How to Become a Planet

by Nicole Melleby

  “That’s not fair!” Pluto yelled.

  “Pluto, calm down.”

  “Mom, please. I just want a door. I just want things to go back to how they used to feel. Before the diagnosis. Before that night,” Pluto said, trying not to cry. “Dr. Collins says I have to bridge the gap between before and after, but every time I look at where the door used to be I think about that night, and I don’t want to anymore!”

  “Neither do I!” her mom said, her face red. “I think about that night all the time, Pluto. All the damn time. And I just . . . The answer is no. I cannot put a door back right now. Not when you can lock me out. Not when you can just . . . shut me out and terrify me.”

  Her mom stood, taking her plate and her half-eaten sandwich and throwing it in the trash. She braced her hands on the counter, bowed her head, and closed her eyes.

  “I don’t mean to scare you,” Pluto said quietly. It was the only thing she could think to say, and it was true.

  “I know,” her mom said. “I’m sorry, I just . . .”

  “I don’t need a door,” Pluto said, which was a lie.

  “I didn’t know what I was going to find when I broke down the door that night.” Her mom turned, looking at her with tears in her eyes. “I need time, Pluto. Give your medication time. Give . . . therapy time, and us time to just . . . figure this out. Please.”

  Pluto wanted to call the Hayden Planetarium Astronomy Question and Answer Hotline and ask how long it took the scientists to decide Pluto should not be a planet. She wanted to ask her mom how long she waited before she broke down the bedroom door.

  “We’ll paint the walls,” her mom said. “And get you a new bedspread.”

  Pluto looked away, thinking about the paint chips on her bedroom wall. She wondered what her mom had done with all those glow-in-the-dark stars. Had she thrown them away? Or had she saved them in a box somewhere, waiting, hoping, that Pluto would ask to put them up again?

  “Okay,” Pluto said.

  “I love you, Shooting Star,” her mom said, and Pluto couldn’t help wondering if she and her mom were too different now. Maybe they just couldn’t—wouldn’t—fit together like perfect puzzle pieces anymore.

  She hoped Fallon’s conversation was more successful.

  22

  Pluto sat in the back corner booth of the pizzeria, staring through the glass doors, looking for Fallon among the people walking by on the boardwalk. The last time she’d heard from Fallon was a text that said, I talked to my mom. Will tell you about it later!

  When she finally saw someone she recognized through those windows, though, it wasn’t Fallon. Pluto sighed. The bell jingled above the door as Harper entered, with Charlotte and Meredith following, skin sun-kissed and foreheads sweaty.

  “Hey, Pluto! Can we have some water?” Harper asked.

  Pluto fought the urge to hide in the back and managed to nod instead. She climbed out of her seat and headed to the counter to get them cups of ice water, even though her mom was standing right there and could have gotten them herself.

  “Hey, girls,” Donna chirped, as Pluto’s mom asked, “Hot out there?”

  “So hot, Ms. Timoney!” Harper answered, groaning. “I might faint.”

  “You won’t faint,” Charlotte said. “We were hoping to just get some water and then go get ice cream to totally cool off.”

  “Oh, ice cream sounds so good,” Pluto’s mom practically moaned.

  Pluto pushed the three waters across the counter. Meredith hovered for a moment before taking hers. “Hey, Pluto?” she said. “Do you . . . want to maybe come get ice cream with us?”

  Pluto felt everyone’s eyes on her, waiting for the answer.

  “Just the one by the fun house,” Meredith said. “And then we can come right back, if you want.”

  No. She didn’t want to do that.

  But also . . . maybe she did?

  Maybe she just wanted to prove she was capable of something.

  So, to everyone’s surprise, Pluto found herself saying, “Okay.”

  Pluto was unfocused and quiet as they walked down the boardwalk to the ice cream stand, which was okay, because Harper was chatty, and Charlotte was a good listener, and the girls had spent the summer getting used to one another as a trio already. Pluto fell behind them, let Harper and Charlotte take the lead. Meredith fell in step beside her.

  As they made their way past the Zamprognas’ funnel cake store, Fallon was out front, chasing the seagulls away from where someone had dropped their zeppoles. When she saw the girls, she stopped, and Pluto lifted her hand in a small wave.

  “Hey!” Harper called. “We’re getting ice cream. Do you want to come?”

  And that’s how Fallon ended up with Pluto and her friends, a weird mix of old and new, of before the diagnosis and after, that put Pluto on edge.

  When space debris crashes into satellites, the resulting radiation can cause the hardware to fry. When a new friend crashes into old friends, that collision can cause Pluto Jean Timoney’s hardware to fry, too.

  Harper asked Fallon a million questions. “Where do you go to school?” and “What kind of ice cream are you gonna get?” and “Can I get free funnel cakes?”

  “I like her short hair,” Charlotte whispered, which made Pluto want to tell Charlotte that only she could like Fallon’s hair, because she cut Fallon’s hair, and Fallon was hers, not theirs. Only she didn’t, because Fallon seemed to be enjoying herself as she answered Harper’s questions, and she laughed at Harper’s jokes. Maybe Fallon wanted more (new, better) friends.

  Meredith was the only one who seemed to be as uncomfortable as Pluto. She was quieter than normal and forgot to order sprinkles on her ice cream cone. Meredith always got chocolate-and-vanilla twist soft serve with rainbow sprinkles.

  Pluto ordered hers with sprinkles and offered to swap with Meredith. “I know you like them,” she said.

  “Thanks.” Meredith smiled.

  But then Fallon started frowning.

  Pluto suddenly had a stomachache, and her ice cream started to drip down the cone and all down her hand. “I need a napkin,” she said, walking over to the napkin dispenser by the wall.

  “Everything okay?” Fallon asked. The other three were right behind her, looking at Pluto, waiting for Pluto to answer, and why did everything have to be so hard? Why couldn’t she just get ice cream with her friends like she used to?

  “Sorry, I just . . .” Pluto shook her head. “Felt weird for a minute.”

  Harper groaned. “Everything makes you feel weird lately.”

  “Hey!” Meredith snapped. “Leave her alone.”

  Pluto blushed, and Harper mumbled a quick, “Sorry.”

  And then they all fell quiet, and not the nice kind of quiet, until Charlotte spoke up. “I should get back to my mom. She’ll be waiting on me.”

  “Me, too,” Harper said. “I can walk you back to your mom if you want, Mer.”

  Meredith nodded, and the three of them gathered their things and said their goodbyes. Pluto missed hanging with Meredith. Missed Harper and Charlotte. But she was able to breathe a lot easier once they were gone—even if she hadn’t really wanted them to go.

  And then it was just her and Fallon, which is how it had been for most of the summer. “Oh! You never answered my texts!” Pluto said. “What happened with your mom?”

  Fallon’s face lit up, eyes bright, smile wide, and Pluto loved it. She wished Fallon could keep that look on her face always. “I was waiting to tell you in person! Your mom was so right, Pluto. I was honest, and I told her how I felt, and I tried my best to tell her why.”

  “Did she understand?” Pluto asked.

  “Not really? She wants . . . well, she wants me to see a therapist, but not because she thinks I’m wrong, just because she thinks it would be good to have someone to talk to,” Fallon said. “Like you talk to your therapist.”

  “So, do you have to wear the dress?”

/>   “No!” Fallon said, practically laughing with joy. “She’s not thrilled about me wearing a suit like my brothers or anything, but she said we can talk about options. That we can go shopping and find something maybe we both like. It’s working, Pluto! My list is working.”

  Pluto wanted to be so happy. She wanted to laugh and smile with Fallon. To be proud of her friend, to be proud that her idea of making lists was getting Fallon somewhere. She wanted to feel good about the fact that Fallon took a risk and poured her heart out to her mom, and her mom did not turn her down, did not shut her out, did not make Fallon feel like she was wrong for being and feeling what she was.

  But all Pluto felt was jealousy. It wasn’t fair that Fallon’s list was working. Fallon had cut her hair and did not have to wear a dress. Fallon checked everything off her list, one by one, successfully.

  Pluto had not successfully checked a single thing off hers.

  23

  “Pluto, come on. You need to do this. We’re nearing the end here, and you need to complete this if you want to go to eighth grade.”

  Pluto was not listening to Mrs. McAuliffe. She didn’t care anymore that she was Mrs. McAuliffe. She was Lucy McAuliffe, and it didn’t matter how much pretending Pluto did. This Mrs. McAuliffe didn’t care about the Challenger, and this Mrs. McAuliffe stood between Pluto and the eighth grade.

  It didn’t matter if it was a sign that she shared the same last name.

  Pluto had never argued with a teacher. She hated getting in trouble in class. Even when her grades started slipping and she did less and less and less, she never misbehaved. She wasn’t the type of person who misbehaved.

  “Pluto—”

  But maybe it was just the old Pluto who wasn’t the type of person who misbehaved, because she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “No. I don’t care. I’m not doing it.”

  “I know that—”

  “You don’t know anything!” Pluto said. “And you told my mom about what I asked you about Sunny! Will my therapist tell my mom everything I say, too? This is all dumb, and it’s not going to change anything, and I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Pluto shoved the textbooks and they fell to the floor with a satisfying thud. She wished she had something else to throw, too.

  Mrs. McAuliffe sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry. You’re right. But I promise you, Pluto, your therapist is not going to break your confidence. Not unless she thinks you’re in danger or will harm someone or yourself. Unless she has a reason to think you aren’t safe.”

  “You think I’m not safe? Is that why you told my mom?”

  “I think you and your mom need to start having more honest conversations.”

  “Then make her listen to me!”

  Pluto was screaming. She knew she was screaming, and still, Mrs. McAuliffe didn’t yell back. She looked at Pluto with a calm that made her mad, because she wasn’t Christa McAuliffe, she wasn’t some sort of sign. She was a fake, and Pluto didn’t want to be there with her anymore. “I want to go home. Call my mom and tell her I want to go home!”

  Pluto didn’t move to get out of her mom’s car once they got to the boardwalk. “Come on, Plu. Get a move on.”

  She wanted to go home. This wasn’t home. “No.”

  “Pluto, I don’t have time. I was in the middle of a million and one things when you called as is,” her mom said. “So, come on. You don’t want to be at tutoring, fine. We’ll talk about that later. But you need to come with me, the restaurant needs us.”

  The pizzeria didn’t really need Pluto. Pluto just needed supervision. So, fine. Whatever. She followed her mom onto the boardwalk and scowled even more when she saw Donna behind the counter. “Why do you need to be here if she’s here?”

  Her mom sighed, frustrated. “This is a business, Pluto. Our business. Our pizzas and our customers and our employees and our inventory and our stock and our finances and our bills and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that means it’s our responsibility.”

  Pluto shook her head, “If you hired Donna, then—”

  “Damn it, Pluto, you’re not listening! It’s my name on the door, and I hired Donna to help me when I couldn’t be here when you first got sick, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to be here!”

  “Anna, maybe let Pluto go sit for a bit.” Donna motioned toward a back booth, and Pluto looked around the pizzeria. It wasn’t packed, but there were still plenty of customers watching. Kiera was carrying a large pie to a table, looking down at her feet as if she was pretending she wasn’t there, either.

  Her mom took a deep breath, trying to control the volume of her voice. “We are so far under what we usually bring in for the summer. We are so far behind.”

  “We’ll be fine, Anna,” Donna said. “Come in the back with me for a bit.”

  Her mom looked like she was going to argue (which, Pluto would, too, because Donna was kind of talking to her like she was a kid), but the bell above the door suddenly jingled, and Harper, Charlotte, Meredith, and Fallon came in, bringing their energy and laughter with them. They had sunglasses on their heads and stacks of tickets in their hands. “Pluto! We’re going down to the rides. You want to come?”

  Pluto’s eyes narrowed in on Fallon. They asked her first? She said yes without knowing if Pluto would go, too? “I can’t. I’m busy.”

  But then her mom was practically pushing Pluto out the door.

  “Hey!” Pluto said.

  “Go,” her mom demanded. “There’s like a month left of summer, you haven’t been out there once, and you said yourself you don’t want to be here anyway. Get moving, go.”

  Pluto wanted to scream. She wanted her mom to be supportive like Fallon’s mom. She wanted her list to have something crossed off like Fallon’s list. Fallon had new hair, new friends. Pluto had unfinished promises and failed half starts. She had no bedroom door, and a mom who just kept pushing her to get a move on.

  “Please, Pluto?” It was Meredith who said it, her voice quiet and gentle, and Pluto had to admit Meredith’s friendship was important. Her birthday party at the end of the month was important. Maybe she should go and start getting used to being with Meredith and her friends, so that come her birthday, Pluto would have something else to cross off her list.

  But also . . . no. But also . . . yes.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll come,” Pluto said. She avoided looking at her mom, not wanting to see whatever expression she had on her face, whether it was pleased or eager or relieved or angry.

  Her friends were smiling, but she couldn’t bring herself to smile back.

  On their way toward the amusement park side of the boardwalk, Charlotte tripped on a busted plank and scraped her knees. She didn’t cry, but she came close to it.

  “Are you okay?” Fallon was the first to ask.

  Charlotte nodded, limping a bit from the sting. “Can we just go a little slower?”

  “I can give you a piggyback if you want,” Fallon said.

  Pluto scowled. The others all started laughing.

  “Yeah, okay,” Charlotte said, and Fallon hoisted her up onto her back.

  “Hold on tight,” Fallon said.

  Charlotte did. Pluto hated it. Everyone liked Charlotte. She was nice to everyone, always invited their entire class to her birthday parties, and brought in Valentine’s cards for everyone, too. If someone was upset, Charlotte was the first person to ask if they were okay. In all the years that Pluto had known her, she had never heard Charlotte get into a fight with anyone

  Charlotte was easy. It didn’t take as much work being her friend as it did with Pluto.

  Harper led the way, as Harper always did, and Fallon put Charlotte down as they both fell in step right behind her. Pluto walked slowly, in the back, trying not to look at Charlotte’s smile or the way Fallon had to keep jerking her head back to keep her bangs out of her face.

  Meredith slowed her step, walking with her.
“You okay?” Meredith whispered. “You seem . . .”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, and Pluto didn’t answer her question.

  Pluto Jean Timoney seems like she’s struggling with depression. What else is new?

  Meredith’s and Harper’s moms waved as the girls got close. They were with Harper’s little sisters at one of the kiddie rides. “What should we do first?” Charlotte asked.

  Fallon glanced at Pluto and smiled. Pluto didn’t return it, and Fallon pinched her eyebrows together as if she was trying to figure out what was wrong.

  Pluto felt wrong.

  She felt wrong as the others all decided on the roller coaster. She felt wrong as Meredith shared her tickets with her so she could ride. She felt wrong as Harper and Charlotte took the front row, and Meredith and Fallon sat on either side of her in the second. She felt wrong as the roller coaster started moving, clicking as it climbed up, up, up, toward the highest point on the boardwalk. It was a ride that Pluto loved, had gone on ever since the summer she turned eight and was tall enough. Meredith reached for her hand, and suddenly Fallon was also reaching for her hand, and Pluto felt dizzy.

  She closed her eyes.

  “We’re almost at the top,” Meredith said, pulling Pluto from her thoughts, knowing that Pluto always loved that view. She was never afraid of heights, because her mom taught her how to love the sky. “Open your eyes, Plu.”

  When they were younger, Meredith was afraid of heights. The first time they rode the roller coaster, Pluto practically had to beg her. Even so, Meredith kept her eyes closed, her head buried into Pluto’s shoulder, and their hands gripped tightly together. “Open your eyes, Meredith, it’s so cool up here!” Pluto had said.

  And, because they were best friends and Meredith trusted her, she did.

  Open your eyes, Plu.

  Pluto did.

  She squinted against the sun, and immediately spotted the moon—something she and her mom always looked for during the day. The moon was the closest thing to Earth in orbit, and her mom had explained how because of its cycle, it was sometimes even brighter during the day than at night. She thought about pointing out the moon to Meredith, to Fallon, but she didn’t. She kept it for herself.