Every Soul a Star

by Wendy Mass

  I find the Dipper again, and move very slowly this time until I hit the next fairly bright star.

  “That’s it!” she says.

  Everyone claps. Phew, that wasn’t so bad. I move to sit down, but she says, “Not so fast. You still need to figure out which way is north. First, find the North Star again.”

  I start to move the pen, but she takes it from my hand and turns it off. “Find it without this.”

  I’m about to say I can’t, but then I realize that I can. I can actually pick out one star out of what looks like a zillion. I go through the routine again. “Okay, I have it.”

  “Good. So now wherever you’re standing, imagine a line pointing from you to Polaris. That line points north. It can also tell your latitude. If directly over your head is always ninety degrees, where would you say the star is right now?”

  I panic for a second. I only barely squeaked by in math this year. I crane my neck to look directly overhead, and then slowly lower it to the horizon in front of me. The North Star appears to be right in the middle, maybe a little higher, at around 48 degrees. I tell Ally this, and she says, “That’s exactly right! If the North Star was directly overhead, you’d be at the North Pole. If it was really near the ground, or the horizon, you’d be standing near the equator. Now don’t you feel better knowing you’ll always know where you are?”

  I nod. More clapping ensues, and then I sit back down on my log. Ally talks for a few more minutes, tracing the shape of the Summer Triangle with her laser pointer. She says how each star of the triangle is in a different constellation and how one of them, Deneb, is so powerful that it gives out more light in a single night than our sun does in a century. She knows so much about things that I never gave a second thought to. But if Mr. Silver says it’s okay, I’m going to be able to teach her something now. When she’s done talking, her dad steps up beside her and says, “Far be it for me to rain on anyone’s parade, but the National Weather Center has issued a warning of a strong storm headed our way in a few days. It’s already soaked half the Northwest. It should be here and gone well before the eclipse though, so that’s good news. But everyone be careful on the paths, the mud gets slippery in the rain. And those of you in tents might want to make friends real quick with someone in a cabin or an RV.”

  The lecture breaks up, and all the red flashlights make the air seem otherworldly. I promise one of the t-shirt guys he can have my other bed if or when the storm comes. I want to tell Ally what a great job she did, but there are too many people around her. Mr. Silver hands me my very own red flashlight and we head up toward the hilltop where his experiment will take place. It takes about ten minutes to get there, and we spend the time with him talking and me listening and thinking how dark it is. I don’t mind the dark. I’ve spent a lot of time in my treehouse late at night, but this kind of dark is totally different. Thankfully we’ve switched over to our regular flashlights, and that makes it much easier to see.

  “Now we’ll have a two-day window to do this, starting at ten pm the first night, eleven the second. Each team is assigned a block of time since the transit could happen any time during those two days. I’m not even going to consider the possibility of rain, so you set your mind to clear skies.”

  “Sure thing,” I promise, wondering how I’m going to mention Ally.

  We get to the top of the hill where his telescope is all ready and waiting. He pulls the silver waterproof cover off and stands back to admire it. “It’s a beauty, ain’t it?”

  “Um, sure. It’s really something.”

  He checks the small computer attached to the side of the telescope and then fiddles with some other piece of equipment, which I assume is the special camera. “Now, Jack, I don’t expect you to understand all of this. All you’ll have to do is read me the data as it comes up, that’s all I ask.”

  “No problem,” I say, more confidently than I feel. “Um, can I ask a favor?”

  “Go ahead,” he says, busy adjusting something in the viewfinder.

  “Ally, the girl who gave the lecture tonight, is it okay if she hangs out with us during, you know, the experiment? She knows a lot about this stuff. I’m sure she wouldn’t get in the way or anything.”

  He looks up with a mischievous grin. “You like this girl?”

  How do I answer that question? It’s not like a beautiful girl like Ally would be interested in me as anything more than a friend. I’m grateful that she wants to be my friend at all. I decide not to answer. “So can she come?”

  “That’s fine,” he says. “But you can’t get distracted. We’re both going to need to focus all our attention on what we’re doing, because time is going to move quickly.”

  “I won’t, I promise.” I’m so relieved he said yes. Now I can’t wait to tell Ally.

  He surprises me by saying, “Do you want to see Saturn?”

  Before tonight I would have said that’s okay. But after Ally’s talk, I’m curious. He takes a few minutes to set it up, then steps aside and says, “Okay. All yours.”

  Saturn, all mine? A very strange thought.

  “Don’t jostle the scope or else I’ll have to find it again.”

  Careful not to touch anything, I peer into the eyepiece and see the strangest sight. A little yellowish ball in the sky, with a series of perfect rings around it. My first thought is that it looks fake, like a drawing of Saturn, or a sticker on the end of the telescope. I actually step away and check the lens just to make sure Mr. Silver isn’t pulling a trick on me. But no, it really looks like that. I can’t tear myself away from the eyepiece. That planet can float in a bathtub? Too soon it starts drifting out of my field of view. When it’s gone, I step back, too awed to say anything. I look up at the tiny points of light above me and can’t believe the planet I was just looking at is among them. I had no idea telescopes were so powerful, that it could single out one dot of light like that and bring it so close. It was like magic.

  Mr. Silver laughs. “I bet you won’t forget Saturn in your next model of the solar system!”

  I shake my head. I won’t forget Saturn, period.

  Rustling leaves and crunching branches make us both turn around. “Mr. Silver?” a woman’s voice asks. It’s Ally’s mom.

  As she gets closer I see her expression is serious. “This fax came for you at the office.” She hands him a piece of paper. “I thought you’d want to see it right away.”

  His brows knit as he begins to read. Then he lets out a small gasp and a groan. His arm with the paper in it drops to his side. “Can you get me a car to the airport tonight?”

  Mrs. Summers nods. “We’ll work something out. Come down to the office when you’re ready.” In a softer voice she says, “I hope everything’s going to be all right,” then hurries back down the hill.

  I watch the exchange, wide-eyed.

  Mr. Silver is wearing a pained expression when he turns back to me. “My wife is six months pregnant and had a scare. She’s in the hospital. She said not to worry, but I have to go make sure she’s okay. This is our first baby.” He paces back and forth, pulling at his hair. He used to do that in class, too, whenever someone (often me) gave an answer that was unfathomable to him. I didn’t even know his wife was pregnant. I didn’t even know he HAD a wife. I glance at his left hand, and sure enough, there’s a gold wedding band. I’ve really got to start being more perceptive. My stomach twists at the thought of him leaving.

  “Well, it can’t be helped,” he says. “I’ll have to cancel the experiment. I hope I can make it back for the eclipse.”

  I gape at him. “Cancel it? How can you cancel it?”

  “I’ll call the lead scientist in Hawaii. He’ll have to get someone else.”

  “But you told me all the data points are programmed into your computer. You said it took weeks. How can someone else catch up?”

  He puts his hand to his head. “You’re right of course, they can’t. He starts pacing again. Then with what sounds like regret, he says, “Greg Daniels knows ho
w the experiment works. He keeps up with all the amateur astronomy research. He’ll just have to take over.”

  “Er, if Mr. Daniels knew how to do it all along, why did you want ME to help?”

  “Honestly? I didn’t want to have to hang out with the guy!”

  As much as I didn’t want to do this when he first told me about it, I don’t want to hand it over to Stella’s not-so-nice son, either. “Can Ally and I still help?”

  He nods absently. “Follow me back down to my cabin. I’ll give you all the manuals for the equipment, all the instructions on reading and submitting the data. You can go over it with Mr. Daniels in the morning. I was really looking forward to —” His voice breaks and I look down while he collects himself. He rests his hand on the telescope, head bowed. Then he gives me a small smile and says, “You know, Jack, science is all about trial and error. I’m proud of you for being willing to try.”

  I help him put the thick cover back over the telescope and we head down the hill in silence. It’s going to be weird to be here without Mr. Silver. He had stopped seeming like my old teacher and had become more like SD4, even though he doesn’t even know my mom. Hanging out with Mr. Daniels isn’t going to be much fun. I wonder if Ally hadn’t been involved, if I would still have volunteered to help. I’d like to think so, but I don’t really know.

  When I go to look for Ally in the morning, I can’t find her anywhere. She’s not at home, or any place I’ve seen her before. I spot Stella by the stream with Pete and an old man I recognize as Ryan’s grandfather. He and Stella are laughing. I wonder why she and her son are so different. “Find any gold today?” I ask them.

  Pete holds up a handful. “We’re rich! I’m gonna buy a castle when I get home!”

  “That’s great.” I turn to Ryan’s grandfather. “Have you seen Ally, by any chance?”

  “Try the Art House,” he says, pointing toward Alien Central. I figure he’s confused about what the buildings are called, but I wish them all happy prospecting, and set off. I open the door of Alien Central, but just the loud hum of the computer greets me. Then I see a door I hadn’t noticed the other time I was in here. I knock on it.

  “Come in!” Ally calls out.

  I push open the door and find myself in a cabin similar to my own, except this one is covered in small paintings, some a few inches, some nearly a foot long, none bigger. They extend all the way up three walls, and in one corner they actually continue onto the ceiling. Ally is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, leaning on her hands.

  “So this is the Art House?” I ask, although clearly it is.

  “Yup. I was just looking at all the things people have painted here over the years. I’ve seen it nearly every day of my life, although it changes of course when people add things. But still, I’ve seen it every day, and thought it belonged to me. And all these pictures, all these images, they aren’t mine. They belong to the people who made them.”

  I move a bit closer to one of the walls. It’s covered with scenes of parks, stars, animals, fairies, people, planets, everything. “I don’t think that’s what art is,” I say cautiously. “Once it’s out there, it’s for everyone. Plus, you know, they wouldn’t have been able to paint this stuff if they hadn’t come here.”

  She smiles at me. Really smiles, in a way I don’t think anyone out of my family has ever smiled at me.

  “Do you want to paint something?” Ally gestures to paint and brushes and jars of water on a small wooden table in the corner.

  Her question catches me off guard. I’ve never painted anything that would be on display before. I think I might like to, though, so I say, “Yes, but not now. I have to tell you something.” I fill her in about Mr. Silver saying she could help, and then the part about him having to leave. She starts pacing, just like he did.

  “Wow, okay, wow. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, and I wish Mr. Silver was going to be there, but thank you for asking him if I can help. That was really nice of you.”

  I look down at my feet so she doesn’t see my cheeks get red.

  “C’mon, Jack. We better go find Mr. Daniels and give him everything. There’s not much time.” She hurries across the room, flicks off the light, and is already out the door and halfway down the road by the time I catch up.

  “Hang on, hang on, I know where he is. Mr. Silver slid a note under his cabin door before he left last night. He’s supposed to meet me at my cabin in about ten minutes.”

  “Oh,” she says, smiling. “Well that makes it easy, then.”

  We turn around and hurry in the opposite direction. Ally laughs as we bump into each other trying to keep out of other people’s way. My stomach does a little flip. As we pass the Pavilion I look up to see Mr. Daniels and his wife coming from breakfast. I point him out to Ally, who takes off running before I can warn her that he’s not very nice. I run after her, but she’s faster.

  “Hi, Mr. Daniels!” she says when she reaches them. “Isn’t this great? Should we get started?”

  “Honey,” Mr. Daniels’s wife says, tugging on his sleeve. “What is this young lady talking about?”

  “I have no idea,” Mr. Daniels replies.

  “This is Ally Summers,” I explain, stepping up beside her. “Her family owns the campground and she knows tons about astronomy. She’s going to be helping us with Mr. Silver’s project.”

  Mr. Daniels shakes his head. “You mean she’s going to be helping YOU with Mr. Silver’s project.”

  “Um, what?”

  “I know how these things go,” he says, bending to scratch a nasty-looking mosquito bite on his knee. “The grunts do all the work, and the head guy takes all the credit. I’m not standing out in the middle of the night for hours so some other guy can verify an exoplanet. No thanks.”

  It takes me a few seconds to let his words sink in. Then I blurt out, “But Mr. Silver’s not like that. I’m sure he’d give you the credit, or whatever. He said you were going to do this.”

  Mr. Daniels shakes his head.

  “Can’t you just do it, you know, in the name of science?” Ally pleads.

  “Sounds like you two’ve got it all under control,” he says, stepping around us. “Come on, honey, let’s go pan for some gold.”

  And with that, they turn and walk away, leaving us staring after them, mouths open.

  “Wow,” Ally says.

  “Wow,” I repeat.

  “Maybe he’s mad because Mr. Silver didn’t include him originally?”

  “Could be.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  I shake my head. “I have no idea. There’s no way I would ever understand how to do the experiment. I guess I’m going to have to find Mr. Silver and tell him.”

  “Kenny!” Ally suddenly yells out, making me whip my head around, only to realize he’s not here.

  “We’ll ask Kenny for help,” she says, her usual enthusiasm returning as quickly as it had left. “He’s really good at reading manuals and figuring out electronic things.”

  I’m not sure how Mr. Silver would feel about a ten-year-old working on his project, but it doesn’t look like we have any choice. Before she leaves to find him I blurt out, “Hey, I saw Saturn last night.”

  She stops and smiles up at me. “Pretty cool, right? Those rings are actually individual chunks of ice. The first time I saw it close up I thought it didn’t look real.”

  “Yes! Exactly!”

  “I’ll meet you in your cabin as soon as I find Kenny, okay?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she takes off at a run. Someday I hope to be able to run as effortlessly as her, instead of lumbering along, huffing and puffing. On the way back to my cabin I think about what she said about Saturn not looking real. It’s almost like the two of us have seen something that no one else has, even though of course plenty of people have seen it. But it makes me feel good to think that she looked up at it and thought the same thing I did.

  Twenty minutes later Ally, Kenny, and Bree’s sister, Me
lanie, arrive at my cabin. Mr. Silver’s stuff is piled up in a big cardboard box. Kenny grabs for the logbook, and Melanie snags two of the manuals and opens them with obvious glee.

  Ally laughs. “You two are like twins separated at birth.”

  “Only we’re eight months apart,” Melanie says, not tearing her eyes from the books.

  “Yeah,” Ally says dryly. “I didn’t mean it literally. Where’s Bree?”

  “She’s hanging out with that guy Ryan,” Melanie says, flipping open a notebook. “Last night she said he felt familiar, or something like that. She only says those kinds of things really late at night when she’s half asleep.”

  A flash of something I can’t quite figure out crosses Ally’s face. I hope she’s not upset that Ryan is spending so much time with Bree. I know Ally and him go way back. She told me they were just old friends, but still, it can’t be easy watching your friend spend time with someone else. But now that I think of it, Ally’s spending kind of a lot of time with me, and I’ve been exercising with Ryan, so maybe it’s okay. Ugh, this social stuff is so hard. It was much easier alone in my treehouse. Lonelier, but easier.

  To change the subject, I ask Kenny and Melanie if they think we have a chance to do this.

  “We’ll go up the hill and check out the equipment,” Kenny says. “I bet we can figure it out.”

  “I told my parents,” Melanie says. “They said they could help. Should I ask them to?”

  Ally looks down at her sneakers. Kenny busies himself in one of the books. I hide my relieved smile behind a cough. I’m not the only one who doesn’t want the grown-ups involved.

  “Um, what if we only ask for help if we really need it?” Melanie suggests.

  “Yes, sounds good, yup,” the three of us say at the same time.

  “Okay then,” Kenny says, sticking his book back in the box and throwing the top on. “Let’s go up the hill and see what we’re dealing with.” He tries to pick up the box, but his knees buckle.

  I make a big show of flexing my arms, and then lift it easily. It’s amazing what a few days of working out have done already. As we head out of the cabin Bree and Ryan walk by. They’re walking very close to each other. They look like a real couple.