The Trouble with Shooting Stars

by Meg Cannistra

  Chiara snorts. “He couldn’t convince the star that his wish for an endless supply of chocolate was a worthy wish.”

  “But maybe I could convince a shooting star.” My thoughts flood with what I’d say to the shooting star if I caught one. It would have to grant my wish. It’s important. It’s not about chocolate or fame or fortune or anything like that. I just want my face fixed. It’s a simple wish.

  “Well, if we see one maybe you can try?” Chiara says.

  “And you’d have to catch it. That’s tough.” Alessandro looks down at his moon tracker. “We’ll be to the moon in about five minutes. Start preparing the cleaning supplies, Chiara.”

  “I’m going. I’m going.” Chiara tosses her hands in the air as she rushes down the staircase and begins gathering all their equipment.

  “And you.” Alessandro fixes his dark eyes on me. “Even though I’m not too happy having you on my ship, it’ll be good having someone other than Chiara to help get things ready.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  He pulls his coat’s furry hood tighter around his face. “First, grab a spare coat from the closet. It’s going to get colder the higher we go, and a sweatshirt won’t keep you warm. Then help Chiara.” Alessandro pulls the wheel to the left, and the moon’s huge glowing face peeks out from behind the zeppelin’s big balloon.

  The moon’s light is soft, humming with energy the same way a lightbulb does, warm and inviting. I want to live in the moonlight forever. I take a step back; my eyes widen to take it all in. It’s so bright.

  Alessandro smiles. “I looked the same way the first time I saw her up close. Incredible, isn’t she?”

  “Amazing,” I say, the only word I can grab from the millions of other thoughts swirling in my head. “It’s . . . I . . .”

  “We’ll be there soon, so get ready.”

  I take the stairs two at a time and first head for the supply closet to grab a coat. All of them are a little too big, but I find what looks like an old pilot’s coat from the 1940s: a soft brown leather, lined and trimmed with wool.

  I zip it up over my hoodie and snuggle deep into its warmth. It smells like chocolate and basil and feels like home, like my family’s deli.

  Chiara runs past, juggling mops and two large pails. “Have you seen the polish?” she asks without stopping.

  “Polish?” She turns, both of her furry eyebrows rising high on her forehead. “You know, the moon polish. It’s due for another shining. It gets one every twenty-nine days, when it’s a new moon. How do you think the moon shines so bright during the rest of the lunar cycle without a good polishing?”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t seen it. Sorry.”

  Chiara laughs. “Oh, right. It’s your first day on board.” She rushes around the deck. “If you see the polish, let me know. It’s in a giant white glass bottle. My mama makes it herself. Special family formula.”

  She brings the pails up to the ship’s stern and goes back to the closet for more supplies.

  “What can I do?” I ask.

  Chiara struggles with three extra-long push brooms. “We need to bring these up to the stern.”

  I take up the back of the brooms and help Chiara up the stairs. The wind picks up on the stern and circles us in an excited dance. Ice collects on the railings and shimmers in the moonlight. Chiara places the front of the brooms on the ground, motioning for me to do the same.

  She runs down the stairs one more time and comes back dragging a wooden ladder behind her. “Alessandro likes getting close to the moon when he sweeps,” she explains, wiping sweat from her brow. “Now we wait for him to dock.”

  We stand side by side, staring at the vast dark sky behind us.

  The sky is quiet, still.

  Not at all like Staten Island, where there’s so much light pollution that you can barely see the stars. I’ve only ever known a silence like this—darkness like this even—when we went to Italy. Standing on the beach in Positano late one night, all I could hear was the whispers of waves crashing against the shore. The only light that night were the lanterns hanging from boats. Here there’s hardly even that. The wind has nothing to hold on to. It passes over us, through us, like ghosts. The stars twinkle. There are millions of them, a beauty that’s impossible to see from Staten Island. But even with all their glowing, the darkness still overpowers them. It’s brilliant in its own way, too. Impossibly big and so, so close.

  If I squint hard enough, it’s possible to make out the New York City lights glowing far down below. Almost like when you’re flying into JFK and all of a sudden the city emerges from behind the plane’s wing. It’s strange seeing the city from such a far distance.

  How small it all feels when looking down on the world. All of my problems seem a little less scary from up here, surrounded by stars and quiet.

  Chapter 10

  The moon stares directly at us. Her warm light drips over the zeppelin like candle wax. Crags, valleys, and slopes cover the large expanse of her round silvery face. I touch my plastic mask. It’s kind of like my burns and scars.

  “We’re only about half a mile away,” Alessandro yells. “Are we ready to dock?”

  “Sure are,” Chiara calls back. “Start backing her up.”

  Alessandro spins the wheel and turns the zeppelin parallel to the moon’s side. Silver dust motes collect in her light.

  I catch some in my hand. It glitters and sparkles, smearing against my palms like my mom’s eye shadow. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I think so too,” she says. “The moon’s especially dusty tonight. Good thing we’re here. Scrubbing the moon and stars keeps them healthy. We also collect their dust. Mama and Papa bottle it up.”

  “What for?”

  “Some’s used for other parts of our magic, like mixing into cement for building roads and houses. Moon- and stardust can also help you get over a cold or stomachache. But the dusts need to be heated up to work. Mama says it’s like how the stars are hot—that’s how the magic works. So she mixes it into soups or sauces for us. Or heats it up on the stove if she’s using it in a balm.” She toys with the ribbon at the end of her left braid.

  I shake my head. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Not at all.” She grins. “We ship big crates of dust back to Stelle so the other spazzatrici can use it too.”

  Mom makes minestrone whenever I’m sick, but it never had any star- or moondust in it. Otherwise I would have gotten over colds faster. I wonder if the moon- or stardust could help—if I could get some to add to minestrone or a chicken parm sandwich. Even just enough until I find a shooting star to catch that would put everything back to normal.

  “What’s the difference between the two?”

  “Stardust is smooth and extra glittery. Better for healing. Moondust is still good for healing, but it’s grittier and people don’t like that texture. Because of that, it’s better for building things. Mama uses both in her healing potions. She thinks the moondust adds another level of protection. That makes her medicines extra special.”

  “Time to drop anchor!” Alessandro yells. He rushes past us in a blur.

  Chiara and I chase after him and watch as he turns the crank on the anchor.

  “Luna, help me.” He motions for me to crank as he takes hold of the heavy steel anchor and its long steel chain.

  I stare at it warily. Even drawing for more than fifteen minutes can make my left arm sore and cramp up.

  “Keep cranking it,” Alessandro says. “I’m gonna hitch it onto that cloud right there.” He points off to a sturdy-looking cloud a few feet away. “That should do the trick.”

  I take hold of the crank, rotating it as hard as I can. Pain throbs in my muscles, the same shaking ache that pulsed through my arm after the accident.

  But I’m strong.

  I’m a Bianchini.

  I push through until a good bit of chain is pooled at our feet.

  Alessandro heaves the anchor over the railing with both hands. The c
hain flies off the deck. It clangs through the air until the anchor hits the cloud with a soft thud.

  The boat bobs up and down as it levels out. Chiara takes up an old, rickety-looking ladder and leans it against the side of the moon.

  “Do you have the timer?” Alessandro picks up one of the brooms and climbs halfway up the ladder until he’s only a few feet away from the moon.

  Chiara nods and pulls a small brass clock out from her coat pocket. Like the moon tracker, it has little illustrations drawn onto the sides of its face and three hands. She turns the key in its back and presses a little button on top. The clock begins to tick away the seconds with echoing clicks. Chiara places it on the deck before grabbing a broom and hopping on top of a small stepladder.

  “We only have so long before the sun rises,” she explains. “We need to make sure we don’t run out of time when sweeping.  The timer’s loud, so we can hear it from anywhere.”

  “Ready?” Alessandro calls down to us.

  Chiara nods. Both she and Alessandro get to work, the broom’s bristles tickling the bottom of the moon. A soft scratching sound, like sandpaper against a piece of wood, fills the quiet. More moondust falls onto the zeppelin and blankets us in its silvery powder.

  I look at the third broom sitting alone on the deck. Sharp pains shoot through my left arm from cranking the machine. I don’t think I can lift that broom over my head.

  “I want to help you sweep.” I keep my eyes on my shoes. “But my arm hurts.”

  Alessandro looks at me over his shoulder. “You can be in charge of the moondust, then.”

  “Oh no,” Chiara says, pausing her sweeping. “I forgot the jars in the closet.”

  “Luna, will you grab a few jars out of the closet you got your jacket from?” Alessandro yells from the ladder. “We need to fill them up with dust.”

  I nod and take off down the stairs. Even as a little kid, I always felt better when I had a task. Some sort of project. That’s why Dad never had a problem bringing me to the deli. While some kids might complain about spending Saturday mornings at work with their family, I was proud to be part of a team—even if all I could manage to do was add chocolate chips to the cannoli filling and restock the butcher paper for the deli meat.

  By the time I return, Alessandro and Chiara are nearly finished sweeping up this side of the moon. Moondust still tumbles down, and I quickly unlatch the jar’s lids and place them underneath the falling dust.

  Chiara unscrews the top of a jar filled with a thick, sparkling white paste and scoops half of it into a pail filled with steaming water. She smiles, mixing the paste into the water with her mop. “We’ve got to get her looking shiny.”

  Alessandro climbs down and grabs a small brush, dunking it into the pail before heading up the ladder again. Chiara splashes the wet mop against the swept-up side of the moon. The pair scrubs until the light from the zeppelin’s lanterns bounce off its side.

  “Look at how bright,” Chiara says. “Our best job yet.”

  “We could still do better.” Alessandro climbs down the ladder once more and pulls it back into the ship. He puts his hands on his hips. “We need to be the top spazzatrici. I want the other families to know that when the Sapientis do a job, we do it the best.”

  Chiara rolls her eyes. “Please, you take all the fun out of it. Not everything is a competition.”

  Alessandro grins. “It’s the Sapienti way.”

  “Well.” Chiara lowers her mop back down from the moon and picks up her broom in the other hand. “I’m a Sapienti too, and I’m happy with not being in a race all the time.”

  Alessandro picks up the pail in one hand, juggling his broom and mop underneath his other arm.

  “What’s next?” I ask.

  “We’ve got to finish up this section of the moon and then fly around to the next, and so on until we finish each part.” Chiara follows after her brother to the middle of the ship. “It takes forever. We still need to check on the stars after this to see if they’re adapting.”

  I follow after Chiara, picking up the ends of her dragging broom and mop. Chiara and Alessandro start sweeping again. I collect the falling dust in jars. I wait until the powder reaches the very top before latching the jars shut and storing them in a wooden crate Alessandro gave me.

  The process takes hours and stops every time Alessandro needs to move the zeppelin. Luckily, he doesn’t ask me to crank the anchor again. Instead, the cloud follows along with us, keeping us stable rather than locking us into a location.

  By the time we get to the last side, my arm starts growing stiffer. The tug of sleep is heavy on my eyelids. At least twenty jars full of moondust sit in the crate by my feet, ready to be turned into magic by the Sapientis.

  It’s tempting to ask Chiara and Alessandro for a jar of the dust.  Asking now, my first night in the stars with them, would be a little rude. They invited me on as a guest, and I don’t want to push my luck just yet.

  “That’ll do it.” Chiara hops down from her stepladder. She smiles, giving the moon a little wave. “We need to check on the stars. Alessandro will finish up with the cleaning.”

  I yawn into the crook of my elbow. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so exhausted.

  This time, Chiara helps me get the goggles on before opening the door to the stars’ nursery. Their whines hit us the moment we enter, each one wriggling and stretching for attention.

  “Oh no.” Chiara shakes her head. “They don’t sound too happy.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Chiara moves over to a bassinet and places the back of her hand against one of the stars. “He’s burning up. They’re still sick. Must be making it too hard for them to acclimate to the atmosphere.”

  “We can’t release them when they’re sick.” I frown. It’s hard watching them suffer, like seeing a sick dog or cat, helpless and confused. “Is there something we can do?”

  She shakes her head and spoons a dose of medicine into each star’s mouth. “We just need to let them get better. Maybe next time we go up.”

  I walk between the bassinets. The little stars stare at me with beady eyes.

  “They like being tucked in.” Chiara smiles. “Just be careful; they can be a little warm. It takes a while getting used to that.”

  I bend over one of the bassinets and place a tentative hand on the star’s head. I flinch at the heat radiating off its tiny body. The little star looks up at me, its cries softening to little gurgles. He looks sad and flushed from being ill. All I want to do is cuddle him. My aunt Therese takes off work when her pug, Bella, isn’t feeling well and spends the entire day fussing over the grouchy little thing. That’s how I feel about this star. I brace myself for the heat and run my hand across the star’s little cheek, its silvery, scaly flesh unexpected but familiar. Similar to salmon or tuna. Maybe stars are the fish of the sky. Or fish are the stars of the ocean.

  The star snuggles against my hand like a kitten does when it wants more attention, rubbing its face into my palm. His heat darts up my arm and through the rest of my body like stepping into a shower with scalding-hot water.

  I smile, getting used to the warmth.

  “It’s okay, little baby. You’ll be feeling better soon,” I whisper.

  The star coos and continues to rub against me.

  “We should let Alessandro know the stars aren’t being released tonight,” Chiara says.

  I pet the star’s head one more time. “Good-bye, little star,” I say, before heading back out onto the deck with Chiara.

  “Well?” Alessandro calls.

  Chiara shakes her head. “Maybe next time.”

  Alessandro sighs. “Let’s head back.”

  The ship begins to descend as Chiara and I finish sweeping up the remaining dust. We walk up the stairs to the stern and watch as the moon grows smaller. It shines back at us like a lighthouse’s beam in the darkness.

  I’m not ready to go back. Sadness swells in my stomach. The worries that couldn’t catch
me as we flew high into the heavens have circled me once more, tethering me back to earth. The endless doctor visits, my parents’ constant fighting, everyone looking at me like I’m a monster. I swallow hard. Facing the world again, after everything I’ve experienced tonight, feels like the worst kind of punishment.

  I clutch my cornicello, rubbing the gold horn between my fingers for comfort.

  “What’s that?” Alessandro asks.

  “Oh.” I show it to Alessandro and Chiara. “My dad gave it to me when I was in the hospital.”

  Alessandro smiles and pulls out a similar gold chain and cornicello from beneath his jacket. “My papa gave me his. It’s been in our family for centuries,” he says. “Chiara has our mama’s. We never take them off, but Mama and Papa always double-check that we have them on when we go flying. You should keep yours on at all times.”

  “My dad told me the horn will keep me safe.”

  I stare down at the horn; it looks pretty normal. The cornicello is tiny. Shorter and narrower than my pinky finger. “It doesn’t seem very magical.”

  “Not all magic is big and loud.” Alessandro shrugs. He gestures to the zeppelin. “Even this begins as a wooden toy ship. Magic’s everywhere. Before flying in this ship, before seeing the stars, you experienced magic. Everyone has. It’s just that people don’t notice. They’re too busy rushing around to see things properly.”

  I tuck the cornicello beneath my jacket. Seeing the world, actually seeing it and not just staring through it, is something I always thought I knew how to do.

  We fly in silence. Chiara yawns next to me, and her head lulls to the side. Alessandro pushes the zeppelin through heavy clouds as if they were tissue paper, navigating us gracefully back to earth.

  I look down at the glittering Manhattan skyline, at the world sleeping beneath our feet. The city hums with people who live and breathe magic every day and yet never notice it. A magic I’m now trying hard to find and pay attention to. I close my eyes tightly and open them, looking up at the stars twinkling down at us and at the bright, shining moon now no bigger than my thumb.