“They’re only little kids,” I said.
Another couple of toddlers appeared at the Fairy Wonderland door. Mom frantically moved them into a group like a herd of sticky, colorful sheep. “Time to get into your own clothes before your parents get here, my dears,” she said.
She started on one child, but another sneaked down the hall and picked up the telephone. Mom had to leave the others to keep her from calling Timbuktu. Every time Mom grabbed one kid, another made a run for it. There were only five or six kids, but they seemed to multiply. Mom’s cheeks were hot pink, and she looked ready to explode.
“That does it! Bob, Nickel, grab a kid and dress it.”
“I am not an it!” said the small girl she had by the collar.
“Of course you aren’t, sweetie,” Mom said through clenched teeth.
I reached out and grabbed a toddler with bulging eyes as he streaked by in a pixie costume, waving his arms and hollering something about baseballs. “It wouldn’t hurt to consider natural food colorings, you know, Ma.”
She rolled her eyes at me, but I could tell a small part of her agreed.
Nickel backed slowly toward the door. “I—I think I’ll wait on the porch,” he said, reaching behind for the doorknob.
“Do not move, young man. The fairy room—go clean it before the parents arrive!” Mom waved him away.
“W-what if one of the kids touches me?”
She gave him a scathing look. “They are children, Nickel, not bacteria.”
Personally, I thought they were a bit of both.
Looking a little dejected and a lot terrified, Nickel shuffled off. His bedroom at its tidiest still looked worse than the Fairy Wonderland after a day of parties, so I didn’t hold out much hope for the state of the room when he was done with it.
“Hold still,” I told the small toddler squirming in my hands.
The little kid looked up at me with what I thought were huge brown eyes. Turned out they were actually blue with superwide pupils. It was a symptom of sugar psychosis, I was pretty sure.
He panted. “I gonna splode.”
“How about you explode after you have your own clothes on?” I said.
He screwed up his face, clenched his fists, and made a noise like a steaming kettle. After a few seconds, his eyes opened again. “I di’n’t splode.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe next time.”
Deflated, the boy pointed out his own pile of clothes on the shelf in the hallway. Aside from a few mismatched buttons, I got him dressed and moved on to the next one. I had to stop in the middle when the next parents arrived.
Two doorbells later and we were on the last of the kids.
Mom, Nickel, and I led them out to meet their mother after we heard her car in the driveway. “Mommeeeeee!” the little girl I had on my hip screamed when the car door opened.
The mother hurried up our newly neat-and-tidy path. The girl wriggled out of my arms and ran to meet her.
When she was still a few feet away, someone screamed, “Duck!” which was strange, because there weren’t any ducks near our house. Geese, yes; ducks, no.
From somewhere over our heads came a high-pitched whistle. Something small and black hurtled through the sky. It spiraled toward me, twisting as I tried to jump aside. Narrowly missing my head, it looped away and lodged in the side of our house with an almighty crash and the snap of splintering wood.
Nickel bolted across the lawn and didn’t stop until he was almost at the gate.
“Was that the satellite?” I yelled, kind of hoping it was, since I was still alive.
“Did you see that?” Mom ran across the lawn to grab me. “That thing went straight for you, Bob, like someone aimed it right at your head.”
Nickel pointed with a shaky hand. “When you ducked, it ducked too.”
I could not answer, thanks to the shock. Now a missile wanted me dead?
Jared Winkelmeier ran, panting, into our yard. “Oh-my-gosh-I-am-so-sorry!” He bent over and grabbed his knees while he caught his breath. I stared up at the black cylinder poking out from the boards above my bedroom window. Fresh boards that were only months old.
I jabbed my finger through the air at him. “What did you aim that thing at me for?”
Jared, a fourteen-year-old amateur physicist, looked up at me, face all contorted as he gasped for air. “It’s a—rocket—I made for—science fair. It’s not meant to travel—this far—or be—that powerful. You can’t—even aim it.”
“It sure looked like you could,” Mom said, her arms wrapped around me. I wasn’t sure if it was because she thought the rocket might have hit me, or because she wanted to keep herself from committing acts of vicious sarcasm on Jared Winkelmeier. “It nearly took her head clean off. At least it could have hit one of the places that needed boards replaced. Are people deliberately trying to hit our house now?”
“I’ll pay for—the damage, of course,” Jared said between gasps.
“Darn right you will, buddy!” I said, wagging a finger at him. “You should be…”
I gave up mid-sentence. It wasn’t Jared’s fault, and I knew it. Bad luck caused this, and possibly some sort of curse that had it in for our house.
Or did it?
What if the curse was on me?
Could the things have been aimed at me all that time? Mrs. Cuthbert’s tree had landed on our house, but it had hit my room and my headquarters. I shaded my eyes and stared up at the roof above my room. It had a thick covering of toys, way more than on any other part of the roof.
“No,” I whispered. “It couldn’t be.”
“What couldn’t be?” Mom asked, hugging me a bit tighter.
I shook my head, hard, because I needed more time to think. “It doesn’t matter.”
* * *
• • •
Nickel stayed for dinner that night. We sat in front of the television, trying to hear the news preview over the hammering outside, where Jared and his father were patching the hole in the house. Every bang set my nerves further on edge. The satellite was closer than ever, and the house was attracting things like never before. Or I was.
I had to know what was going on with the satellite.
While we waited for the news to start, Mom went to collect sewing supplies from her workroom, and Grandma picked herbs for dinner. I took the chance to ask Nickel the question I’d wanted to ask all evening.
“Has NASA replied to your email yet?”
He glanced up at the clock over the stove. “What time does the six o’clock news start?”
“Six o’clock, obviously. Have you heard from NASA?” I elbowed him, a little harder than I meant to.
He grabbed his ribs and glared at me. “What was that for?”
Narrowing my eyes, I said, “It should be an easy answer. Yes or no.”
“Yes,” he said. But it didn’t seem like any sort of an easy answer. He looked down at his beat-up sneakers as they kicked the edge of Mom’s frayed rug.
“What? When? What did they say?” I leaned forward in my chair.
He squirmed around to get a piece of paper from his back pocket and passed it to me. I folded it flat on my thigh to read it.
Dear Mr. Bugden,
Thank you for your letter regarding the decommissioning and reentry of satellite XR-26.
Here at NASA we value public safety above all else. Please rest assured that our calculations indicate it’s unlikely the satellite will land anywhere near you.
Best wishes,
Barry Cardogan,
NASA Public Relations
That was it? No plan, no protection, no nothing? I stared at the note until the news started. As usual, the satellite was the first story.
“NASA confirmed the date the defunct XR-26 satellite is predicted to
reenter Earth’s atmosphere. Public Relations Manager Barry Cardogan had this to say,” said the news anchor with a stern look on his face.
Barry Cardogan only had hair around the very edges of his head, and even that was pretty thin. His bright red cheeks were squeezed into a serious expression. “At this stage it is estimated the satellite will reenter Earth’s atmosphere on or about June fourteenth. Once again, this is an estimation only.”
June fourteenth? Two weeks away.
I tried to send angry brain waves at Barry Cardogan through the TV. It didn’t look like he felt them, though. He’d be home with his family constructing an underground bunker by now. Meanwhile, the satellite would put a big halt on my summer before it even began, and on my everything else.
“You know,” I said, scrunching the NASA email into a ball, “I am starting to lose faith in adults.” I folded my arms across my chest and plopped back in the chair.
“Maybe you should move in with us for a while,” Nickel said.
We glanced at each other, and I squeezed the balled-up piece of paper tighter in my hand. “Knowing my luck, your house would just get flattened instead of mine. I’m doomed, and I’m not even a teenager.”
When the phone rang on Monday night, we were in the middle of a Scrabble game. Mom answered, because no one ever called unless it was one of her clients. I figured they must have had a lot to talk about, because it took her a long time to come back from the hallway. Long enough for me to have checked every one of her tiles and have my strategy worked out for the next few moves. Not that I’d do such a thing. Probably.
Mom appeared in the doorway, frowning.
“It’s for you, Bob,” she said.
Me? The phone was never for me. Nickel had a phone phobia, and no one else had anything to say to me. Except one person.
I jumped up, knocking my tiles onto the floor. Dad?
Mom grimaced. “It’s someone from that TV show What’s Current. They want to talk to you about the satellite, of all things.”
“It’s about time one of us got famous,” said Grandma. “Never figured on it being Sparkles, though.”
My insides did a little somersault as I ran to the phone.
“Hello, Robyn Goodfellow speaking.” Boy, I sure sounded weird when I talked on the phone. Lack of practice, most likely.
“Hi there, Robyn. My name is Felicity Kildare. I’m a reporter for What’s Current. You’ve heard of the show, I take it?” She sure sounded like every TV reporter ever—bright, cheerful, and pronouncing every syllable with care.
I nodded before I realized she couldn’t see me. “Um, yes.”
“Marvelous! I bet you’re wondering how I came to have your number.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“We were planning on doing a special-interest piece about the anxiety the satellite is causing, and when we asked around town, your name kept coming up.” Felicity Thingamabob chuckled prettily on the other end of the line. That irritated me. I was not anxious. That made it sound like I had nothing to be scared about, and I did. Besides, what I had was more of a slow-burning terror than anxiety.
The reporter continued. “Apparently your house is famous for things landing on the roof, and people are joking the satellite might too.”
Joking? Everyone in Calliope thought the satellite would hit us now? I shuddered at that, but I couldn’t be sure if it was the eeriness of having the whole town think we were doomed, or if I was seething so hard it made me shake.
“Yes. Everything hits my house.” I tried to sound polite instead of ticked off.
“And you think the satellite will too?”
I shivered again. “Yes.”
The reporter chuckled again. “Oh dear. Never mind. I’m sure it will all turn out just fine. I would love it if you would talk to me on camera about your concerns and how this whole satellite thing is affecting you. Would that be okay? Your mother said she didn’t mind. That it was up to you.”
Her voice was the sort toddlers used when trying to scam Mom for extra candy.
The people at NASA weren’t interested in helping us. No one believed we were in danger, except all the Calliopeans, apparently. Maybe my going on TV would get NASA’s attention, or someone would come up with a plan for how to save us. Or maybe my dad would see the broadcast and come find me. Even if none of that happened, at least I would be remembered.
“Yes,” I said.
Felicity Kildare and her crew would be at our house the next day to film. I might only have a couple of weeks left to be famous, but it would be better than nothing.
I sat down in front of my Scrabble tiles, which Mom had put back into their stand. She reached across the board to pat my hand. “You’re in a tizzy about this satellite, aren’t you?”
When she came out and asked like that, it sounded stupid and unimportant. I felt my cheeks get warm. “Kinda.”
She squeezed my fingers. “I know it’s scary. It makes me a bit nervous too. But I remind myself how huge this world is and how tiny we are. NASA would do something if they thought it would land on people, and that makes me feel better.”
If they were as bad at “doing something” as they were at figuring out satellite trajectories, we were in deep doo-doo. But I only mumbled, “So everyone says.”
Leaning over the board and tiles, she pecked my cheek. “Trust me, Robyn Goodfellow. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
I so hoped she was right and all this would turn out okay.
Meanwhile, the next day I would have a chance to talk to someone who had also talked to my other family once.
* * *
• • •
“I could come over to watch and make sure you don’t say anything embarrassing,” Nickel said at lunch the next day. It felt like the first time we had eaten lunch together in forever.
“What makes you think I’ll embarrass myself?”
“I’m not going to answer, on the grounds it may get me punched.” He grinned and popped a soggy french fry into his mouth.
I wanted to be angry at him, and I gave it a good try, but my enthusiasm wasn’t there. I never wanted to lose my best friend again. Before our fight, I never thought I could.
“You can come.”
Nickel punched his fist in the air. “Sweet.”
We walked home together after school. It would be his second visit to my house in a week. Impending disaster made people do strange things, I guessed. Not to mention what they’d do for a shot at fame.
“Which do you think is my best side?” he asked, jogging backward alongside me. He turned his face one way, then the other.
“Your back side,” I said, and giggled.
“Hur, hur, hur. Have you thought about what you’re going to say? You don’t want to look stupid.”
I had thought about it. A lot. In fact, I had a whole speech planned. But I couldn’t say it out loud before the interview, or I would lose my nerve.
“Not exactly,” I said.
* * *
• • •
When Nickel and I got home, a van with What’s Current printed in gold letters on the side was parked out front. Behind it was a truck with a huge extendable arm like the one on the back of the firetruck when they rescued kitties from our roof.
“That’s a cherry picker,” Nickel said. “They use it to film high stuff, like the roof. It’s awesome. Check out the hydraulics on that thing.”
I was suddenly too nervous to think of a reply or even wonder what hydraulics were.
Our entire block was the sort of quiet that a neighborhood could only be when all its occupants were inside, peeping from behind their curtains. My stomach turned into a spaghetti tangle of nerves. Talking to Felicity Kildare the night before on the phone had been fine, but now it was real and terrifying.
“I can’t remember anythi
ng I wanted to say.”
Nickel laughed at me until he saw my face. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay. She’ll ask questions and you answer them. Make it up.”
Make it up?
I was even more doomed than I thought.
Mom and Felicity Kildare sat chatting in the Fairy Wonderland, with Grandma, mostly hidden behind a cross-eyed sheep, watching. The reporter looked exactly like a TV personality—tall, with black hair pulled back into a tight bun, big dark eyes, and makeup so perfect she almost didn’t look real. A couple of guys with cameras followed her around. She thrust her hand, full of bright pink fingernails, at me. “You must be Robyn. I’m Felicity Kildare.”
I took her hand in my good one and gave it a backward shake. “Hi, Ms. Kildare.”
The reporter smiled the neatest and whitest smile I ever saw. “Oh, please, call me Felicity.”
Nickel stepped forward and held out his hand. It was the most grown-up thing I had ever seen him do. “Hi, I’m Nickel Bugden, Robyn’s best friend.”
Felicity shook his hand while still looking at me. It was kind of rude. “What happened to your arm, Robyn?”
I glanced down at the cast. It had a lot more graffiti on it now that Nickel and I were best friends again. “I tripped and broke it. No big deal.”
The reporter looked disappointed. “Oh, I thought the rocket your mom told me about on the phone might have hit it.” The way she said it made me think she would be happier if it had.
The cameramen worked at attaching cameras and massive spotlights to tripods. Felicity looked around, taking in the wonder that was a fairyland filled with wonky animals.
“This is the perfect place for the interview,” she said, taking a seat on one of the papier-mâché toadstools. I perched on another, swiping crepe paper willow fronds away from my face.
Grandma, Mom, and Nickel sat on the rock-shaped table to watch. I stared into the bright lights, orange patterns appearing on the insides of my lids when I blinked.
Felicity waved her hand in front of my eyes. “We are rolling, Robyn.”
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