She thought about how her mom wanted to start over, to try again.
Pluto realized she wanted that, too.
“Can we watch the Perseid meteor shower together next week?”
Her mom blinked. She was clearly not expecting that. “What?”
“Like we do every year.”
Her mom looked as though she was fighting back a million different feelings. “You sure you want to? Only if you want to.”
Pluto nodded. “I want to.”
“Okay,” her mom said, and then pulled the lid off the can of paint. “Then, okay.”
25
“You’ve reached the Hayden Planetarium Astronomy Question and Answer Hotline.”
Pluto needed answers that her therapist and Mrs. McAuliffe and her mom could not give her. For seventy years—for longer than Pluto’s mom was alive, for longer than Poppy had been alive, too—Pluto had been a planet. And then one day, in 2006, it suddenly wasn’t. “Hi, my name is Pluto Timoney, I’m thirteen years old, and I have a question.”
“Pluto! What an awesome name. What’s your question?”
Pluto took a deep breath. “How long did it take for scientists to decide that Pluto wasn’t a planet?” she said, and then added, “I know the qualifications for a planet. I know how they decide. And I know a committee of astronomers decided in 2006. What I need to know is how long they took to decide. Did they take a long time? Did they change everything too easily? And how did it make you feel? Did you start thinking about Pluto differently?”
There was silence on the other end.
“Please tell me the truth,” Pluto said.
And the voice on the other end did. “It was a two-year effort by the IAU. Do you know what that is? It’s the International Astronomical Union. They came up with a definition of what makes a planet. The biggest part of the debate was actually public perception. People loved Pluto as a planet. No one wanted to see it gone.”
“But they voted no anyway,” Pluto said.
“They did. But only four hundred and twenty-four astronomers were allowed to vote. Do you know how many professional astronomers there are around the world?”
“A lot?”
“More than a lot. Ten-thousand a lot.”
“My mom wanted to be one of them, once,” Pluto said. “She would have taken her vote very seriously. She would have thought on it a long time. Did they think on it a long time?”
“They took right up until the very last second of the deadline for the vote. So I’d like to think they did.”
Pluto sighed. “But it changed everything.”
“Maybe Pluto was given a different definition,” the voice on the other end of the hotline said. “But at the end of the day, its properties are still the same.”
Its properties were still the same.
“Thanks,” Pluto said. “That’s my only question. For now, anyway.”
“You are very welcome, Pluto-the-Person.”
After Pluto hung up the phone, the doorbell rang. She let her mom answer it instead of leaving the comfort of her room. She lay back on her bed, on top of her new ice-blue comforter, surrounding herself with its warmth, and gazed at her newly painted walls.
The chips in the paint were gone; the wall looked as if the glow-in-the-dark stars had never been there at all. Pluto didn’t miss them . . . but also, she did. All thirty-two of them.
“Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—”
“These are the planets near our star.” Pluto sat up quickly at the sound of Mrs. McAuliffe’s voice. “See? I do know a thing or two about astronomy.”
It was weird to have Mrs. McAuliffe in her bedroom. Well, this Mrs. McAuliffe. Lucy McAuliffe. The other Mrs. McAuliffe had been in the books in Pluto’s room for forever. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to check in. I heard you had a few bad days, huh?”
“I’m feeling better now.” Pluto paused to consider it. “I think so. For now, anyway.”
“Good and bad days. It’s a lot to get used to.”
Pluto nodded. It was.
Mrs. McAuliffe motioned toward the edge of Pluto’s bed, and Pluto nodded. She sat down and looked around Pluto’s room, at the bookcase with all the space books. At the solar system mobile that sat on top. At the wall, newly painted, where she would no longer find any glow-in-the-dark stars. “Would you believe I didn’t know anything about Christa McAuliffe until I was a teenager?” Mrs. McAuliffe said. “Well, no. That’s a lie. I knew about the Challenger, just not the specifics.”
“I didn’t mean to shout that stuff at you,” Pluto said, feeling her cheeks grow warm. “I was just . . .”
Mrs. McAuliffe waved her off. “I hope I wasn’t a huge disappointment. Big shoes, you know. And I’ve got little feet. Not Sunny, though. She’s got huge feet.”
“You weren’t,” Pluto said. “A disappointment, I mean. And I like Sunny. If I don’t get to go to eighth grade, can I stay in tutoring with you instead of going back to seventh? Please? I’ll work harder, I promise.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Pluto’s heart sank. “Oh.”
Mrs. McAuliffe laughed, which Pluto thought was cruel until she added: “You worked hard this summer, Plu. Did you not even notice? You’ll be in eighth grade come September, if you’re ready. Which I hope you are. Which you should be, if you and your mom go to therapy, and work together, and you take your meds.”
Pluto’s jaw dropped. She could go to eighth grade? She could successfully check off something on her list?
Could she really, though? Would she be able to go back to school next month, when she couldn’t go in the spring? What if she did all this work but still was too scared and sad and tired?
“You’re fighting a bunch of emotions, I can tell,” Mrs. McAuliffe said.
Pluto nodded.
“That’s okay. You’ll figure this out. It takes time, and it takes patience, and it takes work. All things that, well . . .”
“Suck?” Pluto said.
Mrs. McAuliffe laughed. She patted Pluto’s leg as she stood. “Well, that’s all I wanted to tell you. I gotta get going, Sunny’ll be waiting at home. Which reminds me . . .”
She leaned close to Pluto, and Pluto looked into her eyes. They were brown, like Meredith’s. Like Pluto the (not) planet. Pluto didn’t think she’d ever noticed them before.
“I know you overheard what I was saying to your mom. And, well”—Mrs. McAuliffe reached to gently grasp Pluto’s chin, to make sure she was listening—“if you ever need someone to talk to, about your friend Fallon, about your depression, about any of it, my door is open. I know you have a therapist, but it never hurts to have a big support system. And I promise this time it’ll be between you and me, unless I think you’re in trouble. Okay?”
Mrs. McAuliffe wasn’t Christa McAuliffe. Her name was Lucy. She didn’t know too much about astronomy. She didn’t have a husband and two kids. But she had a Sunny, and she had big brown eyes, and she had a good sense of humor and was a great tutor and was a perfect Mrs. McAuliffe. She was Pluto’s Mrs. McAuliffe.
Pluto nodded. “Okay.”
26
Pluto’s mom was meeting with the delivery guy, but Pluto didn’t want to stick around to help with inventory. She needed to see Fallon. She had a lot to talk about with her.
“Just to the funnel cake stand and back,” her mom said. “And you’ve got an hour.”
The moment she walked up to the funnel cake counter, Fallon’s mom came to throw her arms around her, which felt nice. Especially considering she pretty much helped maim Fallon’s hair. “Is Fallon here?” Pluto asked her.
Tommy answered from his seat in the corner, most likely in a time-out of some sort, based on the way he was facing the wall. “She gets to go play games, which isn’t fair!”
“Tommy, shush,” Fallon’s mom said. “She left a little while ago with the other girls. They shouldn’t b
e far. I’m sure you’ll spot them.”
The too-familiar tight feeling came to her chest, and Pluto forced herself to smile before excusing herself from Fallon’s family.
Is this what depression was always going to be like? Is this the Pluto she and her mom were supposed to get used to? The one who couldn’t always be friends with her friends, but they could all be friends with one another? Did Fallon realize she didn’t need Pluto, not when Harper, and Charlotte, and Meredith were so much easier to hang around with?
She missed the days when she and Meredith were a pair. She missed sitting around during the last days of school planning their birthday parties. She missed Harper’s big mouth getting them into trouble, and how Charlotte was always too kind to tell her to shut up. She missed Fallon’s eyes and smile.
She missed her friends. But maybe they didn’t really miss her.
At the very least, they no longer needed her.
At the very least, they were better off.
Pluto didn’t go looking for them. Instead, she walked back toward the pizzeria. But when she got there she kept walking, away from the busy end of the boardwalk all the way to the quiet side, to the visitors booth.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, watching the boardwalk, a place that felt like home. Here, on the planet Earth, on the Jersey Shore, you can hear the sounds of the seagulls and the tourists and the arcade games and the roller coaster. You can smell suntan lotion mixing with hot fryers mixing with salted air. If you shield your eyes against the bright sun that reflects off the ocean, you can see the buildings of the city where Pluto Jean Timoney’s dad lives.
“Hey!” Fallon’s voice startled Pluto. She hadn’t heard anyone approach, too busy thinking about those skyscrapers and how she’d felt that weekend standing in the center of them. “My mom said you were looking for me, and your mom said you hadn’t been back to the pizzeria yet. I think I freaked her out, but I told her I’d probably find you here, if you were waiting for me.”
Pluto glanced around, looking for the others, but there was only Fallon. “What?”
“This is our spot.”
Pluto frowned. It was. “I thought you were hanging with my friends.”
“We just did the fun house. Charlotte got free tickets from her dad’s manager,” she said, and then added: “She had one for you, but we didn’t think you’d be around.”
“Well, I am,” she said.
Fallon narrowed her eyes. “Are you mad at me?”
Pluto sighed. “No. I’m sorry. I’m just . . .”
“Yeah. I get it. I haven’t been much help lately,” Fallon said, looking dejected. Which made Pluto’s stomach clench. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help more with your list. I can try harder, though? I promise I can do better.”
“I’m not doing the list anymore,” Pluto said.
Fallon’s face fell. “Oh.”
“But it’s not your fault,” Pluto added quickly. “You were a big help—you were the best help. Yours was just working so well, and mine wasn’t. And my mom doesn’t think I should do it anymore, anyway. I don’t know. Everything kept going right for you and wrong for me.”
“We have different lists,” Fallon said. “That’s all.”
Pluto shrugged. “I guess.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to do mine without you,” Fallon said. “You made me feel brave this summer. You made me feel . . . well, for the first time ever, I feel like me.”
Pluto didn’t mean to let the tears fall down her face. She just couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry. I’m happy for you, I really am, I swear. I just really wanted to feel like me, too. You would have liked the old me. The me before depression. You really would have.”
Fallon wrapped her arms around Pluto and hugged her close. “I like you now, Pluto.” She pulled back and seemed to make a decision. “I didn’t do everything on my list.”
“Did your mom change her mind about the dress or—”
“No, not that,” Fallon said. “I actually crossed something out. Do you remember? When I first showed you my list?”
Pluto thought back and nodded.
“I crossed it out because I was embarrassed.”
“But you don’t need to be embarrassed with me,” Pluto said.
Fallon laughed, a small little laugh. “Actually, you’re the only person right now that would make it embarrassing.”
Pluto didn’t like that. “Oh.”
Fallon shook her head. “No, it’s not bad, it’s just . . . The thing I crossed out? I wanted to do something by the end of the summer. I wanted . . . well, I wanted to have my first kiss.”
Pluto’s eyes went wide. “Oh,” she said again. There were flutters in her stomach. The good kind, not the anxiety ones. The ones that she liked. The ones that chased the bad ones away. The ones she got every time she thought about Mrs. McAuliffe with Sunny. Every time, well, that she thought about Fallon.
“I like you now, Pluto,” Fallon repeated.
“Oh.” It was all Pluto seemed able to say.
“Can I . . .” Fallon swallowed. “Can I kiss you?”
There were a million things in Pluto’s head, a million different things she was feeling. But, for once, it wasn’t that her chest was tight or her head was pounding. It wasn’t that she was sweaty and jittery because she was worried or scared.
She was excited. (And, okay, a little bit nervous, too.)
She nodded, and Fallon kissed her.
Would it be extra cheesy for her to think she saw stars?
After they parted ways, Pluto couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss, and what it meant, and what she felt, and what that meant, too.
She paused when she reached the pizzeria, staring at the front door for a moment before reaching a shaking hand up to push it open. The jingle above the door sounded louder than usual.
“There you are,” Donna said as she leaned against the counter, her voice quiet, but unnaturally loud, too. Everything seemed amplified. “Your mom’s in the back yelling at Martin for making the entire kitchen smell like cigar smoke. You know how she gets. Go back and see her, though. She was worried when that friend of yours came looking for you.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Pluto said, and made her way behind the counter and toward the swinging doors that led to the back rooms and kitchen. She paused, her palm against the door, before turning back to Donna. “Hey, Donna?”
“I’m mid-count here, Plu.”
Pluto tried not to roll her eyes. “I just wanted to say thanks. For helping my mom this summer. I know she needed you.” She stopped, considering her words. “Needs you, I guess.”
Donna looked up from the receipts in her hands, smiling, even though Pluto knew she must have just lost count completely. “You’re very welcome, Pluto.”
Pluto pushed the doors open and found her mom in one of her usual bickering matches with Martin. He was laughing as he worked the pizza dough. “Look! Your kid is here!” he said, and then turned to Pluto. “Your mom’s threatening to dump her perfume bottle on my head. I didn’t even smoke today!”
“Liar,” Pluto’s mom said. “I’m going to booby-trap the back door if you even try smoking one of those things on your break!”
Martin just laughed, continuing his work.
Pluto’s mom rolled her eyes and motioned for Pluto to follow her into one of the storage rooms. “I actually came back here to see how many paper products I need to order this week. Help me count. Fallon came by looking for you; she find you?”
Pluto felt her face flush and said nothing.
Her mom read her expression wrong. “Did something happen? Is something wrong?”
Something did happen, but for once, Pluto didn’t think anything was wrong. Confusing maybe, but wasn’t everything lately? She always felt like she was at the top of the roller coaster, waiting for it to drop. Could she take that plunge? Could she go to school in September, and be friends with Meredith again? Cou
ld they go to the arcade next summer and challenge each other at Skee-Ball? Would Pluto want to ride the roller coasters with her and Charlotte and Harper? Would Fallon want to come?
Would Fallon always like her? Even on her bad days? (Would she always have those bad days?)
Would Pluto’s dad keep calling? Would Pluto’s mom keep pushing and begging for her to get a move on and try to do better and be better and be Pluto?
Would Pluto keep changing?
“Fallon kissed me,” Pluto suddenly said.
Pluto felt her mom grow very still. “She . . . like on the mouth?”
Pluto thought that was a stupid question. “Yes. On the mouth. And I let her.” Pluto paused. “She asked first.”
“Oh,” her mom said, and took a deep breath before repeating it. “Oh.”
“Are you mad?”
Her mom bent down to be eye to eye with Pluto, reaching gently to grasp Pluto’s chin in her hand. “You listen to me, Shooting Star. No matter what, no matter if I mess up, or say the wrong thing, or make you do something you don’t want to, the only thing that matters to me is if you are happy. I just want you to be happy, and to do whatever you need to so we can get you there.”
Pluto swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. She leaned into her mom’s embrace.
“You know what? I can ask Chloe or Kiera to do the inventory,” her mom said, laughing as she wiped a tear off her cheek. “How about we go get lunch somewhere that’s not the restaurant, just the two of us, and you tell me all about that kiss.”
“Are you sure?” Pluto asked, not wanting her mom to leave the pizzeria if it was going to stress her out or if she really needed to be there.
But her mom nodded firmly. “We’ve earned this lunch break.”
27
The best time to view a meteor shower is when the sky is at its darkest. Pluto’s mom taught her that. She taught her about the constellations and the solar system. She gave Pluto the universe.
How to Become a Planet Page 16