Nova gasped and removed her fingertips from the picture of planets. She tried to concentrate. She did not want to miss out on X-Block, so even though it was hard, she did her best job during testing, like Francine wanted.
“This has been your most productive session yet!” Mrs. Pierce exclaimed when it was time to turn Nova over to Miss Chambers. “I’m proud of you.”
Miss Chambers was going to work with Nova on eye contact. She’d call her name, wait for her to look, say “Good looking,” and give her a gummy. This was one of Nova’s most difficult tasks. She hated looking straight into Miss Chambers’s eyes. Anybody’s eyes, really. Didn’t matter who. She never even liked looking into Bridget’s eyes. Nova squinted. Come to think of it, she could not remember what Bridget’s eyes looked like. They were brown, right? Like Nova’s?
Nova touched her eyelids as if her fingers could figure out the answer.
“Hands down,” said Miss Chambers. “Nova?”
Nova did not look at her.
“Nova?” Miss Chambers guided her by the chin until they were staring face to face. “Good looking!”
After lunch, she let herself be led into a game of Hot Potato with Basketball Alex, Quiet Mary-Beth, and Bouncing Buddy. Miss Chambers tried to get Mallory to play too, but she said, “Why should I? It’s a stupid boring baby game for stupid boring babies.”
“That is not appropriate!” Miss Chambers scolded. “Apologize to your friends.”
“Sorry,” said Mallory, but then she looked at Nova and rolled her eyes. Nova tried to roll her eyes back, but without a mirror she wasn’t sure if she did it right. She might have just raised her eyebrows.
Miss Chambers held Nova’s hands to help her catch and pass the lumpy brown cloth potato before the music stopped. Mallory is right, thought Nova. This is a stupid boring baby game.
Afternoon time in Mr. O’Reilly’s room seemed to last much longer than usual. Nova found herself glancing over and over again at the clock, even though it was the round kind she didn’t know how to read.
Finally, X-Block!
Nova’s high school student volunteer, Stephanie, arrived. She introduced herself as “a space and science superfan.”
“Say hello,” prompted Mrs. Pierce. Nova waved.
“We’re going to have so much fun! Is your name really Nova? Like, as in supernova? That’s so cool. Do you know what that is? A supernova?”
Nova looked at Stephanie (not in the eyes) and shrugged.
“Oh my stars, let me tell you. A supernova is the coolest thing ever!” Stephanie tugged Nova’s hand, ready to head to X-Block, but Mrs. Pierce stopped her.
“There are a couple of things we have to go over first,” she said. “Wait just a minute, please, Nova.”
While Nova waited just a minute, she tapped her fingers against her chin. She knew what a supernova was. She was a Super Nova. Bridget said so. She’d said so on the very first night they were in foster care.
And Bridget was never wrong.
* * *
The very first night Nova and Bridget spent in foster care, they were worried.
Five-year-old Nova was worried about who would take care of them without Mama.
Ten-year-old Bridget was worried about who would take care of Mama without them.
Bridget asked lots of questions but no one answered. Nova had lots of questions but could not ask.
After the sun went down but long before Johnny Carson, their new foster mother settled them into a small bedroom with two beds, no night-light, and silence.
Nova did not want two beds. She was used to sleeping in the same bed as Bridget. Plus she hated being stuck in the dark, like in the belly of the sheep. At Mama’s house they had a night-light, plus the light from the hall came in through the open door.
And there was no music. At Mama’s house the radio played soft music, Bruce and Bowie and the Top 40 Hits, even when the TV aired static. At the foster home, all they could hear were outside sounds like crickets and trees. With everything in the house silent, every car passing by on the dirt road sounded like a speeding train. It was too much of the wrong kind of noise.
After their new foster mother left the room, Bridget counted out loud to a hundred. Then she got up, turned the light back on, and slipped into bed with Nova.
“I wished on three stars from the bathroom window tonight,” Bridget whispered. “Three wishes to go back home to Mama.”
Nova did not answer. She just covered her face. She was too upset to think about wishing.
“Nova, it’s going to be okay. I’m still here.”
Nova did not answer. She just sniffled. She was happy with Bridget, but she wanted Mama too.
“Super Nova?” Bridget nudged her. “Did I ever tell you about the day you were born?”
Nova did not answer. She hugged NASA Bear, snuggled closer to Bridget, and closed her eyes.
“You were born on July nineteenth, 1973,” Bridget whispered. “It was the hottest day of the whole year. Mama had the radio on all morning, dancing while we waited for you. She said dancing would help you come faster. When it was time, we grabbed the bag for the hospital, and she asked me to take the radio too, the one with batteries. She didn’t listen to static then. She only listened to music. Mama loved music, like me.”
Nova smiled. Bridget loved music and she loved to sing. Nova loved listening to her sing.
“It was just us, me and Mama, until you came. Daddy was already gone. He got sent to Vietnam before Christmas to fight some guy named Charlie, but he promised to be back before you were born. He promised and we believed him so we waited and waited.”
Nova kissed NASA Bear’s helmet. She’d never met her daddy. They were still waiting.
“First the army said he was missing. Later they said he was KIA. That means Killed in Action. Then Mama said sometimes people make promises they can’t keep and she cried. She cried a lot, for days and days. But that’s another story. On the day you were born, we still thought Daddy was coming back.”
Nova had only one picture of Daddy, standing beside a flag. He looked like Bridget if Bridget was a grown-up man in an army uniform. They had the same round face, the same broad shoulders, and the same crooked smile. Nova looked more like Mama. Small nose, delicate hands, frazzled hair. That was all Nova really remembered about how Mama looked, and the only picture she had left of Mama didn’t show her face.
“When I first saw you, you looked all red and angry and wailing. I asked Mama what was wrong and she said maybe you were more comfortable in her tummy than in her arms, but she was laughing about it. I wasn’t laughing. You hurt my ears!”
Nova smiled. She liked picturing Bridget with her hands over her ears. She knew how it felt to have hurt ears.
“She also said when you were born your face was blue, so red was an improvement. I asked what your name was. She said she didn’t pick one yet.”
“Oh-ah,” said Nova, tapping her chest under the covers.
“That’s right,” said Bridget. “Nova. Good job saying it.”
Nova smiled. She liked hearing “good job” for saying her name. Those N and V sounds were hard!
“Then two days went by, it was almost time to go back home, and you still didn’t have a name. Mama and me were sitting in her hospital bed together listening to the radio, watching you sleep. You were a lot cuter sleeping than you were screaming. Bruce Springsteen was on, a song called ‘It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.’ Mama loves Bruce like we love David Bowie. The beginning goes, ‘I was born blue and weathered but I burst just like a supernova.’ The ‘born blue’ part reminded me of you, so when Mama asked, ‘Well, Bridgey-bug, what should we name her?’ I said, ‘Supernova.’ ”
Nova smiled. She liked thinking about space and David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen and Mama listening to music.
&
nbsp; “Mama thought Supernova was silly. She asked, ‘How do we know how super she’ll be?’ She was only joking but I said, ‘Okay, regular Nova, then.’ Mama liked it, especially since it came from Bruce, so that’s your name and it’s perfect. You are super. Nothing can hurt you, or bring you down, and no one can take you away from me. You’re my Super Nova.”
Nova rested her head on Bridget’s chest, listening to her heartbeat. She didn’t feel so scared once she found out she was super.
* * *
Finally, Mrs. Pierce was through talking with Stephanie, and she and Nova were on their way down the hall. While they walked, Stephanie talked.
“A supernova is the biggest, most massive kind of explosion that exists in the whole galaxy. Maybe in the whole universe. When a supernova happens, a star gets so bright it can outshine all the other stars around it, even brighter than our sun! It’s like a gigantic firework in a sea of stars. It explodes because there’s a change in its core—that’s the center—and…” Stephanie glanced up at the clock above the doors that led out to the parking lot. “Oh my stars! We’re going to be late! Let’s go!”
Stephanie hurried her up the stairs to the planetarium, where the rest of the class was filing in. Stephanie and Nova sat a little apart from everyone else, near the exit.
“Mrs. Pierce said we should in case we need to leave early,” Stephanie explained.
As much as Nova hated it when people talked to her too slow and too loud, she wished Stephanie wouldn’t zip through everything so quickly and so quietly. While the rest of the class got settled, Stephanie hurriedly hissed odd tidbits of information about astronomy she remembered from her days in middle school. All those whispered words made Nova feel light-headed. She stared straight up at the domed ceiling. Without warning, the lights switched off. Nova jumped in her seat, letting out a squeak and dropping NASA Bear. A couple of kids giggled. Stephanie picked up the bear and handed it back to her.
Their teacher stood in the center of the room. He was so short and skinny he could pass for a fifth grader if not for his long graying beard. He reminded Nova of the garden gnome one former foster family kept in their front yard. Nova pictured him wearing a red pointy hat.
“Greetings, Earthlings! We have two new students in astronomy starting this week. Welcome to the stratosphere, Zach Zbornak and Nova Vezina! Wave to the class!”
Zach Zbornak stood up, held up both hands while flashing the peace sign, then took a deep bow, which made some of the boys laugh. At Stephanie’s urging, Nova stood up too, waved one hand awkwardly (but not backward like Buddy), and sat back down.
“Nice to have you both with us! I’m Mr. Mindy. Let’s get started.”
Mr. Mindy switched on a lamp in the center of the planetarium and proceeded to lecture in semidarkness about Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and the reading kids were supposed to have done since last week’s class. Nova covered her ears to block out the sound of pencils flying across paper all around her. She felt like she’d fallen into the center of a scratching post surrounded by a dozen angry cats.
Finally, Mr. Mindy clicked the lamp off, hit another switch, and said, “Now we turn to the stars.”
Nova’s breath caught in her throat. She needed Billy beside her to remind her to breathe. Above her and all around, tiny flecks of light danced and shone. They began as distant pinpricks but grew larger and brighter and closer and closer until they were flying at her face. She reached a hand up, clasping it in midair, certain she could catch one before it slammed directly into her nose. She and NASA Bear were soaring through space as stars whizzed faster than the speed of light, until, abruptly, the movement ceased. Nova braced herself, holding on to the arms of her chair, breathing heavy. Perhaps they were about to make a soft landing on the moon.
Nova had never felt this way before. It was as if all of the space inside her was filling filling filling and expanding expanding expanding. She wondered if this was how the universe felt in the milliseconds before its creation, when all that there was became hotter and hotter until BANG—an explosion forced the stars and moons and planets and galaxies into formation and set the universe off on a course toward eventual life. This was how Bridget had described the “Big Bang.”
“When all that existed up until that point was so dense and thick and full-to-bursting, when it could either collapse in to form a star or explode, it exploded, expanding outward to create everything. Except that it wasn’t an explosion, not really, it was more like…like a moment in time that created everything. Oh, I’m not describing it well!”
Nova had scrunched up her face, trying to understand, trying to imagine it. As if Bridget read her mind, she exclaimed, “You can’t imagine it, Nova! That split second billions of years ago resulted in everything existing all of a sudden, born from nothingness!”
Maybe Nova could not imagine or understand it, but here, in the planetarium, she could feel it. She knew at any moment she would either collapse in on herself too, or explode. Though she tried to choke it back, a sob escaped her throat. Tears welled up in her eyes as the stars illuminated in the dome surrounded and consumed her. It was beautiful, much more beautiful than the solar system poster or the cool blue stone in her mood ring.
“Do you want to leave?” whispered Stephanie, which made Nova flinch because she’d forgotten where she was and that there were other people around. She shook her head and then hit herself in the temple one-two-three-four times to calm down.
“Nova?”
Nova shook her head again and wrapped her arms protectively around NASA Bear and tried to pretend she could feel Bridget there beside her. She wouldn’t leave now for all of the rings around Saturn.
Above them and all around, the stars froze in place. Nova was now viewing the night sky as it might appear out the circular window at the end of the attic after the streetlights clicked out. As suddenly as they had stopped, the stars began to move again, this time all to the left as if being spun on a globe, getting blurry until finally coming back into focus.
Mr. Mindy spoke from somewhere in the pitch-black center of the room.
“Here is where we left off last week.”
A neon-green line formed in the sky, connecting a series of stars almost straight above the center of the room.
“Ursa Major: the Great Bear. One of the constellations we can see from our homes throughout most of the year, if it’s dark enough outside, Ursa Major is the third-largest…”
Nova could not concentrate on his voice and the room around her at the same time. She still couldn’t quite breathe but she wasn’t panicking either. She remembered the word Francine had used with Principal Dowling: “Overwhelmed.” That was it, Nova realized. She felt overwhelmed. She took in air and her lungs expelled it but it felt like her heart had grown three sizes…like the heart of the Grinch in one of Francine’s Dr. Seuss bedtime stories.
The rest of the class faded away again. Stephanie was gone. Zach Zbornak was gone. Mr. Mindy was gone.
Even Bridget was gone.
And Nova was floating.
She held on tight to NASA Bear, afraid he might drift away due to lack of gravity, but he didn’t seem to be having the same breathing difficulties she was. Probably because of his space helmet. He was safe anywhere in the known universe.
The stars in the room swirled again.
“Hydra,” a faraway voice was saying. “The largest constellation, named for a many-headed serpent in Greek mythology…”
In her head, Nova heard the voice of David Bowie.
“And the stars look very different today…”
For the second time in under ten minutes, her eyes filled with tears. She saw a shooting star above, so she made a wish. She wished the door would open and her sister would burst in. Bridget had never been to a planetarium either. If she had, surely she would have said so. Experiencing this magic without Bridget felt funn
y, but not the fun kind of funny. The bad kind of funny. Nova winced and wriggled as the funny feeling tugged at her tummy.
Nova bit her lip and hugged NASA Bear so hard his stuffing must’ve hurt.
“Cool, right?” whispered Stephanie.
The faraway voice hummed on, lecturing about this constellation and that. Nova covered her ears, choosing to listen to “Space Oddity” instead.
“And the stars look very different today…”
Another constellation.
Another neon-green line connecting the stars.
And another.
And another.
Words from the faraway voice invaded her brain. “Orion, Aries, Gemini, Leo, Lyra…”
Too soon, the lamp in the center of the room flicked on. The stars above and all around them went dark. Nova frowned.
“Next week’s assignment…,” Mr. Mindy began. Nova tuned him out while Stephanie jotted the information down in her notebook. After what seemed like an eternity, the astronomy teacher again extinguished the lamp. “For the last couple minutes of class, let’s sit back and enjoy…” He dragged out that last word, grinning, and didn’t finish his sentence, much to Nova’s annoyance.
“Enjoy what?” called out one of the boys, impatient.
“I’m sitting back!” another boy shouted.
“Don’t leave us hanging, Mr. Mindy!” added a third.
Nova wondered if they would be scolded for not raising hands, but Mr. Mindy kept right on grinning, twirling his beard.
“Let’s sit back and enjoy…a meteor shower!”
He flipped a switch.
Twinkling and blinking, getting brighter and dimmer, shooting stars enveloped Nova and NASA Bear, streaking across the sky. Out of the corner of her eye, Nova thought she caught a glimpse of the Little Prince, riding by on his asteroid planet. She squealed and bounced and flapped in her seat, unable to control her excitement, happier than she’d been since before Bridget went away.
Planet Earth Is Blue Page 6
