Catch a Falling Star

by Meg McKinlay

  He stares at me like this is the dumbest question he’s ever heard. “Skylab stuff.”

  “I can see that. I mean how come it’s all up here like …?”

  “I’m working something out. I need to be able to see everything.”

  I turn around slowly. There’s a lot of everything.

  He’s got articles from the newspaper, too. He’s cut them out, put them up. One whole wall is almost completely covered in them.

  Skylab Keeps Jittery World Guessing

  New Window for Skylab Re-entry

  The Skylab Odds

  But these aren’t from our papers. Some are from the last few days, ones Mum hasn’t brought home yet.

  I look Newt in the eye. “Where did you get these?”

  “From the library at school.” He looks almost smug. “Pretty good idea, hey?”

  “Those are for everyone to use. You’re not supposed to cut things out.”

  He shrugs. “If anyone wants them, I’ll put them back.”

  “That’s not the point.” Still, I can’t help wanting to look. I step closer to the wall.

  There’s stuff about the smugglers’ caves and the air-raid sirens, about Switzerland and the church bells. Nothing about bunkers or duck and cover or Mrs Easton’s husband Merv.

  At least not so far.

  In the corner near the cupboard there are some weird ones. The president of India says Skylab is a demon and only God can save us. A woman in California says she had a dream that a satellite would hit a city called Perth. Two of her previous dreams have come true.

  “See,” Newt says. “You’re not the only one who believes in that psychic stuff.”

  “I don’t …” I begin, but then I stop. There’s another article here, tucked almost out of sight, a headline so small it’s barely a whisper.

  The Mystery of the Missing Plane.

  For a second, all the breath goes out of me. But this isn’t about Dad.

  It’s about a man whose plane disappeared last year over Bass Strait. It says he radioed in to say something was hovering above him, “playing some sort of game”. Then there was a strange noise and he vanished from the face of the Earth.

  I don’t read the rest. I don’t know what this is doing here. It’s got nothing to do with Skylab. Maybe Newt’s next project is going to be UFOs or something.

  I watch as he gets up and goes over to one of the maps on the wall. He peers at it, then glances down at something in his hand. A notebook. I sidle closer but he flips it shut. There’s a single word on the cover, staring up at me in thick black letters.

  He’s underlined it three times, added a fat exclamation mark.

  SKYLAB!

  At once, I remember the other day in the shelter shed. Newt reading from a notebook, about an orbit path going right over us. A little kid with a wobbly voice worrying about where to shelter.

  Newt is only eight. It’s easy to forget that sometimes.

  I turn towards him. “Newt, are you worried about Skylab?”

  “Worried?” He looks puzzled. “Why would I be worried?”

  “You know, about being hit or something.”

  He does a little snort-laugh. “No.”

  “Well, what are you working out then?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t worked it out yet.” He lowers his voice, as if he’s about to share a secret. “You know how I said my birthday is the same as Skylab’s?”

  “Yeah, you and a million other people.”

  “Actually,” he says, “it’s probably more than a million. Statistically speaking. There are approximately four billion people in the world and three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, so …”

  “Exactly. So … no big deal.”

  He hesitates for a second. He looks like he’s weighing something up, deciding. When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter still. “Only I bet no one else has something like this.”

  He reaches into the drawer of his desk and pulls out a sheet of paper. It isn’t a newspaper article. It’s not a diagram or a map. This looks like the front page of a school project – one someone started and never got around to finishing.

  Something deep inside me twists.

  I’ve never seen this before but I know exactly what it is.

  I knew Dad was going to do it, that he planned to. I just didn’t realise he’d started.

  Up the top, it says Skylab, launched 15/4/73 and down the bottom it says Isaac “Newt” Avery, born 15/4/71. In-between are two black rectangles drawn up like frames. Inside one is a picture of Skylab. And inside the other is a photo. The one Mum took that night.

  Dad at the telescope, Newt in a blanket.

  Dad never saw this, though. It wasn’t developed until months after he left.

  What he did was leave a blank space, for later.

  It’s Newt who’s filled it. Newt who went to the bookshelf and got the photo, then put the album back in the wrong spot.

  He’s watching me, waiting.

  “Dad was going to make a scrapbook,” I say finally.

  “For me? About Skylab?”

  I nod. “Because of the birthday thing. He thought …”

  “What?”

  “He thought it would be fun.”

  “And now it’s coming back.”

  There’s something new in his voice, something odd. My gaze drops to the desk drawer. “Is there any more?”

  When he says no, I’m relieved. Then I feel guilty for feeling relieved. Wouldn’t it be better for Newt to have more of Dad, not less?

  There’s no way to know what’s going on inside his head. There never has been. But whatever he’s doing, I need to let him have this.

  I shake up the can of spray and aim it into the corner.

  I can’t do anything about his Newtish thoughts but I can at least keep him safe from spiders.

  Seventeen

  For the next few days I watch three things: the sky, Newt and the news.

  The first one makes no sense. I know that. It’s not like anything’s going to land on my head and if it was, I wouldn’t be able to stop it, not even with an officially approved cardboard helmet.

  Maybe it doesn’t make sense to watch Newt either. He’s going to do what he’s going to do, no matter what anyone else says. He always has. And whatever he’s doing with Skylab, it’s probably safer than the Rudimentary Antenna Project turned out to be. If I’d known he was going to start climbing things, I’d never have given him that in the first place.

  Still, I watch him. I watch him watching the news and there’s a brightness to his face, a shine in his eyes that makes me feel uneasy. That makes me keep on watching.

  All through the Skylab news, Newt scribbles in his notebook. He turns to us and repeats things Orange-Tie Man just said, as if we maybe weren’t paying attention.

  Did you know that Skylab is actually a laboratory. SkyLAB, get it?

  It’s logged about 2000 hours of experiments and taken over 170,000 photos.

  Did you know that three manned missions have been made to Skylab?

  It’s like a house as well. It has three whole storeys. It has its own sleeping areas and a kitchen.

  You can actually live there, Frankie. Did you know that?

  Did you?

  Mum sighs when the news is on but she doesn’t turn it off. The whole world is watching now, so why shouldn’t we? And it’s not like it’s forever. Once Skylab is down, we can get back to normal.

  Whatever that is.

  Whenever that is.

  It’s two weeks away and then it’s three weeks away. It’ll be here in seventeen days, or maybe ten. Sometime after July 7, probably. Sometime before July 20, most likely.

  “Probably! Most likely!” Mum glares at Orange-Tie Man as if she holds him personally responsible. “Why can’t you wait until you have some actual facts?”

  Orange-Tie Man’s gaze is steady. “We remind the public that there is no cause for alarm. The North American Air Defense Command is monitorin
g the situation closely from its subterranean headquarters.”

  Strangely, Mum doesn’t find this reassuring. Neither do I. How come they get to be underground while the rest of us are stuck up here with our cardboard helmets and our church bells and things getting weirder every day?

  All over the world, people have started to panic. They’re ringing NASA up with crazy suggestions. On Monday we hear a bunch of them on the bus. Ronnie doesn’t usually let us have the radio on in the morning because it’s Podge and Dazza coming at you with the Top 40 and he says it isn’t even music and how come they never play something called Acca Dacca? But now, he turns it up loud and everyone goes quiet.

  We should shoot a missile at Skylab! someone says.

  We should fill a robot plane with dynamite and set it on a crash course!

  We should send astronauts up to attach balloons so it will float into outer space!

  When Newt hears that one, he laughs out loud.

  When Kat hears that one, she says, “I volunteer Jeremy!”

  When Jeremy hears what Kat says, he leans across the aisle and knuckles her in the shoulder.

  “Don’t forget your salad bowl!” I say, because I’m next to the window and I know he can’t reach this far.

  Podge and Dazza are laughing too. “Some creative ideas there!” Dazza says. “But I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Skylab is still coming down.”

  “And that’s good for you,” Podge adds, “because if you can predict when, you could be a winner!”

  One of the newspapers is running a competition, they say. You have to guess when Skylab will re-enter the atmosphere – to the day, the hour, the minute, maybe even the second if your psychic powers stretch that far. The person who gets the closest wins a pedometer, which is this new thing that counts the number of steps you take.

  “Cool!” Jeremy says. All around us, kids start chattering, throwing out dates and numbers and theories.

  “A what-ometer?” Kat frowns. “That’s a weird idea. Why would anybody want to count their steps?”

  I shrug. “Who knows?”

  But then I think hang on, because I’m staring at Newt, in his usual seat down the front. And suddenly I wonder, suddenly I think I know. Newt would want to count his steps. He’d want to take little short ones and long, loping ones and see what difference it made. He’d want to fiddle with the buttons on a newfangled gadget. He’d want to open it up and see how it worked.

  The walls of his room. All those maps and numbers and calculations. All his muttering about orbit paths and velocity and angle of re-entry and working something out.

  It’s perfectly and utterly Newtish, isn’t it?

  Maybe it’s as simple as that.

  ***

  When I ask him, he actually snorts.

  “A what?”

  We’re walking up the hill after school. He’s hurrying and I’m racing to keep up. For some reason I can’t stop counting my steps.

  “Pedometer. It was on the radio.”

  He’s looking at me like this is the craziest idea he’s ever heard.

  “And in the newspaper. I thought …” I veer to one side to avoid a patch of mud. Newt steps directly into the middle, covering his shoes in sludge. He stumbles a little, then rights himself, and looks back at me.

  “I’m not entering a competition. That’s not science. It’s people guessing. Anyway, I …”

  “Anyway what?”

  A faint smile plays on his lips. “Just wait. You’ll see.”

  All right, I think as I jiggle the key and watch him disappear down the hall. As I empty his bag and scrape mud off his shoes. He’s not worried about Skylab and he’s not trying to win a pedometer. I’ll wait, then. I’ll see.

  If Newt won’t tell me what he’s up to, what else can I do?

  Besides, I’ve got better things to do than try to drag an answer out of him. I’ve got heaps of stuff to organise. Because Kat’s coming. She really is. Mum got the new roster and we sat down on the weekend and looked through her diary forwards and backwards and then forwards again, until we finally found a date.

  It’s two weeks away, but that’s okay. Because it’s definite. Wednesday, July 11.

  Even though it’s still June, I flipped the wall calendar over to July. I circled July 11 in red texta and then I circled it again, just because. You can see the circle from the kitchen and the table and the couch. It stares you in the face when you walk in the front door.

  There’s no way anyone can possibly miss it. Which means it’s really happening. Which is good. Which is great.

  But which is also making me weirdly nervous. I can’t remember the last time Kat was out here. It’s always been easier for me to go there, with them being so close to town and her mum not working and everything. And now, when I think about Kat being here, the house feels different. Everything seems sort of cluttered and shabby compared to their place.

  At first, I’m only going to clean my room. But once that’s done I start noticing other things – dust on the mantelpiece and the knick-knacks, cobwebs in the corners and behind the furniture, dirty marks on the kitchen cupboards.

  I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, because it’s not like Kat’s going to notice that and even if she did, why would she even care and you can’t fix everything even if once you get started it feels like you should.

  Still, I move the couch a bit to cover the worn patches on the carpet. And then one of the chairs, to cover another patch.

  And when Mum asks whether something’s different about the lounge room, I shrug, as if I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  On Thursday I look for the air mattress. Kat’s going to need that and I haven’t seen it for ages. When I finally find it, stuffed inside a cupboard in the laundry, I think of spare sheets and a quilt and when I get those out, they smell like someone’s grandma.

  I’m hanging them on the line when Mum pulls up the driveway. She shakes her head as she gets out of the car. “It’s not a visit from the Queen, love. It’s just–”

  “Hey, Frankie!” The front door bangs and Newt comes running out.

  “Goodness!” Mum raises her eyebrows. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

  Lately, we hardly see Newt. He practically lives in his room, appearing only for dinner and the news, and after someone’s banged on his door over and over to remind him he needs to have a shower sometime and maybe brush his teeth.

  “Where’s that story you used to read me?” He goes on as if Mum hasn’t spoken. “The one about the bears.”

  It’s so completely out of nowhere that I almost laugh. “The Big Honey Hunt? It’ll be on the bookshelf in the hall. But what –”

  “I looked there. Anyway it’s not that one.” He jiggles on the spot like a runner waiting to take his mark for a big race. “It was a couple of years ago. It was about some people who got turned into bears.”

  I frown. “I don’t think so.”

  “I remember you reading it to me! It was like a folktale or something.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, that was for school. The Greek myths.”

  We did them a couple of years ago with Mrs Mitchell. I don’t remember much about the bear one but a lot of the stories were really cool. Kat and I did a project on Theseus and the Minotaur and made a maze inside a shoebox.

  “So where is it?”

  “It wasn’t mine. It was from the library.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll get it tomorrow.” He’s halfway to the front door again already.

  “Not the school library,” I call. “Kat got it from the one in town.”

  There’s silence and then he turns back, looking at Mum. “Can we go sometime? I really need it.”

  “I don’t know, love.” Mum grabs her bag and locks the car. “Things are pretty busy right now. We’ll have to see.”

  Newt knows what that means. But he doesn’t argue. He just stands there for a few seconds, then runs back inside.

  Mum stares after him. “I wonder what th
at’s about.”

  So do I.

  Eighteen

  On Friday afternoon Rachel is a bank teller. Because I’m good at maths and I like working with people.

  It’s almost shockingly normal. Mrs Easton looks so relieved I think she might weep. I glance at the clock. 2.55. There’s still time for one more.

  My eyes dart around the room, searching for inspiration.

  Queen Elizabeth stares down from her painting. I wonder if she likes being the Queen. Because you get to rule the Commonwealth, I think, and pay for lollies with your face. Then I bite my lip so I won’t laugh, so I won’t draw attention to myself.

  Mrs Easton’s eyes rest on me for a second, then skim past to Dale.

  “Round two,” she says.

  He’s ready.

  He strides to the front, wearing Jeremy’s puffy jacket.

  “What do you reckon?” I whisper to Kat. “Astronaut or FBI agent?”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Maybe both?”

  But the joke’s on us, because Dale’s going to be a zookeeper – because it looks really cool and I like animals only not boring ones like vets do – and the jacket is to keep him safe from lion attacks. Then Jeremy jumps up and says he would never have let him borrow it if he’d known it was going to be shredded by lions.

  “Sit down,” Mrs Easton says through gritted teeth. She looks like she’s about to say something else, then sighs and picks up a pile of papers from her desk. “All right, one last thing before you go.”

  Kat sits up straight. “Finally!” she whispers.

  It’s our Storm Boy projects, coming back.

  Mrs Easton places them facedown on people’s desks. Sometimes she pauses to make a comment, something quick like, “Nice work” or “Watch your spelling” or “The word ratbag has no place in a book report”.

  When she gets to us, she stops. “Well done, girls,” she says. “Excellent work.”

  Kat’s poster is rolled up but anyone can see that it’s covered in ticks.

  When Mrs Easton sets mine down, she rests a hand on my shoulder. It’s only for a second but it’s long enough. “Really outstanding,” she says quietly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say that before.

  Kat unrolls her poster. There are big red ticks everywhere. Alongside Habits and Habitat there are two right next to each other.