We Dream of Space

by Erin Entrada Kelly

  “She’s a tricky yellow ball,” said Vern. He kicked his friend’s foot with his sneaker. “Don’t you think so, Henry?”

  “Yeah,” Fitch replied, voice flat. “Tricky.”

  “Do you ever go to the arcade on Main, Amanda?” Vern asked.

  No. He wouldn’t. Not even Vern would do such a thing. He would not invite Amanda Piper to hang out with them after school.

  Would he?

  Fitch’s insides boiled.

  He inhaled.

  Deep breaths.

  “Not really,” said Amanda. “But when I go, I usually just play Q-Bert or something. I’m not good at that one either, though. Oh! I like Frogger. I can pass lots of levels on Frogger.”

  “Frogger,” Vern repeated, nodding. “That’s a good one. Right, Henry?”

  Fitch was still sitting, his back to Amanda, glaring at Vern. If he moved, he might explode, like the Death Star in Return of the Jedi or the shark in Jaws. Every cell in his body was on edge. If Vern invited Amanda to the arcade, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

  “Yeah,” Fitch said, though he had already forgotten the question.

  He wasn’t able to move for a full three seconds, not until Andrea Blumenthal suddenly tapped Amanda on the shoulder to ask her something. With Amanda’s attention occupied, Fitch whispered to Vern: “If you tell her to meet us at the arcade, you’ll be my mortal enemy for life.”

  He was only half joking.

  “Oh, please,” said Vern. “I’m not stupid. I don’t want Chewbacca there any more than you do. I have more important things to think about after school—like how I’m gonna turn myself into a white pellet for Ms. Pac-Man to gobble up.” He raised his eyebrows toward Rachel Hill, who had just sauntered in, always the last to arrive.

  Amanda showed up anyway. Fitch had forgotten all about the conversation and was standing next to Vern when he saw her. Vern was playing Joust and Fitch had lost all his quarters, so he was doomed to watch. Had he been playing Major Havoc, he might not have seen her and she may have been inclined to leave him alone—you can’t really have a casual conversation with someone while they are in the middle of a game, after all; even Marsh knew that, and he was just a kid. But as luck would have it, Fitch happened to make eye contact with Amanda as she wandered past the claw machines.

  Fitch muttered a swear word under his breath.

  “What’s wrong?” Vern asked, without looking at him.

  “Amanda’s here,” he said, voice low.

  Vern was down to one life, so he couldn’t take his eyes away from the screen. Instead he scrunched his nose.

  “Chewbacca?” he said.

  Fitch had broken eye contact with Amanda the moment he’d made it, but she was walking toward them anyway.

  This was all Vern’s fault. He’d been mouthing off about the stupid arcade and now here she was. Why couldn’t Vern ever shut up? With each step Amanda took, Fitch’s skin warmed. She was smiling. Why was she always smiling at him? Didn’t she get the hint?

  “Hey, Henry,” she said, waving.

  Now she was standing next to him. She smelled like bubble gum, but she didn’t appear to be chewing any.

  “Hey, Vern,” she added.

  Vern mumbled “hey,” too preoccupied to offer more. The digital sounds of Vern collecting eggs and flapping his Joust wings momentarily filled the air.

  “This game looks so hard,” Amanda said. “If it’s called Joust, how come they aren’t riding horses?” She and Fitch watched Vern flap, flap, flap. “Uh-oh! Watch out for that guy! Oh, no—look to your left!”

  Fitch wanted to snap at her, tell her to be quiet, didn’t she know you shouldn’t roll up to someone in the middle of their game and tell them how to play, especially if you don’t know how to play yourself? But he didn’t need to because after Amanda’s fourth “Watch out!” Vern’s final ostrich died. He stepped back from the game console and lifted his arms in defeat, letting them fall to his sides with a smack.

  “Great,” Vern said. “Just great.”

  “Too bad,” said Amanda. She had the nerve to look genuinely upset.

  She shoved her hands in her pockets. “What’re you gonna do now? Do you wanna try Skee-Ball?”

  “Skee-Ball,” said Vern, like she’d just suggested they write a research paper.

  They never played the ticket games, like Skee-Ball or air hockey. They were strictly video gamers. Didn’t she know that?

  Amanda pulled out a handful of coins. “I have quarters.”

  Fitch had an ugly thought right then: he imagined himself knocking the money out of her hand, scooping it up, and using all of it to play his own games.

  “No thanks,” Vern said. His eyes had locked onto something. Or more accurately, someone. Rachel Hill and her entourage—namely, Jessica Diaz and Jessica Brantley—were back at Ms. Pac-Man. Marsh, too.

  Vern raked his hair with his fingertips.

  “I didn’t know Rachel came here, too,” said Amanda.

  There was a strange quality to her voice. Not jealousy, exactly. Fitch couldn’t figure it out.

  “Well, it’s not like the two of you hang out,” said Vern, chuckling.

  Before she could respond, he told Fitch to wish him luck and walked off. Fitch and Amanda stood there awkwardly, saying nothing. Amanda put the coins back in her pocket and Fitch watched Vern whisper something in Marsh’s ear. The kid glanced their way and said something back to him—a question, it looked like—but Vern had already tuned him out and had practically nudged him out of the way.

  Fitch’s heart banged in his chest. He wanted Amanda to go away so he could resume his normal life, but she just kept standing there.

  A group of boys came up to play Joust, so Fitch and Amanda inched over to make way. Marsh came toward them, ignoring other kids his age who yelled, “Marsha!” or “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” as he passed by.

  “Hey,” said Marsh, pushing up his glasses. “Your friend told me to come over here and rescue you, but I don’t know what I’m rescuing you from.” Marsh looked at Amanda. “Hey, I’m Marsh.”

  “Hey.”

  Fitch’s heart thundered. Whomp-whomp-whomp.

  “Your face is red, Henry,” said Amanda.

  And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she giggled.

  At that moment, Fitch really hated her.

  His mother said “hate” was a powerful and ugly word, only to be used when you really really meant it, “which shouldn’t be often, if ever,” she always added, but at that moment—at that very, very moment—Fitch really hated Amanda Piper. Why did she have to say his face was red? Why did anyone ever say that? He knew his face was red. Anyone could see his face was red, and now, because she’d opened her big mouth, his face was even redder.

  He cleared his throat.

  “See you two later,” Fitch said.

  Let the kid keep her company.

  Fitch took an uneasy step away from them. He’d check the popcorn machine, that’s what he’d do. At that moment, popcorn sounded like the most majestic food on the planet.

  Fitch half expected Amanda to follow him, but Marsh did instead.

  Fitch picked up his pace. All he’d wanted to do was hang out and play video games in peace. The arcade on Main was his place. His only place.

  Fitch smelled the popcorn before he saw it—heaps and mountains, freshly popped. He grabbed an empty bag.

  “I could eat a hundred bags of these,” Marsh said, right behind him. He opened a bag, reached inside for the scooper, and filled it to the brim. Popcorn fell around his feet and collected there with dozens of other wayward pieces.

  Mr. Hindley was passing by, holding a sack of coins in each hand. He nodded good-naturedly toward the floor on his way to the office.

  “You missed some, Marsh,” he said.

  “I’m saving those for dessert, Mr. Hindley,” Marsh replied.

  Now here came Rachel Hill, walking ahead of the Jessicas, ponytails bouncing on their shoulders.

  “Hey
,” she chirped. She pointed to the popcorn machine. “We came for popcorn.”

  “Oh,” Fitch said. He stepped aside.

  “How’d you do on Ms. Pac-Man?” asked Marsh, his mouth full.

  “Not so good today,” Rachel replied. She shook open a bag and delicately scooped popcorn into it. Then she looked at Fitch and said, “Amanda’s nice.”

  Fitch’s brain skipped. He didn’t understand what she was saying at first, or why she was saying it to him. Amanda’s nice? What did that mean?

  “Okay,” he said. That’s all his brain would allow. He suddenly felt very aware of every hair and sweat molecule on his body. Rachel and her friends seemed to be looking at him like they knew something he didn’t.

  “You make a cute couple,” said Rachel. She smiled wide. A genuine, honest-to-goodness smile. A smile that showed that she meant what she was saying. She popped a kernel in her mouth. “Well, see you around!”

  The girls turned on their heels and walked off chattering while Fitch stood fixed to his spot.

  A cute couple?

  A cute couple?

  “Who’s Amanda?” Marsh asked. He shoved another handful in his mouth. “Is that the girl you were standing with earlier?”

  Fitch paused. Groaned inwardly. “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know she was your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not,” said Fitch. “Don’t you have friends your own age to hang out with?”

  Marsh glanced toward the boys who’d called him Marsha. They were gathered around a claw machine.

  Fitch walked off before Marsh could reply.

  He kept hearing it, again and again.

  You make a cute couple. You make a cute couple. You make a cute couple.

  Really.

  Saturday, January 11, 1986

  ALL IS FAIR

  The cast itched. And it smelled. And it had “Penny L/S Charlie” written across it in permanent marker. In short: it was the greatest nightmare of Cash’s life.

  The urge to rip the whole thing off was almost unbearable, but he had no choice. He had to live with coat hangers and the smell of rotting fruit for the next few weeks.

  But at least he had the game to look forward to. His father had ordered pizza, the cramped living room was designated a basketball-watching-only zone—meaning no one could come in, snatch the remote, and turn to something stupid like Star Search or The Facts of Life—and Dr. J and Charles Barkley were going to lead the team into a resounding victory over the Detroit Pistons.

  Cash and his father settled into their places on the couch. Fitch was in his room, music up. Bird was flitting around the house, working on one of her new schematics. And Mrs. Thomas had cozied herself with a book on her bed, content to let everyone move in their own orbits.

  It promised to be a decent night.

  “Final score,” said Cash’s father, pointing at him with a tortilla chip. “Go. Best guess.”

  “One-twenty to one-fifteen,” Cash said.

  They did this every time they watched a game together. So far, neither of them had ever been right.

  The first quarter ended with the Pistons ahead twenty-seven to fifteen. The tortilla chips were gone by the middle of the second. That’s when Bird emerged from the hallway with a notebook. She was already wearing her winter coat, hat, and gloves and had the front door halfway open when Mr. Thomas asked where she was going. He didn’t take his eyes off Charles Barkley, who was moving in for a shot.

  “Outside to look at constellations,” Bird said.

  When no one said anything, she walked outside and shut the door. The living room cooled momentarily from the blast of cold night air.

  “Constellations,” Mr. Thomas repeated, under his breath.

  Cash didn’t say anything. He, too, had been intrigued by Ms. Salonga’s talk of stars and space, but the spark of interest had died as soon as he left the classroom. He certainly wasn’t interested enough to sit outside in freezing weather with a notebook. Not that he could write much, anyway.

  He picked up the coat hanger, shoved it in his cast, and scratched.

  “Hey, uh . . . Dad?” he said. He cleared his throat. Watching Dr. J with his father was one of his favorite things to do. It made him feel like they were on a team of their own. “Can I ask you something?”

  Barkley missed a shot. Mr. Thomas cursed.

  “Sure,” said Mr. Thomas, eyes still on the game.

  “Well . . .” Cash began. He arranged the words in his head. He’d thought about talking to Brant or Kenny, but no—it was too embarrassing. And now this felt embarrassing, too. “Uh . . . I don’t know. Never mind.”

  “Come on, ask me.”

  “Well . . .” He paused. “There’s this girl.”

  Mr. Thomas sat up. “Oh,” he said. He turned down the volume and looked directly at Cash.

  Eye contact is one of the simplest gifts you can give someone, Ms. Salonga once told Cash when he’d mumbled an answer—an incorrect answer, of course—to his notebook. People need to feel seen.

  Cash suddenly felt like he was on display. With the TV turned down, the sound of Fitch’s music blared down the hall.

  “I mean,” said Cash. “There’s this girl at school. I don’t know. I guess I kinda like her, maybe.”

  Mr. Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. But . . .” The back of his neck warmed with embarrassment. But the words were out there. Nothing to do about it.

  “I think she likes this other guy.”

  “Is this guy a friend of yours?”

  On TV, Moses Malone toed the foul line for a free throw.

  Cash swallowed. “No. He’s kind of . . .” Cash searched for an accurate word. Something his father would understand. “. . . a nerd, I guess.”

  “Hm.” Mr. Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Let me tell you something, Cash. Your mom was the prettiest girl at Park High School back when we were kids. Popular. Funny. A cheerleader. At football games they’d put her up at the very top of the pyramid.” He lifted an invisible cheerleader over his head. “Everyone would look at her, like ‘Who’s that girl?’”

  Cash never knew that his mother had been at the top of the pyramid. He tried to imagine it, but the image wouldn’t come together and he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.

  “I saw her and thought, I’ve got to get that girl. Problem was, every other guy was thinking the exact same thing. I had to come up with a strategy.”

  “What kind of strategy?”

  “I figured I’d have to one-up all the other guys any way I could.” He grinned. “All is fair in love and war, right?”

  He put his hand out for Cash to slap in agreement, and Cash did, even though he wasn’t totally sure what his father meant.

  CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE

  Fitch didn’t like when he had to turn down his music. He kept the dial of his boom box on four—loud enough for him to feel like he was in his own music vacuum, but low enough that his parents didn’t bang on the door and tell him to “turn it down” or “have some respect.”

  The sound of knocking had become an irritating itch to him. His hackles went up the minute he heard it. Like right now.

  “What?” he yelled at the closed door.

  He was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the stereo, which blasted AC/DC as he read Space and Beyond, a Choose Your Own Adventure book Vern had let him borrow.

  When Bird stuck her head in, he was on page twelve, trying to decide if he should fight the alien spacecraft outside his pod or go with them willingly. His instinct was to fight, but what if they were nice, innocent aliens?

  Then again, what if they weren’t?

  Fitch turned down his music.

  “Hey,” Bird said. She had a notebook under her arm. “Wanna come outside and look at constellations with me?”

  There was a time when they’d done many things together. Races to the end of the street. Hide-and-seek with just the two of them. Once they’d even tried to read each other’s minds bec
ause they’d heard twins were supposed to be able to do that. They’d sat across from each other, squeezed their eyes shut, and communicated telepathically. Tried to, at least. Now Bird’s mind was more foreign than it’d ever been. That bond they shared—that twin thing—had weakened somehow. Or maybe somewhen.

  Fitch almost said yes.

  He had thought about their mind-reading experience as recently as science class, when Ms. Salonga forced them to close their eyes and play make-believe space shuttle. Instead Fitch had thought about how he and Bird once sat just the same way, in chairs they’d pulled from the kitchen table, with their eyes closed, and Bird repeating, “Stop peeking, stop peeking.”

  But it was so cold outside.

  And the nighttime was so quiet.

  Too quiet.

  “Nah,” he said.

  He turned the music up as Bird left the room.

  He decided to fight the aliens, of course. He won the battle, but ultimately ended up floating in deep space with no chance of rescue. It wasn’t really winning, in the end.

  He tossed the book onto a heap of dirty clothes in the corner of his room. Maybe he would go outside to look at constellations. What else did he have to do?

  He turned off his boom box, shoved his feet into his sneakers, and wandered into the living room. He expected to hear the loud cacophony of basketball, peppered with shouts from his father or brother, but they had the volume down and were talking quietly and slapping hands about something, as if they’d just made a business arrangement.

  Fitch wondered what they were talking about.

  “Where are you going?” Mr. Thomas asked.

  Fitch pulled his coat from the rack and put it on. His dad had turned up the volume and was watching the game before Fitch answered, “Outside.”

  Bird was on the hood of the Cavalier, leaning back against the windshield. Her notebook was balanced on her legs, but she wasn’t writing. Just staring up.

  “Hey,” Fitch said.

  It was cold. Freezing, really. He climbed up next to her—carefully; if he made a dent in the car, he’d never hear the end of it—and leaned back, too. It was quiet, as suspected. The muffled sounds of the game came from the other side of the living room window, but it may as well have been in another galaxy.