Life as We Knew It

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  I guess Ms. Hammish thinks this moon thing is historical, because in history that's what we talked about. How people throughout history have looked at the moon and comets and eclipses. Actually, that was kind of interesting. I never really thought about how when I look at the moon it's the same moon Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at. Not to mention all those zillions of people I've never heard of. All those Homo sapiens and Neanderthals looked at the very same moon as me. It waxed and waned in their sky, too.

  Of course Ms. Hammish wasn't satisfied with inspiring us like that. She gave us an assignment, too. We can write either an essay about astronomy in the past and how it affected someone in history (like if they saw a comet and it scared them or prophesized something) or an article about what's going to happen Wednesday night.

  Either way it's due on Friday.

  I don't understand teachers. You'd think they'd talk to each other and at least one of them would realize how unfair it is to give us all assignments due on Friday. I wouldn't mind if I could figure out how to double up on them, write my history essay and translate it into French (which I could maybe do if my French was good enough, which it isn't). But I don't see how to do two for the price of one, so I think I'll have to write three separate papers (and one in French) and hand them all in on Friday.

  I'll really be sick of the moon by then.

  This moon thing is supposed to happen around 9:30 Wednesday night, and Mom was interested enough that we watched the news tonight. They said asteroids hit the moon pretty often, which is how the moon gets its craters, but this one is going to be the biggest asteroid ever to hit it and on a clear night you should be able to see the impact when it happens, maybe even with the naked eye but certainly with binoculars. They made it sound pretty dramatic, but I still don't think it's worth three homework assignments.

  Mom watched the local news, too, which she almost never does because she says it's too depressing, and they're predicting a really nice night. Clear skies and temperatures in the low 60s. They said in New York people are organizing parties for Central Park and on apartment rooftops. I asked Mom if we could have a party, and she said no, but people on our road will probably be out watching and it'll be like having a block party.

  I don't know how interesting it's really going to be, but compared to everything else in my life, at least it's something different.

  May 17

  I got an 82 on my math test. There were at least four questions I should have gotten right but made careless mistakes on.

  I know for a fact that Sammi's mother hasn't looked at a test result of hers in years, and Megan's mom has always worried about who Megan hangs out with, but I don't think she cares all that much about her grades. I had to get stuck with the mother who works at home and has plenty of time to check things out and hover and demand to see tests.

  We didn't have a big fight over it (I did pass, after all), but Mom gave me one of her famous You Shouldn't Be So Careless lectures, which I get at least once a week and sometimes more than that if the mood strikes her.

  Mom said since I'm prone to carelessness, etc., it might be a good idea if I got a head start on all my moon papers, especially since they didn't have to be about whatever is going to happen tomorrow.

  She suggested writing about the 1969 moon landing, so I Googled it, and I found out lots of people didn't really care that there were men walking on the moon. They all watched Star Trek (the original, old lousy-special-effects Beam Me Up Scotty Star Trek) and they were used to seeing Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock hopping around the universe so real people walking on the real moon wasn't as exciting.

  I think that's funny. Men were walking on the moon for the very first time in history and people preferred watching Dr. McCoy say, "He's dead, Jim," for the thousandth time.

  I wasn't exactly sure how to turn that into a paper, so Mom and I talked about it, about how fiction can have more power than reality and how in 1969 there was a lot of cynicism because of Vietnam and the sixties and all that and there were people who didn't think men were really on the moon and thought it was a hoax.

  I think I'll do my French paper on what happens tomorrow night, because my French isn't good enough for stuff like hoaxes and cynicism. For English I'm focusing on how fiction can be more exciting than reality and for history I'll focus on how people in the '60s were cynical about what the government told them.

  I told Mom that Sammi said it was sure to rain tomorrow night because it always rains when something important is supposed to happen in the sky and she laughed and said she had never known a more pessimistic 15-year-old.

  I'll be at Dad's when Sammi turns 16. I have a feeling if she has a party, it'll be all boys, so it probably won't matter.

  Around 10, something kind of odd happened. I was working on my paper and Mom was arguing with Jonny about going to bed, when the phone rang. We never get calls that late, so we all jumped. I got to the phone first and it was Matt.

  "Are you okay?" I asked him. Matt never calls that late and he pretty much never calls on a weekday night.

  "I'm fine," he said. "I just wanted to hear your voices."

  I told Mom it was Matt. Jonny took the kitchen phone and she used the one in her bedroom. We told him what was going on (I complained about my three moon papers), and he told us about what he has left to do at school. Then he and Mom talked about the arrangements for him to get home.

  This was all perfectly normal stuff, but it didn't feel right. Jonny hung up first and then Mom, and I managed to get Matt to stay on a minute longer.

  "Are you sure everything's okay?" I asked him.

  He paused for a moment. "I have a funny feeling," he said. "I guess it's this moon business."

  Matt's always been the one to explain things to me. Mom had her writing and Jonny, and Dad was at work (for as long as he was here), so Matt was the one I turned to. I don't think he's psychic and maybe it's just because he's three years older than me, but whenever I've had a question he's seemed to know the answer.

  "You don't think anything is going to go wrong?" I asked him. "It's not like the meteor is going to hit us. It's just the moon."

  "I know," he said. "But things might get a little crazy tomorrow night. Phone lines might get tied up, people calling each other. Sometimes people panic even if there's no reason."

  "You really think people are going to panic?" I asked. "Around here, it just seems like an excuse for teachers to give us even more work."

  Matt laughed. "Teachers never need an excuse for that," he said. "Anyway, I figured I'd find you all home tonight and it'd be a good chance for me to say hello."

  "I miss you," I said. "I'm glad you're coming home."

  "Me too," he said. He paused for a moment. "Are you still keeping that journal of yours?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Good," he said. "Be sure to write about tomorrow. You'll probably enjoy reading all the details twenty years from now."

  "You just want me to keep a record of all your clever sayings," I replied. "For your many biographers."

  "Well, that, too," he said. "See you in a few days."

  When we hung up, I couldn't figure out if I felt better because he'd called or worse. If Matt's worried, then I'm worried.

  But maybe all Matt is worried about is getting through his papers and exams.

  TWO

  May 18

  Sometimes when Mom is getting ready to write a book she says she doesn't know where to start, that the ending is so clear to her that the beginning doesn't seem important anymore. I feel that way now only I don't know what the ending is, not even what the ending is tonight. We've been trying to get Dad on his land line and cell phone for hours and all we get are the kind of rapid-paced busy signals that mean the circuits are tied up. I don't know how much longer Mom'll keep trying or whether we'll talk to him before I fall asleep. If I fall asleep.

  This morning seems like a million years ago. I remember seeing the moon in the sun
rise sky. It was a half moon, but it was clearly visible and I looked at it and thought about how tonight the meteor was going to hit it and how exciting that would be.

  But it wasn't like we talked about it on the bus going to school. Sammi was complaining about the dress code for the prom, nothing strapless, nothing too short, and how she wanted a dress she could wear when she went clubbing.

  Megan got on the bus with some of her church friends and they sat together. Maybe they talked about the meteor, but I think they just prayed. They do that on the bus sometimes or read Bible verses.

  The whole school day was just normal.

  I remember being bored in French class.

  I stayed for swim practice after school, and then Mom picked me up. She said she'd invited Mrs. Nesbitt to watch the meteor along with us but Mrs. Nesbitt had said she'd be more comfortable watching at home. So it was just going to be Jonny and Mom and me for the big event. That's what she called it: the big event.

  She also told me to finish my homework early so we could make a party of it after supper. So that's what I did. I finished two of my moon assignments and did my math homework and then we ate supper and watched CNN until around 8:30.

  All CNN talked about was the moon. They had a bunch of astronomers on and you could see how excited they were.

  "Maybe after I'm through playing second for the Yankees, I'll be an astronomer," Jonny said.

  I'd been thinking the exact same thing (well, not about playing second for the Yankees). The astronomers looked like they loved what they were doing. You could see how excited they were that this asteroid was going to make a direct hit on the moon. They had charts and computer projections and graphics, but basically they looked like big kids at Christmas.

  Mom had gotten out Matt's telescope and she'd found the really good pair of binoculars that had somehow hidden themselves last summer. She'd even baked chocolate chip cookies for the event, so we carried a plate out and napkins. We decided to watch from the road, since we figured we'd have a better view from up front. Mom and I brought out lawn chairs, but Jonny decided to use the telescope. We didn't know exactly how long the hit was going to take or if there'd be something exciting to see afterward.

  It seemed like everyone on the road was out tonight. Some of the people were on their decks having late barbecues, but most everyone else was in front of their houses, like we were. The only one I didn't see was Mr. Hopkins, but I could tell from the glow in his living room that he was watching on TV.

  It was like a big block party. The houses are so widespread on our road, you couldn't really hear anything, just a general happy buzz.

  When it got closer to 9:30, things got really quiet. You could sense how we were all craning our necks, looking toward the sky. Jonny was at the telescope, and he was the first one who shouted that the asteroid was coming. He could see it in the night sky, and then we all could, the biggest shooting star you could imagine. It was a lot smaller than the moon, but bigger than anything else I'd ever seen in the sky. It looked like it was blazing and we all cheered when we saw it.

  For a moment I thought about all the people throughout history who saw Halley's Comet and didn't know what it was, just that it was there and frightening and awe inspiring. For the briefest flick of a second, I could have been a 16-year-old in the Middle Ages looking up at the sky, marveling at its mysteries, or an Aztec or an Apache. For that tiny instant, I was every 16-year-old in history, not knowing what the skies foretold about my future.

  And then it hit. Even though we knew it was going to, we were still shocked when the asteroid actually made contact with the moon. With our moon. At that second, I think we all realized that it was Our Moon and if it was attacked, then we were attacked.

  Or maybe nobody thought that. I know most of the people on the road cheered, but then we all stopped cheering and a woman a few houses down screamed and then a man screamed, "Oh my God!" and people were yelling "What? What?" like one of us knew the answer.

  I know all those astronomers I'd watched an hour earlier on CNN can explain just what happened and how and why and they'll be explaining on CNN tonight and tomorrow and I guess until the next big story happens. I know I can't explain, because I don't really know what happened and I sure don't know why.

  But the moon wasn't a half moon anymore. It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger, large like a moon rising on the horizon, only it wasn't rising. It was smack in the middle of the sky, way too big, way too visible. You could see details on the craters even without the binoculars that before I'd seen with Matt's telescope.

  It wasn't like a big chunk of it flew off into space. It wasn't like we could hear the sound of the impact, or even that the asteroid hit the moon dead center. It was like if you're playing marbles and one marble hits another on its side and pushes it diagonally.

  It was still our moon and it was still just a big dead rock in the sky, but it wasn't benign anymore. It was terrifying, and you could feel the panic swell all around us. Some people raced to their cars and started speeding away. Others began praying or weeping. One household began singing "The Star Spangled Banner."

  "I'm going to call Matt," Mom said, like that was the most natural thing in the world to do. "Come on in, kids. We'll see what CNN has to say about all this."

  "Mom, is the world coming to an end?" Jonny asked, picking up the plate of cookies and ramming one into his mouth.

  "No, it isn't," Mom said, folding her lawn chair and carrying it to the front of the house. "And yes, you do have to go to school tomorrow."

  We laughed at that. I'd been wondering the same thing.

  Jonny put the cookies away and I turned the TV back on. Only there was no CNN.

  "Maybe I'm wrong," Mom said. "Maybe the world really is coming to an end."

  "Should I try Fox News?" I asked.

  Mom shuddered. "We're not that desperate," she said. "Try one of the networks. They'll have their own set of astronomers."

  Most of the networks were off, but our local channel seemed to be carrying NBC out of Philly. Even that was weird, because we get New York City feeds.

  Mom kept trying to get Matt's cell phone, but without any luck. The Philly news broadcasters didn't seem to know much more than we did, although they were reporting some looting and general panic in the streets.

  "Go check how things are outside," Mom told me, so I went back out. I could see the glow from Mrs. Nesbitt's TV set. There was still some praying going on in someone's backyard, but at least the screaming had stopped.

  I forced myself to look at the moon. I think I was afraid I'd see it had grown even bigger, that it really was lumbering its way to earth to crush us all to death, but it didn't seem to have gotten any larger. It was still off, though, still tilted in a funny way, and still too large for the night sky. And it was still three quarters.

  "My cell phone is out!" someone screamed a few doors down, and she sounded the way we'd felt when we saw CNN was gone. Civilization had ended.

  "Check your cell phone," I told Mom when I came back in, so she did, and hers wasn't working, either.

  "I guess cell phones are out in this part of the country," she said.

  "I'm sure Matt's okay," I said. "Why don't I check e-mails? Maybe he sent us one from his laptop."

  So I went online, or rather I tried to go online, because our Internet connection was dead.

  "He's fine," Mom said when I told her. "There's no reason to think he isn't fine. The moon is right where it belongs. Matt'll call us when he has the chance."

  And that was the one thing Mom said all evening that turned out to be true. Because about ten minutes later, the phone rang, and it was Matt.

  "I can't talk long," he said. "I'm at a pay phone and there's a line of people waiting for me to finish. I just wanted to check in and let you know I'm okay."

  "Where are you?" Mom asked.

  "In town," he said. "When we realized our cells weren't working, some of us drove to town
just so we could phone in. I'll talk to you tomorrow when things aren't so crazy."

  "Be careful," Mom said and Matt promised he would be.

  I guess it was around then Jonny asked if we could call Dad, and Mom started trying to reach him. But the phone lines were crazy all over. I asked her to call Grandma in Las Vegas, but we couldn't get through to her, either.

  We sat down in front of the TV to see what was happening to the rest of the world. The funniest thing was that Mom and I both jumped up at the exact same moment to get the chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen. I beat her to it, and brought the plate in. We all started devouring them. Mom would eat a cookie, sit still for a few moments, then get up and try Dad or Grandma. Jonny, who's really good about limiting the number of sweets he eats, just kept ramming cookies into his mouth. I would have eaten an entire box of chocolates if there'd been any in the house.

  The TV connection went in and out, but we never got cable back. Finally Jonny thought to bring out a radio, and we turned that on. We couldn't get any of the New York stations, but Philly was coming in strong.

  At first they didn't seem to know much more than we did. The moon got hit, like we'd been told it would. Only something had been miscalculated.

  But before some astronomer could come on and explain to the rest of us just what had gone wrong, there was a bulletin. First we heard it on the radio, and then we got enough TV reception to see it as well, so we turned the radio off.

  Whoever was broadcasting the news must have heard it over his little earphone, because he actually turned pale and then said, "Are you sure? Has that been confirmed?" He paused for a moment to listen to the reply, and then he kind of turned to face the camera.