Every Soul a Star

by Wendy Mass

  I laugh. “You’ve said that every year since you came here!”

  “Well, I’m not as lucky as you to have this every day.”

  “You could put it on your home computer if you wanted.”

  Ryan shakes his head. “My father won’t let me. He’s all paranoid about running programs that send information back to the source.”

  In all the years Ryan has been coming here, I’ve never met his dad. He doesn’t sound like a nice person.

  “Plus,” he adds almost as an afterthought, “my friends would think I’m a geek if they knew I was interested in this kind of stuff.”

  “Really? Why are they your friends then?”

  “Never thought about it. They’ve just always been my friends. It’s not like I chose them exactly.”

  “People don’t choose their friends?”

  He shrugs. “Not really. It’s usually people you live near, or kids in your classes. You’re stuck with each other, so you become friends. You know, like we did.”

  “Oh.” I stare down at my hands.

  “That didn’t come out right,” he says quickly. “I just mean that I showed up here, and we were sort of put together by our grandfathers and so we became friends.”

  I pick my words carefully. “So we’re not friends because we like each other? Because we like hanging out together?”

  “Of course we are. But that comes after.”

  “Oh,” I say again. It feels different being with Ryan this year and I can’t pinpoint why. I wonder if he feels it too. We sit quietly and watch the waves of color cross the screen. It’s almost hypnotic. I’m startled out of my trance by a loud rumbling out front. A huge RV is turning the corner toward the cabin. They must have taken a wrong turn on their way to the RV park on the other side of the lake. We put all the RVs as far away from the main camp as possible so the noise and exhaust doesn’t bother other campers. It’s also closest to the playground, and a lot of the RVers have kids.

  “Be right back,” I tell Ryan. “Don’t find any aliens without me.” The screen door bangs behind me as I go out onto the dirt road to wave down the RV. The driver sees me and stops. A middle-aged guy with a Mets baseball cap gets out, clutching one of the paper maps he would have been given at check-in. He is followed by a tired-looking woman holding a cell phone. “Hello?” she says repeatedly into it. “Can you hear me now?”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “We don’t get cell phone signals up here.”

  She flips the phone closed. “I was just trying to call the front desk. We can’t find where we’re supposed to go.”

  “I’ll show you.” I walk over to the map the man is holding out, and start pointing out where we’re standing, and how to get to the RV park. As I trace the path with my finger, two little boys step out of the RV. They are pale with bright red hair. I’ve never seen identical twins before, and can’t help but stare. They are wearing the same outfit—blue jeans and yellow t-shirts with a cartoon character on them. It looks like a train with a face.

  Both look at me with interest, then one of them says, “Mommy, I’ve gotta go potty.”

  The mother smiles apologetically at me. “We’re still working on the whole toilet-training thing.”

  I smile weakly in response, not sure what else to do. I remember when my mom was toilet training Kenny, she just used to let him run around the campground without his diaper. It only took a few days. But that was back when no one else lived here. The woman takes her son back inside, and the other follows closely at her heels.

  “No one was at the office when we pulled in,” the man says, tucking the map into his pocket. “The guy at the gate checked us in, but I’m waiting on a fax from my business partner, and it’s supposed to come to the main office.”

  “I’ll check on it,” I tell him. “When it arrives I’ll be sure someone brings it out to you.”

  He nods, and climbs back in. I hold my breath as the exhaust wafts past me. Back in the cabin, I tell Ryan I have to go. “No one’s manning the office, so I have to —”

  He suddenly stands up, knocking over his chair and cutting off what I was saying. My first thought is that he’s seen the huge soul-eating bug that I found in the Art House last week. I immediately jump back and press myself against the wall. The bug must have snuck over to this side of the cabin, even though once glance tells me the door is still closed. I KNEW that thing had superpowers! But Ryan’s pointing wildly at the computer screen, not at the ground.

  “What is it? You’re freaking me out.” I hope people still say “freaking out.”

  “The pattern!” he yells. “It spiked! Look!” He jabs at the screen, sending little prisms in all directions.

  He’s right! The red section of the graph is spiking really high, then low, then high again, in a pattern I’ve never seen before. We turn to stare at each other, eyes wide.

  “Great Galileo’s Ghost!” I shout.

  “What do we do?” Ryan asks.

  “I’m not sure. We never thought we’d really find anything.” Alien Central is really Kenny’s domain. He should be here. Dad said he has walkie-talkies to give us so we can all find each other easily once things get crazy, but he didn’t hand them out yet. “Hey, you know what I just realized?”

  “That we could be the first people to discover life on another planet?”

  “No! I mean, yes, but something else. That signal came from the constellation Libra, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s where Glenn’s planet is!”

  “Huh?”

  “Glenn! From Gleise!”

  He recovers quickly. “Oh, right! Cool!”

  “Don’t you look for him anymore?”

  “Um, well, with all the light pollution it’s getting harder to see many stars in the suburbs.”

  “Oh.” I try not to show my disappointment. All this time I thought Ryan was looking up at Glenn, too.

  Then Ryan says, “But if our signal is The One, then EVERYBODY will be looking up at Glenn!”

  He’s right! I feel instantly better.

  The screen door bangs open and we both whirl around. “What’s going on?” Kenny asks. “I heard you three cabins away.”

  “Look!” I point to the screen. Kenny goes closer and then yells, “Great Galileo’s Ghost! We have to call them.”

  “Call who?” Ryan asks. “The aliens?”

  Kenny looks at Ryan like HE’S an alien. “The SETI people! We have to call them!” He looks at me expectantly. Kenny’s the idea man, and that makes me the one who actually DOES anything. I upright Ryan’s chair from the floor and move it in front of the desk. Hands shaking, I stick in a disk and save the portion of the work unit that has been processed so far. Then I click back to the results screen and onto the home page. “I can’t find a contact number.”

  Kenny starts pacing, rubbing his chin just like Dad does when he’s frustrated. “How about an e-mail?” he asks. I keep looking and finally find a way to contact volunteers through a live chat. I click on that and wait for someone to turn up. I’m a pretty patient person, but as the seconds tick by I’m starting to get agitated. Finally someone’s name pops up on the screen and the words “Can I help you?” appear in a little box on the left side.

  I type as fast as I can. “Yes! Hi! We think we’ve found a signal. What do we do?”

  The three of us beam at each other while we wait for a reply. A few seconds later: “You don’t do anything. We get a large number of errant signals a month. When your work unit is complete, it will upload automatically. If we find a signal that merits looking into, we will contact you with the information we have on record.”

  Our collective bubble bursts. “That’s it?” Kenny says, sagging into the other chair. Ryan nudges my shoulder. “Ask how long it takes.”

  I type the question, and the reply says, “Could be a few weeks.”

  “Okay,” I type, slower this time. “Thanks.”

  “Well that’s that,” I say, staring at the
patterns, which have returned to normal. “I guess we wait.”

  No one says anything for a minute, then Kenny says, “Pretty cool!” and Ryan and I say, “Yeah it is!” and we start laughing because it IS pretty cool. It’s REALLY, REALLY cool! Then I remember I was on my way to the office and I leave them high-fiving and whooping.

  I hope Mom and Dad are back because it’s getting pretty busy already. More arrivals are making their way to their cabins as I hurry down the road. I can feel the grin from finding a possible signal still splitting my face. When I round the corner toward the office, I see a girl about my age sitting on the stoop, her chin in her hands. She doesn’t look happy. I hope she and her family haven’t been waiting long.

  “Can I help you?” I ask her as I approach. I stop a few feet away and stare. She is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen outside of magazines. She has blazing blue eyes and long brown hair that shimmers where the sun hits it.

  “Not unless you can get me a different set of parents,” she says firmly. She gestures with her thumb to her parents and a younger girl. The others are talking excitedly, and turning in circles to point at different things. I’m about to interrupt when the younger girl suddenly does a back flip. In midair! Just standing there! My jaw falls open. Behind me, the girl on the stoop sighs loudly.

  “That was really cool,” I call out to the younger girl.

  “Thanks!” she replies, chewing happily on her ponytail.

  I go over to the parents. “Are you trying to check in? My mom just got caught up somewhere, but I can help you.”

  To my surprise, they both reach out and hug me!

  “You must be Ally!” the mother says. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Um, you have?”

  They pull away and I stand stiff. I can’t remember when the last time people I hadn’t met before hugged me. Never?

  “It’s US!” they exclaim, their eyes shining. “The Holdens!”

  “Um, okay.” Mom sometimes gets chatty with the people she makes reservations for, but she must have really bonded with these people. “Let’s go in.” I turn and hurry past the girl on the stoop and push open the screen door. I grab the clipboard with the daily arrivals off the desk and scan the list.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, looking up. “I don’t see your name here.”

  They laugh. “We’re a few days early,” the father says. “We just couldn’t wait to get settled in our new home.”

  I smile. It’s nice when people come to think of the Moon Shadow as their home away from home. “Well, I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “This office,” the mother says, “it’s attached to the main house, right?”

  I nod, looking around for Mom’s reservation book. She must have it with her.

  “We’d love to see the rooms later, if that’s okay,” the mom continues. “Just to peek.”

  I’m taken aback. No one has asked to see our house before. I don’t know how to respond. The girl on the stoop calls into the room. “Don’t forget you said I get first pick of rooms, not Melanie! You promised!”

  Her parents roll their eyes at each other. “We didn’t forget, Bree.”

  “Do you know if our boxes arrived yet?” the father asks. “They were supposed to get here yesterday. About twenty of them?”

  I shake my head. This conversation is starting to make less and less sense. No one has ever had boxes sent here before, let alone twenty. “I don’t think so. The mail is really slow here.” The door squeaks open behind me and Mom rushes in, sweaty and harried. I feel a flood of relief. She can sort this out. I really want to tell her about the SETI readings, but these people are obviously confused.

  “Mom, these are the Holdens. They’re checking in, but they’re a few days early. And they’re looking for some boxes they had sent ahead?”

  Her face drains of color. She stares at them in horror. A little prickle is starting to creep up my neck. Who are these people? The girl from the stoop comes in and leans against the wall.

  I clear my throat. “Um, Mom? What’s going on?”

  She recovers and, with obvious effort, forces a smile. “I wasn’t expecting you yet. We didn’t get to, I mean, we haven’t explained yet, I mean . . .” She trails off and just sort of sags a little, her smile dropping away.

  “Mom? Is everything okay?” The prickles are picking up in intensity.

  She stands there for a minute, then takes a deep breath. Reaching over to me, she takes my hands in hers. “Honey, we should have told you by now but there was never a good time. These are the Holdens.” She gestures at the group, but I don’t take my eyes from her face. “They are here to take over the Moon Shadow after the eclipse.”

  My jaw falls open. I couldn’t be more surprised if she told me NASA called to say the eclipse has been cancelled. My knees buckle. My mother tightens her grip on my hands. “WHAT? What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, wow,” the girl leaning against the wall says. “And I thought MY parents snuck this on us! But at least we had some warning.”

  “Shh, Bree!” her mother says, herding them all out the door.

  “Mom?” My voice shakes uncontrollably.

  Still holding my hands tight, she says, “Honey, your dad is going back to work in Chicago, and we’re going with him. You knew we weren’t planning on staying here forever, right?”

  It takes a minute for her words to sink in. “What? No, I didn’t! This is our home. This is all Kenny’s ever known. You can’t do this.”

  Her eyes fill with tears. “It’s time, Ally. You and Kenny need to learn to live in the world. We can’t keep you tucked away forever. You need to meet other kids your age. You need to have experiences that you can’t have here.”

  “But lots of people come through here,” I argue, my heart pounding in my ears. “And maybe we can travel more, see more places. We don’t have to MOVE.”

  She lets go of my hands and I rock back a little on my heels. “We do, honey. The Holdens are here to take over, at least for a few years.”

  I feel my hopes rise a smidge, grasping onto any small scrap. “Then we can come back?”

  She shakes her head. “No, then it will be up to them to find replacements. It won’t be hard to do. It didn’t take us long to find them.”

  Her words are starting to sink in. My brain is whirling, my stomach is churning. All these thoughts are going through my head. Why didn’t they tell us? Where are we going to live? How am I going to leave here? This place is more than just where we live. It’s a part of us. And we’re a part of it. I’m too stunned to cry.

  “I better get out to them,” Mom says, gesturing toward the front porch. “We’ll have that family meeting tonight and explain everything. I wish we had done it already, then you wouldn’t be caught off guard like this. We knew how you’d react, and didn’t want it to ruin all the eclipse excitement for you. I’m so sorry. We put it off too long.”

  “But where are we moving?”

  “Back where you were born. Near Chicago.”

  I search my brain to bring up any memories of a time before here. All I can bring up are tall buildings that blot out the sky. And a crowded, noisy department store that smells like too much perfume. It’s not much, but it’s enough to know I don’t want to live there.

  “Don’t tell Kenny,” she continues. “Let me and your father do it.”

  I shake away the blur of noise, colors, people, and smells. Why would anyone want to be there, when they can be here, where the air is clean and you can breathe? “Do you have to tell him tonight? He’s in such a good mood. I was too.” I almost don’t want to share the news with her after what they did, but she’ll find out eventually. “We found a possible signal today. In Alien Central.”

  “You did? That’s wonderful! What happens now?”

  “They said they’d let us know if the signal is real or not.”

  “Well, that’s very exciting,” she says.

  I don’t answer. It’s hard to feel
excited about anything right now. I cross my arms tight, trying to hold myself together.

  “I’m really sorry, honey,” she says, stroking my hair. “This will be a good thing, you’ll see. I do think we need to tell Kenny tonight though, so try to steer clear of him if you can.”

  One look at my face and Kenny would know something was very wrong. I’ve never been good at hiding my feelings. I’ve never had to.

  Before Mom can say anything else, Mrs. Holden comes back into the office with her older daughter, who has a name I’ve never heard of before, rhymes with knee?

  “We’re sorry to bother you,” she says. “But my daughter is anxious to find out about those boxes. She’d like to change her clothes.” The woman says the last part apologetically, with a “you know teenagers” kind of grimace.

  I take in the short, wavy skirt, the sandals, the hot pink tank top. Definitely not the usual camping attire. She looks like she stepped out of the pages of Teen magazine. One of our guests left a copy here a few years ago. When I looked at it, I felt like those girls were a different species from me. The pretty girl pulls at the top with obvious disgust. “I’ve been wearing these clothes all day,” she complains. “The taxi, the airport, the plane, the van, the diner, and now this place with all the dirt flying everywhere. A shower wouldn’t hurt either. I feel totally gross. How can you stand it, Mom?”

  Her mother leans her head in toward my mother’s and says, “Bree isn’t taking the move so well. You have to forgive her.”

  Bree’s lips form a straight line and she glares at her mother. I actually feel sorry for the girl. She apparently didn’t ask for this any more than I did.

  “Ally,” my mother says, “perhaps you’d be kind enough to take Bree up to your room? She can use your shower, and I’m sure you have some clothes you can lend her.”

  Doesn’t she see that Bree is about a foot taller than me? And thinner? And somehow I don’t think she’s going to be too excited about my clothes. Bree starts to say something, but her mother shushes her and says to me, “That would be very kind. Thank you, Ally.”