing there smiling.

  “Hey, Coach,” said Cash, all casual. He tried to shove both hands in his pockets, before he remembered that the cast wouldn’t allow his right hand to be shoved anywhere. He shifted from foot to foot instead. How embarrassing to be discovered here, at this moment, by the very person who knew his failures all too well.

  Coach nodded toward the cast. “How’s the arm?”

  “Not bad. Getting used to it.” That was the truth, too. Penny L/S Charlie didn’t grate at him like it had last week, even though the letters were still big and bold and in his direct line of vision at all times.

  “We miss you on the team this year.” Coach smiled.

  Cash knew that was a lie, and he knew the smile was fake, but he also knew that people lied sometimes to make other people feel better.

  Coach was a nice guy, but the smile and the lie only made Cash feel worse.

  When Cash didn’t respond, Coach kept talking. “The year goes by fast, huh? Seems like it was just football season. Soon it’ll be track. Then it all starts up again.” He shook his head. “Each year moves faster than the next.”

  God, Cash hoped that was true. He wanted next year to move faster than the speed of light.

  “Yeah,” Cash said, since he felt like he was supposed to say something.

  “Well,” said Coach. “You better get to class soon, yeah?”

  Cash nodded. Smiled. He watched Coach walk down the hall but continued to stand there for the next few minutes. He wasn’t ready to go back to Mr. Wills. He didn’t want to slip back into the classroom shackles.

  Not yet.

  BAD BOY

  Fitch could destroy robots and enemy ships. He could grab extra oxygen on his way to the nuclear reactor and get out before it exploded. But the maze was his enemy. The maze was his kryptonite. You had to fly the ship through it without getting zapped or shot. The twists and turns seemed to come out of nowhere. No matter how prepared he felt, they emerged to annihilate him.

  He wasn’t doing his best, anyway. His eyes were focused on Major Havoc, but his brain floated somewhere else. He hadn’t seen Amanda all day, and he certainly didn’t expect to see her here, but he looked around anyway. When he passed Skee-Ball, he looked. When he grabbed a quick bag of popcorn, he looked. Every time a crop of brown hair moved in his peripheral vision, he looked. He didn’t know why he was looking for her, or what he would do if he saw her. He tried to imagine himself apologizing, but the image wouldn’t formulate. He tried to imagine saying “hey, Amanda” as if nothing had happened, but that didn’t seem right, either. So what did he expect to accomplish?

  It took him forty-five minutes to spend all his quarters. When he had, he wiped his hands down the front of his jeans and decided to walk around. Vern hadn’t come today and there wasn’t much else to do, but he didn’t want to go home.

  He wandered by Galaga, Pole Position, Centipede, and Pac-Man.

  He wandered by the popcorn machine again.

  When he made his way to pinball row, Mr. Hindley smiled widely at him. He was standing next to Bright Star One with the crumpled “OUT OF ORDER” sign in his hand. The bulbs flashed: READY FOR TAKEOFF.

  “Patron Thomas,” Mr. Hindley said. He patted the top of the machine. “Our friend is back. How about a game? Give her a test run?”

  “I’m out of quarters,” said Fitch. “Maybe next time.”

  “Eh, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to try her out again anyway. To be honest, I don’t know why I bothered with this thing,” said Hindley. “No one plays them.”

  Fitch eyed the line of machines. Five in all.

  “Have you ever thought of selling them?” Fitch asked. “You could use the money to buy more games, like Alpha Mission or Battle City. You could even get a stand-up pinball game.”

  “That wouldn’t make any sense,” Mr. Hindley said. “Why would I get a pinball cabinet when I have actual pinball right here?”

  Fitch shrugged. “Just a thought.”

  “Mark my words, Fitch—one day, someone is gonna march in here and become the next pinball wizard. Next thing you know, it’s—”

  Mr. Hindley’s words drifted away as he eyed something over Fitch’s shoulder. His face morphed into a knowing smile.

  “We’ll talk more later,” he said, patting Fitch’s shoulder.

  Suddenly Fitch was sandwiched by the Jessicas.

  “Oh,” he said.

  The girls each held a Coke with gloss-stained straws.

  Jessica Diaz flashed a toothy smile. “Hey, Fitch.”

  “Uh,” mumbled Fitch.

  JB took a sip of her drink. “Welcome back.”

  “Welcome back where?” Fitch said, his throat dry.

  “To school, silly,” JB replied. “After your . . . suspension.”

  The way she whispered it and grinned made him uncomfortable. He cleared his throat.

  “We heard what happened,” JB continued. “We know she started the whole thing. It’s so unfair that you were suspended for two days.”

  “Uh,” Fitch said.

  He felt like Major Havoc, trapped in a maze, not sure what he was supposed to do or say next.

  “Anyway,” Jessica Diaz said. She glanced at her friend then at Fitch. “We were wondering something.”

  Fitch asked what. At least he thought he did. He couldn’t quite tell if his mouth was moving. Did he look as nervous as he felt?

  JB bit her straw. She lifted it up with her teeth then released it. “Do you . . . like anyone?”

  Fitch’s hands were sweating. “Like anyone?”

  “Yeah. You know. Like.”

  “Oh.” He wished Mr. Hindley would come back. It was much more comfortable talking to him than the Jessicas. He felt warm and exposed, like a giant spotlight was shining over him. “No.”

  The Jessicas’ faces brightened. Apparently, he’d answered correctly.

  “Good,” Jessica Diaz said. “Because someone likes you, and we were wondering if you’d be interested in her.”

  JB rolled her eyes. “Of course he will be.” She fiddled with her straw again. “Do you want to know who it is?”

  Fitch had no response. He was still trying to process the words coming out of their mouths.

  “Okay,” he said, finally.

  “It’s Rachel,” JB said. She bounced on her toes as if this were the most exciting news of the century. Maybe it was. “Rachel Hill.”

  Fitch stared at her blankly.

  Was this so
me kind of joke?

  “Uh.” Fitch shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “She told me today,” JB continued. “Apparently she has a thing for bad boys, as she put it.”

  “Bad boys,” Fitch repeated. The words landed on his ears, but made no logical sense. Rachel Hill. Him. Bad boys. Fitch started a sentence. “I’m not . . .”

  When he didn’t continue, the girls simply stared at him. Their bright expressions dissolved into confusion. Jessica Diaz cocked her head to one side like a dog who had just heard an unfamiliar noise.

  “It’s Rachel Hill,” she said. “Don’t you like her?”

  Like her? He’d never even spoken to her. He’d never even considered speaking to her. Rachel was in a different galaxy.

  What did it mean to like someone, anyway?

  He thought of Vern, with his buttered fingers and starry-eyed crush.

  “Uh,” said Fitch. “I’m not really looking for a girlfriend.”

  The Jessicas’ mouths dropped open in unison. He’d never seen two people look more startled. It was as if he’d set fire to a million dollars. They looked like they were about to say something else, but Fitch’s attention had shifted to a tall girl with brown hair who was standing near Asteroids. She turned around.

  It wasn’t Amanda.

  He exhaled.

  “I gotta go,” he said.

  He stepped around the Jessicas, heart pounding, and left them standing in the blinking lights of Bright Star One.

  A FINE LINE

  There was a line on Cash’s bedroom wall. He couldn’t remember when he’d put it there. Last year, maybe. It was a faint, simple hash mark, pretty high up, drawn with pencil. It served as a goal line of sorts. Something for him to aspire to. The day his fingertips grazed this line, he reasoned, was the day he would be a worthwhile basketball player. Someone to make Dr. J proud as he watched from his poster on the opposite side of the room. The distance between Cash’s fingertips and that hash mark may as well have been a mile, though. He never even got close.

  For a while the hash mark taunted him. A visual reminder of his athletic failures. But he never erased it. Eventually he learned to ignore it.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he faced it the way he did now.

  Surely he’d improved.

  Surely he’d grown.

  Surely he could do it now.

  He bounced up and down and loosened his shoulders. He wiggled the tips of his fingers on his right hand, which jutted out of his cast like stunted sausages.

  This time he would hit his mark, even if he reinjured his wrist in the process.

  He took a deep breath and went for it.

  He wasn’t even close.

  He could almost hear Dr. J sigh.

  When he turned around, swearing under his breath, Bird was in the doorway.

  “Mom is picking up KFC for dinner,” she said. “What’re you doing?”

  Cash would have been embarrassed if it was anyone but Bird.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just working on my jump shot, I guess. Not that it matters.”

  He sat down with his back against the wall. He kept talking, though he didn’t know why.

  “I’m not good at anything,” he continued. Yes, he knew he was feeling sorry for himself, but he didn’t care. He counted off on his fingers. “I suck at school. I can’t shoot. I can’t jump. I can’t even cook a freakin’ hamburger.” His neck burned. “The only thing I can do is run.” Run away from homework. Run away from points.

  Bird shrugged. “Well, there you go.”

  “What do you mean, there I go?”

  “You just said you were good at running.”

  Cash snorted. “Yeah. Running from homework. Running from passing grades. Sure. Lots of good that does, Bird. Thanks for the pep talk.” He leaned his head against the wall.

  “Maybe you’re just playing the wrong game,” she said.

  And then she closed the door.

  Monday, January 20, 1986

  THE FINAL FRONTIER

  Bird’s essay got her a seat in the auditorium. Devonte and Dani got seats, too. The launch was only three days away now—Thursday, to be exact. Ms. Salonga reminded them by tapping the chalkboard, where she had the date underlined.

  “We’ve been talking a lot about space travel this month, but we haven’t answered one very important question,” Ms. Salonga said, leaning against the corner of her desk. “It’s a question that’s foremost on many Americans’ minds. And it’s a very simple question: Why? Why are we going into space? Why are we spending so much money to send astronauts there?”

  A few kids shot their hands into the air, but Ms. Salonga waved them away and said that they all needed to join their space crews to brainstorm answers to these questions. Each crew was expected to come up with at least five valid and well-considered reasons why space exploration was important. The shuttle commander would be in charge of writing down the answers and coaxing participation from all crew members.

  Chairs scraped against the floor as everyone moved into their circles. When Devonte scooted his desk closer to hers, Bird’s heart pounded. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. The prospect of watching the launch was the only thing that prevented Bird from having a full-on anxious spiral every time she was around Devonte. She tried to focus on something else. She kept her eyes on Christopher and Marcus as they joined the circle. Christopher was wearing Aerosmith today.

  Once everyone was settled, Dani opened her notebook.

  “Who wants to go first?” she said.

  They all looked at Bird, but her brain wasn’t in the game. She was too aware of Devonte’s presence.

  “I got one,” Devonte said. “Space exploration is important because we might run out of room.”

  Dani wrote this down but looked skeptical. “What do you mean?”

  “On Earth,” Devonte said. “If it gets too crowded, we’ll run out of room. And then where will we go?”

  Jessica Diaz rolled her eyes. Bird couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like she rolled them at her, not at him, as if she, Bird, was somehow responsible for anything Devonte said.

  “Duh, Devonte. It would take forever for us to ‘run out of room.’ There are, like, a million places humans can go.”

  Devonte crossed his arms. “Name one.”

  “Think about all the places in the world where no one lives. Like, mountains or rain forests or something.”

  JB nodded.

  Christopher said, “Yeah, there’s room now. But what happens when there’s four times as many people?”

  “Exactly,” Devonte replied.

  Dani erased what she’d originally written and said, “I’m going to put ‘in case of overpopulation.’”

  Devonte grinned at the Jessicas in triumph.

  “What else?” Dani said.

  “Life on other planets,” JB said. “Like, we need to go into space to see if there’s anybody out there.”

  “What difference does it make if there’s life out there or not?” Christopher asked. “We’ve got life-forms right here on Earth that don’t make any sense.”

  Marcus and Devonte laughed.

  “It’s important that we know if there are aliens in the universe,” JB said. “What if we want to be friends with them?”

  “E.T.’s spaceship went exploring, and those white-coat dudes almost killed him,” Christopher said.

  “Whatever,” Jessica said. “He became friends with Elliott, which was the whole point of the movie anyway.”

  Dani wrote “befriend aliens” in her notebook.

  Bird cleared her throat. “Resources,” she said.

  She couldn’t remember ever feeling nervous around her classmates the way she did right now. All because of Devonte and his crush. She decided then and there, as Dani wrote ‘resources,’ that no good could come from liking someone that way.

  “What do you mean by ‘resources’?” Jessica Diaz asked.

  “Well,” Bird began. “There’s a chance we could
run out of resources at some point. Because of overpopulation, or whatever.” Devonte smiled at this acknowledgment, but she ignored him. “In hundreds of years or something, we might not have any more resources on Earth. If we find planets that have resources, like fuel and water and stuff, we’d have a backup plan.”

  They all nodded.

  “I’ve got another one,” said Christopher, pointing to Dani’s notebook. “If we don’t go into space, other countries will. What if the Russians go out there and find an entire planet made out of killer nuclear gas? They’d get to it before us. We should be number one.”

  Dani wrote down “world domination.” Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “That’s four,” said Dani. “We need at least one more.”

  No one offered anything. Not even Bird. Her mind was still preoccupied.

  After several seconds of silence, Dani’s eyes landed on Marcus Sturgess, who’d been silently doodling in his notebook.

  “What about you, Marcus?” she said, her voice uncertain. “Can you think of anything?”

  He shrugged.

  “We just need one more,” said Dani.

  A new electricity filled the air. Marcus flew so far under the radar, people often forgot he was there. And he often wasn’t. But today, here he was, sitting in his seat, under the scrutinizing eyes of his fictional space mates. He glanced up, but only for a moment.

  “It’s stupid,” he finally mumbled.

  Dani raised her eyebrows. “What’s stupid?”

  “Space exploration,” he said. “Ms. Salonga wants us to come up with reasons why it makes sense for us to go into space, but it doesn’t make sense.”

  If Marcus were a machine, Bird thought, he’d be something that made the air heavy. Like a humidifier.

  “There are big things in space,” Marcus continued. “Asteroids. Meteorites. Comets. Think about how huge the universe is. Ms. Salonga said it was more than ninety-billion light years in diameter. Then think about how small we are. We’re practically nothing. A giant fireball could be out there, headed directly for us, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Not a single thing.”

  The Jessicas simultaneously turned toward the classroom window, as if Marcus had just summoned a fireball outside.