“Who is this?” I asked, pointing to her. She was a tall, thin girl, maybe Blair’s age, with a full, shimmery skirt and long curls.
“Oh,” said Blair, looking kind of embarrassed. “I made her up. It’s stupid.”
I kept flipping. “This is awesome,” I said, running my hands over the pictures. “What’s her name?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can see her, but that’s all.”
She was in a spaceship, doing a pirouette on the moon, kissing a guy who looked kind of like Draco Malfoy.
Blair reached over and grabbed a handful of chips. They were sour cream and onion, our favorite. Was she already counting calories then, pinching her sides in her swimsuit? Had Anna Rexia been hiding under the dock and whispering up between the boards about trans fats? I don’t know.
“I love her,” I said. “She needs a name.”
“I think she’s a princess,” said Blair.
I nodded, stealing her pencil. I added some captions.
Princess Stardust flies to her home planet, Andor.
Princess Stardust and Antoine Moonbeard.
Princess Stardust dancing on the moon.
“Princess Stardust,” laughed Blair. “I like it.”
We made up an adventure for her, filling pages with sketches and words. She could go anywhere we wanted. We didn’t have to wait for Marvel or J. K. Rowling or the comic books to tell us what happened next. We dripped chip dust and Mountain Dew onto her sketchbook pages, but Blair didn’t care. She drew quickly and loved the stories I made up. We spent hours on the dock that day, getting so sunburned my mom had to go buy a real aloe plant for our backs.
From then on, Planet Pirates was our thing. Blair always started it, sketching out some comic squares of Princess Stardust, and I trailed closely behind, filling in the story. Jade might have floated away. But as always, Blair led, and I followed. She was my sister—I would have followed her anywhere.
15
AUGUST, PRESENT DAY
Twelve years old
It was the day before the eclipse, and you would have thought the president was coming to Moose Junction.
The entire town was buzzing, and I mean buzzing. News cameras had arrived on Main Street, with Miss Mae talking to whoever had a camera about the communists. Mom and Dad barely had time to sit, they were so busy fixing leaks and delivering extra pillowcases and handing out tourist information. Jade spent all her time either at the movie theater or running around with her friends. Harriet started a petition to keep the library open and sat out front every day, talking to anyone who walked by. I had been the first signature.
“Signatures don’t make money appear, Abby,” Dad had told me tiredly. “Don’t get your hopes up.” The meeting had not gone well. The decision was pushed until October, after there’d been enough time to see what boost the eclipse had given. But the library was not deemed a priority. We needed a new game warden, some potholes covered, a stoplight that didn’t questionably flicker during thunderstorms. Dusty books were something that could be crossed off the list. Dad had told me this the night before, putting a massive bowl of ice cream in front of me and breaking the bad news.
“You could have fought for it,” I said through tears.
“Oh, Abs,” he said with a sigh. “I tried. But I’m just one person.”
“You’re a very respected member of the community,” I said. “That’s what your little biography thing on the town website says.”
“I’m a very respected member of the community who understands the importance of traffic lights and a robust fiction section,” he said.
But there was Harriet, full of hope. Dreams weren’t dashed just yet. The October deadline seemed ages away.
Well, I’d learned my lesson in the hope department. It was the rest of my family who had theirs up. Every second Mom wasn’t walking someone wearing a Chicago Bears sweatshirt to their cabin, she was redecorating Blair’s room. She had painted it light blue and hung up a poster of Rey from Star Wars where Misty Copeland had been. Blair’s old tutus, ones that had cost hundreds of dollars and been painstakingly sewed and detailed, were in a box in the garage next to the Christmas decorations. It was like Mom thought if she took a sponge to ballet and scrubbed it out of our lives, Blair would magically go back to normal.
Final plans for the telescope had been made. During the eclipse—the moment I’d been waiting ages for, that I probably wouldn’t see again for years—I would be at the library, supposedly digging up the time capsule and retrieving the telescope. Dr. Lacamoire would be giving an interview for CNN, a perfect alibi.
“God, it’s hot here,” said Simone, tying her long hair into a ponytail. “Isn’t Wisconsin supposed to be cold?” We were standing on the back porch of Eagle’s Nest.
“Um. It’s August,” I pointed out as gently as possible. “We’re in the Northwoods, not Antarctica.”
She sighed. “I’m supposed to get some iced coffee with your mom in a few minutes. I’m forcing her to take a break. Between getting things ready for your sister and making sure all of your cabins are good to go, she’s about to pass out. I’ve never met a woman who works so hard.”
I nodded. It was true. She was like the Energizer Bunny these days.
“You didn’t tell me your sister was a dancer,” Simone said.
I shrugged.
“When your mom first said so, I thought she meant, like, cheerleader. Dance team or whatever. But she was a real dancer, huh? Ballet—that’s tough stuff. Not for the weak.”
Tough? Blair cried over carbs. She used to be tough, sure, but now she was about as tough as a butterfly. I just shrugged again. Simone took the hint.
“So, you’re all set. You have the shovel. Tomorrow, during the eclipse, you’re on time capsule duty,” said Simone.
Leo, who was usually so involved in the plan, was staring off into space. He seemed a million miles away.
“Leo? You’ve promised CNN an exclusive,” said Simone. “Are you alive over there? Did you two take a vow of silence of something?”
Leo snapped back to attention. “Yes. It gets hot in August.”
Simone and I groaned.
Leo shook his head. “I’m sorry. I am! I just . . . it’s so close. The Star-Gazer Twelve, it’s . . .” He held out his hand. “It’s right there. But so much could go wrong. You could get busted,” he said, nodding at me. “Or—or maybe it’s not even there.”
“It will be there,” said Simone confidently.
My stomach dropped. “But if it’s not . . . ,” I said.
“Why would you say that? Of course it will be there,” said Simone, shaking her head. “People! Come on! You’re losing energy. The fight’s almost over. We’ve almost got the thing back that you’ve been talking about for a year. Don’t lose hope.”
“Hope,” scoffed Leo. “I’m a scientist. I deal in facts, not feelings.”
I loved Leo even more then. I would get that telescope for him. I would! He had brought the adventure I’d been wishing for, and a book editor, too. What good was a telescope buried underground? It deserved to be looked through. It was probably lonely, buried down there with no one to appreciate it.
Simone sighed, shaking her head. “I’ve gotta meet Julie.”
“I’m going to lie down,” said Leo. “All of this excitement . . . it’s hard on an old man.” Leo was always referring to himself as an old man, even though he couldn’t have been much older than my dad.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “We meet here after the eclipse?”
“With the Star-Gazer Twelve,” said Simone. “It’s there, Leo. I promise.”
I will, Mom. I promise.
But if Blair driving off to prom had taught me anything, it was that people don’t always keep their promises, no matter how badly they want to.
Leo went inside and Simone took off. I walked down the steps of the patio and around the side of Eagle’s Nest, smack into—
Jade.
A wide-eyed, can’t
-believe-it-looking Jade. A spy named Jade McCourt, clutching batteries.
“Jade!” I said. My face got hot and my heart started pounding.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” she said flatly.
For a second, I thought I’d gotten off easy. Her shirt was just an old Waukegan County High T-shirt. It had a hole in it, for cripes’ sake. It wasn’t like it was made of gold. If she wanted to be mad about me stealing a T-shirt, that was fine, as long as she hadn’t heard us talking about—
“And you’re digging up the time capsule,” she said.
I stared at her.
“It’s a long story . . . ,” I said.
“To get the Star-Gazer Twelve,” she said.
“. . . one that apparently you already know,” I finished meekly.
“Abby. Geez.” She shook her head.
I pushed past her and ran home, hearing Jade run after me. I flung open our front door and sprinted up the stairs, wishing I had my own room, but of course, I didn’t. Jade followed me in and sat next to me on my bed, just staring, out of breath, waiting for an explanation I didn’t even have. I opened my mouth and shut it again. He’s giving me a chance. I can get Planet Pirates published, for real. I can give Blair something to be happy about. I can save her.
Unfortunately, none of those things were true, and I knew it.
Blair and I weren’t going to become famous comic book authors. You went to the store and you saw rows and rows of comics, most of them way better than ours. Blair was not going to go to New York City, either, to dance at the Joffrey. Blair was going to move home, where she’d measure her food and yell at my mom and cry in her bedroom. Dr. Leo Lacamoire would take the Star-Gazer Twelve and never speak to me again. It was going to be like last year, but worse. That’s what was really going to happen.
When Mom was trying to get Blair to eat, she baked a lot. She made all of Blair’s favorite things—apple pie with a homemade crust, blueberry muffins, lemon bars so tangy they made you wince. The best were these small powdered doughnuts in perfect balls she’d fry on the stove, filled with chocolate cream. They took forever to make and Blair wouldn’t taste them; she wouldn’t even take a single bite. I ate so many my stomach hurt.
But when you have a sister, that’s what your life is like. On the inside of that sweet powdered doughnut, there is something hiding. Just like in the center of Blair’s story—her story of sickness and Coppélia and destiny—was another story. The story of me, and Jade, and Mom and Dad, and even Obi. Hiding, tucked within the story that everyone else saw, was the story about how we were supposed to go on living when someone in our family was dying. Everyone saw Blair struggling but nobody thought for five seconds about what it was like to be sitting at that dinner table with her.
How was I supposed to be Abby McCourt, really? With no friends, no Blair, and a terrible, terrible lie in the pit of my stomach? Harriet was going to be furious. She’d know it was me, and I had lied to her: she would never speak to me again. Not that it would matter, because the library, the only place I ever loved in this stupid town, in this stupid state, on this stupid planet, was probably closing.
“Abby,” said Jade. But it wasn’t the exasperated Abby of stolen sweatshirts and snoring and forgetting to take Obi out. Or the Abby of Grow up, Abby and Stop whining, Abby and Turn off the lights, Abby, I’m sleeping.
It was an I’m sorry, Abby.
An I understand, Abby.
“I thought it would help Blair,” I told her. I realized I had started crying. “I thought I could fix it.”
She shook her head and put her hands on my shoulders. “Abby. You can’t fix Blair. I can’t fix Blair. Mom or Aleksander or the doctor or definitely Leo what’s-his-face can’t fix Blair. Only Blair can fix Blair.”
“I thought of it like a person,” I said, knowing I wasn’t really making sense. “Anna Rexia. Some freak witch that lives in our house.”
“Really? Me, too, kind of,” she said. “I thought of it like an energy. I saw this thing on TV once where people cleansed their house with smelling salts, and I told Mom we should do that before Blair came home.”
“I have a plan,” I told her fiercely, but she just shook her head.
“You’re going to get busted. This is way too risky. Tell him to forget about it. Buy a new telescope, fancy doctor man. Move on.”
“It’s his telescope,” I told her. “That’s why he’s here. He wants me to dig it up during the eclipse. He’s been searching for it for years.”
“Do you even have any proof it’s his, Abby? Isn’t it worth a million dollars? You’re just going to give it to him, and say what? And say what to Harriet, who’s going to know it was you when there’s a big fresh dirt pile outside the library?”
“Leo and Simone will be halfway back to Massachusetts by then. And she won’t know I helped them.”
“She will,” said Jade, “and you know it.”
“Well, I haven’t gotten that far,” I bit out.
She sighed, pushing her hair behind her ears. She had a new blue streak, bright, like the sky.
“This sucks,” she said. “This whole summer. Without Blair. It sucks, doesn’t it?”
I was surprised. “You don’t even like Blair.”
She cracked a smile. “Yeah, well, I don’t like you, either. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, idiot.”
She reached over to flick me on the temple and I batted her hand away.
“You two . . . you were always buddies. The same. I always felt like the third wheel,” she said. “Mom told me I should just try to make some of my own friends. So I did.”
I was surprised. “You never told me that.”
She shrugged. “I don’t like that nerd stuff. And Blair was always so defensive of you. I don’t know, it made me mad sometimes. But—I don’t have to be a jerk. I know that.”
“I didn’t think you missed her,” I said.
“Hello? I’m the one who’s been going to see her. I’m the one who’s been talking about feelings with some lady who smells like cats in a therapist’s office while Blair cries.”
“Ew,” I said.
“Tell me about it. Besides, maybe I don’t miss Blair 2.0, who was always sad and wouldn’t eat. But the first Blair . . .” Jade grinned. “She was so fun. Wasn’t she?”
“The most fun,” I agreed. I felt tears poking my eyes. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry—
“That time we were the Sanderson sisters for Halloween? Or the year we couldn’t find sleds so we used Mom’s baking trays, even though our butts could barely fit on them?” She shook her head. “Being her sister was like being . . .”
“On an adventure,” I finished.
“Exactly. I thought for a while that we could get that first Blair back,” said Jade. “If we—I don’t know. Just pushed through. Like running a marathon or something. If we could just get rid of that stupid scale . . .”
The scale, shattered at the bottom of the garbage can.
“You,” I said. “You threw that scale out!”
Jade squeezed her eyes shut. “Every morning, that thing would decide her mood for the day. Which Blair we were gonna get. I saw her on it in the bathroom one night at one a.m. when I had to pee. Who checks their weight at one a.m.?”
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said. “She’d kill you.”
“It was dumb, though. One thing can’t fix everything. And besides, we’re never going to get the old Blair back.” She flopped down on her bed and closed her eyes. “We’re going to get Blair 3.0 now. The one who’s been through all of this craziness. Who knows what she’ll be like?”
“What do you mean? Of course we can get her back. That’s why she went away.”
“No, it’s not. She went away so we can go forward, not backward.”
Blair, crying over cupcakes, and Jade, feeling left out, and me, lying and deceiving and sneaking around. We’d all been so different this summer. We were all more than the sliver of moon you
can see from Earth.
“So don’t do anything stupid, Abby,” Jade said. “Or if you do . . . at least tell me first.”
Later that day, I rode my bike to the library. I wanted to check in and see how Harriet’s petition was coming, and besides, I was trying to avoid Mom and Dad. Every time one of them spotted me, I had to bring a guest bottled water or clean towels.
But as I coasted up to the library, I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was Sophie, signing the petition at an empty table.
“Hey,” I said, surprised. Sophie had never been a big library person.
She looked up, equally as stunned. “Abby. Hey.” She waved the pen at me. “I’d ask you to sign, but you were probably first in line. It, um . . . it would suck. If the library had to close down. I know you like it here a lot,” she said. She was holding her own helmet in one hand, and I saw her bike locked to a lamppost a few feet away.
“Did you come here just to do that?” I asked.
“I was going to grab some Sour Patch Kids at Coontail’s,” she said. “But the line was out the door. All of these people are here for the eclipse tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said awkwardly. We stood there for a minute in total silence. I kept waiting for her to hop on her bike and go, but she didn’t.
“Well,” I finally said, “you probably have plans for the day. With Lex or something.”
She nodded. “We were going to go out in her boat with her parents.”
“Oh.”
“Her mom’s been teaching me some Japanese this summer. It’s been kind of fun.”
“Cool.” Thanks for the invite.
I turned to leave, but she stopped me.
“Abby. I—this is stupid. This whole summer of not talking was stupid,” she said quickly. “I’m sorry. Lex’s mom and my mom said that you needed a break maybe, because of your sister being sick. That we should give you some space. Lex thought so, too. I think she got freaked out at Memorial Day. But I wasn’t scared. I know Blair is just going through it. They talked to us about it in health class, remember?”
What Happens Next Page 12