by Kate Moretti
So I guess it’s not so much that I want Mom to say she loves me until I get used to hearing it, but rather that I want her to show it to me—to show me she knows me. Because how can you love someone without knowing them?
I want to know Mom. “So it’s not true?” I say. “About your producers wanting it?” Before she can attempt to lie, I add, “I read an article on my netbox.”
“Surely you know not everything published on the netbox is true,” Mom says.
I continue to watch her tears, which she does not wipe away. They clog her voice, making it unfamiliar. This is not the voice I listened to on my netbox so many times over the years, describing so many places.
“Yes, my producers were pleased that we could have you on the broadcast, make a story of it. But that is not why I wanted you to come.”
“Okay,” I say in a small voice, digging my fingers into my knees. “But that’s not why I don’t want to come, either. I do want to see the galaxy, to go on adventures and do new things, but the apprenticeship is an adventure, too. Amal is an adventure, and even though I can see it now, it’s still pretty new to me. There’s so much that goes on here that affects the whole galaxy.”
Mom laughs—not an amused laugh, but a you’re-too-much laugh, an I-don’t-understand-you laugh. “You sound like Ramana.”
I look at her, hoping she will realize that this is not an insult and that I sound like Ramana because Mom left me with her and her with me. But Mom gets up from the table, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Do what you want, Zaylie,” she says, but not as if she means it, not as if she genuinely wants me to be happy.
As if she’s done with me. Again.
Mom and I don’t talk at supper. It’s a tense, silent meal, with Aunt Ramana looking at both of us as though we’re bombs about to go off. I go to bed early without saying goodnight to either of them.
The next morning, I escape to Compound Nine and isolate myself in the audio cubicle. Dr. Kavindra has been working on a project with Dr. Fitzgerald, the linguist-audiologist out at the sanctuary, showing the animals different visual stimuli and recording their reactions. Dr. Fitzgerald says I am an astute listener, and both she and Dr. Kavindra like to get my opinion on whether some of the chitterings and chatterings sound alike or not. Dr. Fitzgerald is convinced the bovoras have their very own complex language and that, someday, we’re going to crack it. I try to push Mom out of my mind and just focus on the bovoras.
I listen with my eyes closed because it’s somehow easier, but when I open them to make a note, I realize Dr. Kavindra has come in behind me. I pause the recording and pull my headphones around my neck.
“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” she says, peeking over my shoulder. “I was just interested in your notes.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I say. “The bovoras, I mean.”
She chuckles. “I’m glad you think so. I was playing it at home the other day, and my husband said it sounded like a bunch of lunatics, each singing their own off-key opera.”
I’ve met Mr. Kavindra several times. He’s an artist, not a scientist. “Well, I like it,” I say.
“Oh, me, too.” She pauses, looking at me in that searching way she has. Dr. Kavindra’s eyes are the first thing I ever saw, and they remain one of my favorite sights. “I was talking to Calliope—Dr. Fitzgerald, that is—about you. She didn’t put in for an apprentice, but she said if you don’t get the Compound Nine apprenticeship, she’d be more than happy to take you on at the sanctuary.”
“Oh,” I say, turning that over in my head. The sanctuary isn’t Compound Nine, but it’s still pretty awesome.
“And of course you’re always welcome here. I could hire you on as a mid-clerk if you’d like; you certainly have enough training. And that’s only if you don’t get the apprenticeship, which you have a good shot at. You wrote a lovely essay.”
She smiles at me. The apprenticeship application essay had several prompts to choose from, but I chose the first: what do you think you can bring to the compound to which you’re applying?
I wrote about how Compound Nine not only gave me my sight, but also the confidence that I could be a scientist even before I could see, and how I want to continue to work in this magical place and inspire future scientists the way Dr. Kavindra has inspired me.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your work,” Dr. Kavindra says, patting me on the shoulder and leaving my little cubicle.
I still haven’t told her about Mom wanting me to go with her. Maybe Aunt Ramana has—they’re friends, after all—but I don’t want to bring it up. I know Dr. Kavindra won’t push me, tell me to stay or go, or try to give me advice or anything. But I’ll see it in her eyes if she really wants me to stay. If she does, it’ll be yet another pressure in my steam cooker of a brain.
And if I don’t see anything there… well, that would make me feel even worse.
You’d think not talking to Mom would be easy. After all, living apart like we do, I haven’t talked to her for the majority of my life. But it’s different when you’re living in the same house together—decidedly more uncomfortable. Still, I succeed, more or less. We say good morning to each other and act civil, but we don’t say anything of real substance.
“You know you’re going to have to have a conversation before she leaves, right?” Aunt Ramana says to me at breakfast while Mom’s still sleeping.
“We had a conversation,” I say. “It didn’t go so well.”
“All the more reason another one might be in order,” Aunt Ramana says.
I want to tell her it takes two to have a conversation, and Mom doesn’t seem any more eager to talk than I do. I want to tell her Mom’s the adult, and I’m following her lead. But if I tell her that, she might tell Mom, and I don’t want Mom to feel forced to talk to me.
I want her to want to talk to me.
So I spend most of my days at the lab. Jarek and I are both tense, our futures hanging in the balance. At least he knows he’ll have a job on Amal one way or another. Of course I have the offers from Dr. Fitzgerald and Dr. Kavindra, but they’re not the same as an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship means you’re the best, means you’re on the fast track to being a top-notch scientist. It means Amal really, really wants you.
I need this apprenticeship.
The night before the announcement, I curl up on my bed with my netbox. I need to relax and not think about tomorrow, Mom leaving in a few days, or any of it. I scroll through the titles of the various Intrepid programs. I’ve listened to all of them multiple times over the years, but there are still some I haven’t watched yet. I click on The Intrepid on Thorr, and Mom’s face fills the screen, her smile wide and inviting as she gives fast facts about the planet’s climate and features.
Thorr is known for its diverse wildlife, and this episode was a favorite of mine when I was around six because of how well Mom described all the different animals. I swipe forward to the part where Mom starts describing the woolly casmok. I watch as she picks one up and holds it close to the screen. The casmok looks just like I imagined, and I close my eyes and just listen to Mom’s description because her words and my mind are as good as any video.
“I did that for you, you know.” Mom’s voice is so quiet, I think I’m imagining it at first, but when I open my eyes, she’s standing in the doorway of my room.
I stop the video. “What?”
She comes farther into the room, but she leans against my closet rather than sitting next to me on the bed like I wish she would. “The Thorr episode. You were six, and Ramana told me how obsessed you were with animals. How you always wanted to hold them so you could get a better sense of them. I couldn’t bring the animals to you, but I figured if I described them in detail, maybe you could imagine them.” She smiles, not a blinding on-screen flash of teeth but a smaller turn of her lips. Wist
ful. “I went off-script. The producers hated it. The critics hated it when it aired. But Ramana said you listened to it over and over again, so I knew I’d gotten it right.”
I look at her, and my tears spill over. That was her “I love you”—the one I knew she meant. Maybe she didn’t always understand me, but her love was in every description of that episode, all those beautiful words I’d memorized when I was six.
She comes to sit beside me now, and I lean in to her.
“I’ve missed you for fifteen years,” Mom murmurs in my ear. “Sometimes I forget you’re not a baby anymore. Sometimes I forget there can be things that matter more than me missing you.”
I draw my head away from her shoulder so I can look at her face.
She looks down at me with that same wistful smile. “If you get the apprenticeship, you’re staying, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, because it’s the truth. But it’s true I want to be with Mom, too, to see the galaxy and experience everything out there. They’re both true.
Amal is just a little bit truer.
I take a deep breath. “Mom, I’m staying no matter what. Even if I don’t get the apprenticeship, I have offers to work with Dr. Kavindra or Dr. Fitzgerald. And that’s what I want to do. Amal’s my home.”
Mom holds me close, squeezing my shoulder, and we sit there for a long time, holding on to each other because we can.
The day of my apprenticeship announcement dawns rainy, of course. I eat breakfast with Mom and Aunt Ramana, and I feel surprisingly calm. There’s something to be said for making decisions for yourself. I still want this apprenticeship more than anything, but I feel good knowing that I’m staying no matter what—that I chose to stay.
Still, I can’t help feeling that I’ve let Mom down. That she doesn’t get my choice. I try to think of what I can say to her, but my mind is blank.
The apprenticeship announcements are made at the assembly hall in Compound Five. I’m probably the only perspective apprentice who’s actually on Amal, but it’s audiocast all over the galaxy. I wonder if the other fifty-five kids who want the Compound Nine apprenticeship have their ears plastered to their netboxes and the same queasy feeling in their stomachs as I do. I hope so. I hope we all want it that badly.
The assembly hall is packed as Mom, Aunt Ramana, and I enter; in addition to the apprenticeship announcements, it’s also the graduation ceremony for the fourth-year apprentices. I spot Jarek on stage, sitting with the rest of the graduates in the silly hats they have to wear, and I wave wildly until he sees me and waves back.
We can’t find three seats together, so Mom offers to sit elsewhere. I want her near me, but I can’t find the words to tell her that. I sit next to Aunt Ramana and try to breathe.
Aunt Ramana squeezes my shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Zaylie.”
Will it? I try not to think. The graduation ceremony is lovely, and I try to just focus on that, trying not to imagine myself sitting up there in four years.
When they call the graduates’ names, they also announce their new official positions. Jarek gets assigned to Compound Nine, and I applaud enthusiastically, because Compound Nine wouldn’t be the same without him.
Plus, if I don’t get the apprenticeship, I don’t want Veronica to be without both of us.
Then comes the apprenticeships. I shut my eyes and pretend I’m any other kid listening to the broadcast on the netbox.
The announcements go in order, and not every compound is getting an apprentice, so they get to Compound Nine quickly. Dr. Mecuo is making the announcements, and he gives a dramatic pause after saying, “Compound Nine’s apprenticeship goes to…”
I want to puke.
“Amal’s very own Zaylie Hyderhahl!”
People applaud and turn to look at me. Aunt Ramana gives me a sideways, sitting-down hug. On stage, Jarek has an enormous grin.
I’ve done it.
The queasiness in my stomach is replaced with a pleasant warmth. Four years from now, it will be me sitting up there on that stage. I’m going to be a full-fledged, kick-ass scientist.
But there’s a tiny spot of hollowness within the happiness. I try to ignore it, but it’s still there.
When the announcements are over, we get up to go to the graduation party in the next room. Mom finds me and gives me a hug. “Congratulations, baby girl!”
Does she mean it? She sounds sincere, but who knows? “Thanks.”
I try to think of what to say next, but she’s already gone, disappearing into the crowd of people. Jarek comes over and shakes my hand, goofing around as if I’m a stranger.
“Nice to meet you, Miss… Hyde, was it? Heyer? I hear you got the Compound Nine apprenticeship, which just happens to be where I work. I’ll show you around on your first day, all right?”
“I can’t wait. I wouldn’t want to get lost.”
He laughs then hugs me. “Congrats, Zay,” he says in my ear. “We’re going to do awesome work together.”
Dr. Kavindra finds me next, and she hugs me, too. “I’m so excited to be working with you, Zaylie.”
“Likewise,” I say. Maybe at some point in the next four years, I can find a way to tell her exactly how much she means to me, but right now, I’m a little choked up.
Dr. Kavindra chats about our upcoming workload; now that my operation’s been proven a success, she wants to try it on more patients and write a paper about it. This is what I’m going to be a part of.
I can’t wait.
Other people come to congratulate me: Dr. Fitzgerald, some of Jarek’s newly graduated friends, and zoologists from the sanctuary. We talk, laugh, and eat the yummy food being served, but I keep seeing Mom across the room, talking to all the bigwigs, never looking my way.
After a while, I slip out. It’s a short walk home even if it is wet. It’s not as if I’m not used to the rain. I wonder about all the new apprentices who will be arriving soon. Will they all have had exciting lives on their home planets? Will they think I’m weird for having known nothing but Amal?
Aunt Ramana and Mom are still at the party, so I have the house to myself. I need to decompress. I pace around and think of all the amazing work I’ll get to do with Dr. Kavindra and Jarek, until my head is full of happiness and I start to relax.
Then Mom comes home.
“I’m so proud of you, Zaylie,” she says, hugging me close.
“Are you really?”
She pulls away to look at me head on. “Yes.”
“Okay,” I whisper, and she hugs me again.
“I talked to Dr. Kavindra,” she says when she lets go, leading me over to the sofa.
“About what?”
“I wanted to find out when your apprenticeship starts. Turns out, it’s not for two weeks. I thought maybe we could take a little trip to Ayzn, just the two of us.”
I let that sink in. “For an Intrepid program?”
“No, no, Ayzn’s not fancy enough for my producers’ taste. And besides, we need some alone time. I rearranged my schedule.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. We’ll have some fun together, all right? And we’ll make a tradition of it, too. I’ve talked to my producers about cutting back, so whenever you have a holiday from your apprenticeship, we can do a little traveling together. Maybe Ramana can come, too, sometimes. The best of both worlds, right, Zaylie? We can spend more time together, and you can see some of the galaxy, and you can still do your work. Sound good?”
It sounds amazing. I nod and lean back against her. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, baby girl.”
And I know we both mean it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Valerie Hunter is a high school English teacher whose stories have appeared in magazines including Cicada and Cricket, a
nd in the YA anthologies Cleavage: Breakaway Fiction for Real Girls and Real Girls Don’t Rust. She is also currently working towards her MFA in children’s and young adult literature at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
THOUGHTS ON BRAVE NEW GIRLS
Valerie wrote “A Little Bit Truer” for Brave New Girls because she believes girls should be encouraged to work towards whatever dreams they set their minds to.
Illustration for “A Little Bit Truer” by Hazel Butler
LYRA
by Lisa Toohey
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