Planet Earth Is Blue

by Nicole Panteleakos

  Today Francine wanted me to read with her. She made flash cards. They were like the flash cards you made for me in kindergarten except these had no pictures on the back. I think I should be happy because she said she was happy, but I feel not happy. Even though I know my ABCs, reading is hard and writing is harder and I’m afraid I’ll never be able to do it like you do. I’ve always hated how X makes a Z sound and C makes an S sound. I also hate how b and p and d and q all look kind of the same but are not the same. And I really hated how when you told me “Lowercase A is just a moon with a tail!” I could not get my tail to attach to my moon.

  I am sorry I hit you when you said try again. I did not want to try again but it was not nice to hit you. At school Mrs. Pierce says “Happy Hands” means no hitting. She says hitting is very bad. She says after we hit, we say sorry. So I am also sorry I did not say sorry after I hit you, Bridget.

  And I am extra sorry because I hit Bouncing Buddy at school yesterday.

  It happened at Morning Circle. I was trying to make Music Margot’s head stay up when Miss Chambers made me switch seats with Bouncing Buddy. This put me next to Wispy Lip Luke and him next to Bossy Mallory.

  During the Pledge of Allegiance, Buddy stopped bouncing and snatched Mallory’s glasses right off her face.

  “Give them back, Buddy!” she shouted. He put them on his own face. She screamed louder, “Give them back!”

  He ran away from Circle and jumped up on my desk. He was laughing. Mallory started to cry, which is different because Quiet Mary-Beth is usually the one who cries. Mallory says crying is for babies.

  Mrs. Pierce asked Buddy two times very nicely to give them back but he did not so I climbed up on the table too and punched him in the shoulder. Then I took back Mallory’s glasses and brought them to her. Buddy climbed down and went back to his seat.

  Mallory was happy and I was happy but Miss Chambers was not happy. She said, “Happy Hands means no hitting, Nova! Hitting our friends is never allowed!”

  After school when Francine came, Mrs. Pierce told her about what I did.

  On the drive home, Francine said she was “very disappointed” in me.

  NASA Bear felt very disappointed too.

  Am I turning into a bad girl? One who burns cookies, hits friends, and does not try hard at testing?

  Tomorrow Mrs. Steele will come.

  I want Billy and Francine to tell her good things, not like the last foster family who always told her bad things.

  I want them to say I can stay.

  I want them to let you stay too.

  I want you and the Wests together to be my forever family.

  I want you to be proud of me.

  The Challenger launches in three days, Bridget.

  I will be waiting for you at Jefferson Middle School in Mr. O’Reilly’s classroom on the first floor, sixth-grade wing, room 106, past the Bridge to Terabithia poster.

  I know you will find me because you found me before, and also because you promised.

  But every day I’m a little more worried.

  I miss you.

  Love,

  Your Super Nova

  Joanie woke Nova up early on Sunday morning.

  “Get dressed,” she whispered. “We’re going to breakfast at the diner, just us!”

  Nova hopped out of bed. She loved the diner. They had silver dollar pancakes with whipped butter and pecan syrup at the diner. She rushed to the bathroom and returned with her teeth brushed and face washed. She pulled on her favorite Olive Green overalls, which Joanie fastened, over a long-sleeved Brick-Red-and-Maize-striped shirt, with Cornflower blue slouch socks. Joanie fixed her hair and tried to give her a hug, but Nova wriggled away. She liked Joanie and she liked the diner, but she still did not like hugging….Not much, anyway.

  “Come on, let’s go! We have to be back before Mrs. Steele gets here.”

  Nova frowned. In her the excitement over the diner, she’d forgotten about the social worker. Knowing Mrs. Steele would soon be in the house suddenly had Nova’s stomach all in knots, knots like the ones in her shoelaces she could never untangle. Even though she’d seen Mrs. Steele every single month for the past five years, she could not help fearing each visit. This was mostly because she never knew ahead of time if it was going to be a check or a removal. But once they got to the diner she didn’t want to ruin breakfast, so like Peter Pan she tried to “think happy thoughts.”

  Joanie insisted Nova order her own food by pointing to pictures on the menu. Nova chose the silver dollar pancakes, of course, with a side of bacon, and doused both with pecan syrup. Joanie ordered eggs and corned beef hash with toast and they drank Coke from glass bottles. While they ate, Joanie talked and talked and talked. Nova tried to listen, but she was distracted by the sights and sounds in the diner, which was already bustling even though it was only nine-thirty, which meant church hadn’t let out yet (there was always a line at the door once church let out). She smiled, though, and said “Mm” every so often, and Joanie seemed happy because she kept smiling too.

  On the drive back, Joanie pulled over. She turned down the music—she’d been singing along to “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie, while Nova, in the front seat beside her, was tapping her hands on her knees to the beat—and put the car in park.

  “That song had me thinking,” said Joanie. She pointed to something on the side of the road. “See the cross on the embankment, Nova?”

  It was painted white, made of wood, stuck in the mud.

  “I know you’ve ridden by it before, with Mom.”

  “Mm,” said Nova. Yes, Francine had pointed it out before, but Nova wasn’t sure she was supposed to care. A cross was nothing but painted wood stuck in the ground. She did not look at the cross. She was ready to be All Done with this talk now.

  “The cross reminds us that…that we…” Joanie paused, searching for words. “We miss people when they’re gone, but we keep them with us by remembering them. Even if they’re not passed, but, like, gone for some reason, we miss them and remember them—like how I miss my brothers because they all grew up and moved away. I keep a picture of them in my room, and when I look at it I remember all the time I spent following them around when I was younger, before they went to college. Like how I’m leaving to go back to college tomorrow. Which is why we went to the diner. You know?”

  Joanie wasn’t making much sense, in Nova’s opinion, so Nova did not know. But she said “Mm” because she was ready to be All Done.

  Joanie was not All Done.

  “And that’s okay! It’s okay for you to miss your mom, and it’s okay for me to miss my brothers, like how I know you miss Bridget…”

  Nova tilted her head slightly. Missing someone was what you did when they were away, when they were gone. She remembered Bridget telling her that when they were first taken away from Mama.

  “I know you miss Mama,” Bridget used to say. “I miss her too.”

  But Nova didn’t miss Mama. Not anymore. She could hardly remember her, and what she did remember was just okay. They baked one time and that was fun, and they would walk down to the brook to skip stones sometimes, but she didn’t know what to expect with Mama. Not like Bridget.

  “So, like, what I’m trying to say…”

  “Mm!” Nova wanted to tell her to just spit it out already.

  “I guess my point is that family is…there are a lot of different kinds of families, you know?”

  “Mm,” said Nova. She couldn’t help feeling like she was overusing that word today, but this time, she did know. Their first foster mother read them a book about All Kinds of Families.

  “Some kids live with two parents, some live with grandparents, some have lots of brothers, some have just one sister, and some are only children. You see?”

  Nova did not see how this fam
ily stuff had anything to do with sitting here by a cross on the side of the road or with the diner or with college or with David Bowie on the radio.

  “In some families, everyone looks alike. Like my two oldest brothers. People used to think they were twins! But sometimes family members look really different, like my mom and me, with different skin color, different hair texture, different eyes…you know? And that’s okay.”

  “Mm?” Nova bounced in her seat and tap-tap-tapped the radio dial. More music, not more silly talk about families having different eyes. She couldn’t even remember Bridget’s eyes.

  “Also, it’s okay to miss someone we love when they’re not with us, but it’s okay to learn to love new people too.” Joanie reached across the middle seat like she was going to hold Nova’s tapping hand, but Nova pulled it back and dug her fingers into NASA Bear’s fur so Joanie’s hand retreated to the steering wheel. “I know you miss Bridget and want her to come back, and you miss your mom and probably want her back too, but I also know that my parents adore you, and I do too, so…what if we could be your family? That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”

  This time, Nova didn’t say “Mm.” She stared at Joanie’s dark purple fingernails on the steering wheel and thought about how Bridget used to paint hers too. Neon green was her favorite. She sometimes tried to do Nova’s to match, but Nova couldn’t sit still long enough for them to dry so polish would end up on her clothes and fuzz would end up on her nails.

  Joanie continued. “Bridget will always be your big sister like my big brothers will always be my big brothers, but maybe we could be sisters too. You and me. Like a forever family. You know?”

  Nova didn’t know the answer to that one. She had never wanted any other sisters. Just Bridget. Bridget and Nova. Like Beezus and Ramona. But she had fun with Joanie. She wanted to stay with the Wests. She liked the idea of a forever family.

  “Like I said, I’m going back to college tomorrow.” This time Joanie did reach out and touch her hand, but only for a second. “I’ll miss you, but I’ll be home again for Easter. You’ll meet my brothers then too. And their wives. And my nephews! They’re the cutest. They’ll love you! Mom says you know a lot of words, like moon and cat, so maybe we can write letters while I’m gone? And I’ll leave you a picture of me and take a picture of you with me. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Nova nodded thoughtfully. It would be nice…but what would Bridget say?

  “My family’s been sort of empty since my brothers all went to college and moved far away. But when Mom and Dad brought you home, I don’t know, the house started to feel more…complete. I like it. I like having a little sister…” Joanie picked up NASA Bear and kissed his bubble helmet. “And I like having an astronaut teddy in the house too.”

  “Na-ah,” said Nova, pointing to the word on his chest. “Na-ah Beah.”

  “NASA Bear?” asked Joanie. “Is that his name?”

  Nova squeaked and grinned, bouncing in her seat. She touched the logo on his uniform again.

  “Na-ah Beah! Ah! Mm! Na-ah Beah!”

  “NASA Bear,” repeated Joanie, grinning back. She sat him in the middle seat and shook his furry paw. “Welcome to the family, NASA Bear.”

  When they pulled into the driveway a few minutes later, a familiar wood-paneled station wagon was parked off to one side. Mrs. Steele had arrived. The knot in Nova’s tummy returned, the one she’d had when writing to Bridget yesterday and had again in the morning before the diner. It threatened to make the pecan syrup pancakes come back up, so she swallowed several times, but that didn’t help.

  “Come on,” said Joanie, taking Nova’s hand. They entered through the kitchen and continued to the dining room, where Francine was setting out small triangular crustless cucumber sandwiches.

  Down the hall, by the front door, Billy was hanging Mrs. Steele’s coat in the closet.

  “Oh, good, girls, you’re just in time!”

  Joanie said a quick hello before excusing herself to pack for school. Nova hugged NASA Bear to her chest and glared at Mrs. Steele.

  “Back to college already,” Billy sighed. “Winter break always passes too fast.”

  “I know what you mean. I have two in college myself.” Mrs. Steele chuckled. “They forget I exist until they run out of money. Hello, Nova.”

  Nova did not respond.

  “Nova,” prompted Francine, joining them in the hall. “Say hello to Mrs. Steele.”

  “It’s fine,” said Mrs. Steele pleasantly. “She doesn’t really understand what we’re saying.” She waved her hand in an exaggerated way and added, “It Is Lovely To See You Looking Well, Nova!”

  “She understands plenty!” insisted Francine. “And there’s no need to shout; her hearing is fine. Nova, say hello, please.”

  The way she said please didn’t sound like please. It sounded like now.

  “Hi.” Nova waved. The right way, palm out.

  “She says hi now! Isn’t that darling?”

  Mrs. Steele sounded genuinely delighted, which annoyed Nova almost as much as the word darling. The adults filed back into the dining room and, with nothing better to do, Nova trailed after them, still fighting to keep her pancakes down.

  “Nova is doing very well here,” said Billy as Mrs. Steele set her briefcase on the dining room table. “So let’s get right to it. We love having her and would like her to stay.”

  Relieved to hear this, Nova exhaled loudly. So loudly Mrs. Steele jolted.

  “All right there, Nova?” she asked, her too-thin eyebrows drawn together.

  “Won’t you try a sandwich, or perhaps some coffee?” Francine sat across from Mrs. Steele. Billy settled to her left, with a seat in between them for Nova. He tapped the back of the chair. With a small sigh, Nova sat. She glanced around the room. She hadn’t spent much time in here, since they always ate in the kitchen. Like the downstairs parlor, the dining room was fancy and formal and dull. The wallpaper was white with off-white accents. The wood floors were dark and shiny. The oak table could easily seat ten. There was even a small piano between the two long windows that faced the backyard pool, though the view was hidden behind heavy velvet drapes. She much preferred the attic.

  Mrs. Steele removed a thick manila folder full of papers, a yellow notepad, and two pens, one black, one blue, from her briefcase.

  Though Nova disliked the texture of cucumbers and was still feeling sort of sick, she picked up one of the crustless sandwiches and began to munch. She set NASA Bear on the table in front of her so she had a free hand to tap her chin while she chewed.

  Mrs. Steele looked Nova up and down before jotting something in her notepad.

  “I must say, she looks healthy. So much better than she did the last time I saw her.”

  Francine and Billy exchanged a glance. Nova almost missed it, but at that moment she happened to be checking their faces for any sign that she could head up to her room. She furrowed her brow. Why were they looking at each other that way?

  “Nova’s back in school now,” said Francine.

  “After considerable discussion, it was determined she should repeat sixth grade,” added Billy.

  “Yes, I think that was a good decision,” said Mrs. Steele.

  “Do you mind if we put this on?” asked Francine, leaning back toward the small fan on the hutch. “It gets so stuffy in here otherwise, with the heat turned up.”

  “By all means,” said Mrs. Steele, who was adding cream to her coffee. It dripped on the table. Billy reached for a napkin.

  Nova grunted as the oscillating fan wafted the scent of Aqua Net hairspray from Mrs. Steele’s head to Nova’s nose. She hated that smell. Bridget used a lot of it too, when trying to tease her hair up huge and wild before parties. Nova hated it when Bridge teased her hair and sprayed Aqua Net because it meant she’d be going out with friends, leaving Nova behind.

&nbs
p; Nova imagined Mrs. Steele dressed the way Bridget used to, in a leopard-print top and a black leather skirt, with a dozen thick plastic neon-colored bangle bracelets, torn-up tights, and silver hoop earrings so big they touched her shoulders. Bridget always looked cool, like she could rock out with Madonna, but Mrs. Steele? Ridiculous!

  Unable to get this picture out of her head, Nova let out a high screech, followed by three gasping yelps.

  Mrs. Steele blanched. “Oh my God, is she choking?”

  “That’s her laugh!” Francine stared at Mrs. Steele. “You’ve been her social worker for five years. Haven’t you heard her laugh before?”

  “Goodness, no, I haven’t.”

  Embarrassed, Nova smacked herself one-two-three-four times in the temple, mentally scolding herself for making so much noise. Gently, Billy moved her hand down, giving it a comforting squeeze.

  “Sit with us for a few more minutes. Then you can head upstairs, okay?”

  She didn’t respond, but she did keep sitting. Francine sipped her coffee. Billy ate a sandwich. Mrs. Steele took notes while they talked. Nova stopped listening. Adult conversation was rarely worth listening to. She hummed and rocked as the tension left her body. Billy said they wanted to keep her. Besides, if Mrs. Steele had been planning to remove her today, it would have happened already. She could relax a little.

  Now she just had to figure out how to tell Bridget where to find her without knowing where to send her letters. Maybe Mrs. Steele could give her the address. Nova wished she could talk so she could ask the Wests to let Bridget live with them, or ask Mrs. Steele to bring Nova to her for a visit. When they first went into foster care, they used to visit Mama sometimes. If Nova could visit Mama, why couldn’t she visit Bridget?

  “…reevaluated at some point within the next year…,” Mrs. Steele was saying. “And that will be considered along with the results of her teacher’s testing…”

  Nova shut her eyes and pictured herself from a distance. She was wearing a white astronaut’s suit with NASA stamped in blue across the right breast pocket. She was standing on the moon, staring out at the stars. She was alone. Where was Bridget?