Planet Earth Is Blue
Page 1
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Nicole Panteleakos
Cover art copyright © 2019 by Jungsuk Lee
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
“Space Oddity” Words and Music by David Bowie. © Copyright 1969 (Renewed) Onward Music Ltd., London, England. TRO Essex Music International, Inc., New York, controls all publication rights for the U.S.A. and Canada. International Copyright Secured. Made in U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Including Public Performance For Profit.
Used by Permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Panteleakos, Nicole, author.
Title: Planet earth is blue / Nicole Panteleakos.
Description: First edition. | New York : Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, [2019] | Summary: Autistic and nearly nonverbal, twelve-year-old Nova is happy in her new foster home and school, but eagerly anticipates the 1986 Challenger launch, for which her sister, Bridget, promised to return. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018022142 (print) | LCCN 2018028065 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-525-64659-4 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-525-64657-0 (trade) | ISBN 978-0-525-64658-7 (lib. bdg.)
Subjects: | CYAC: Sisters—Fiction. | Autism—Fiction. | Foster children—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Challenger (Spacecraft)—Accidents—Fiction. | Space shuttles—Accidents—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.P35747 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.P35747 Pl 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9780525646594
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
— For —
Meadow & Brayden,
Kahliel & Caleb,
Jordyn, Josiah & Benjamin
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves,
and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, LE PETIT PRINCE
Bridget was gone.
And Nova was broken.
Nova hadn’t wanted to run away from the last foster family. They were nice enough. Sure, it wasn’t easy sharing one bedroom with four other girls in three sets of bunk beds. There was no privacy for Bridget, who liked her space, and there was no room for hand flapping or bouncing, which Nova liked to do while pretending she was in space.
Plus there was a rule no shower could last more than eight minutes.
And they weren’t allowed to watch TV, listen to records, or drink anything with caffeine.
But there had been hot oatmeal in the mornings. Cold lemonade with lunch. Warm blankets at night. Nobody yelled bad words or spanked them. Nobody made Bridget scrub floors like Cinderella. Nobody called Nova Dumbo because she couldn’t speak. Most importantly, they were together.
Bridget hated it anyway.
“I’m out of here,” she kept saying. “I can’t stand it another day. I’m losing my mind.”
Nova wasn’t worried then. She knew they’d end up somewhere else eventually.
When the time came, though, leaving was different. No social worker to transport them. No paperwork for adults to sign. Bridget didn’t even glare at the failed foster parents and say goodbye. Nova and Bridget just piled into a car and drove away. This was not their routine, which made Nova’s tummy hurt because she hated goodbyes, but she hated deviating from the routine even more.
“Don’t worry!” Bridget had kissed Nova’s forehead. “I’ll take care of you like I’ve always taken care of you!”
Now Bridget was gone.
And Nova was worried.
She rocked back and forth on her knees, hugging NASA Bear to her chest, and glanced around her newest bedroom. The first room she’d ever had all to herself.
Diagonal from the door was a double bed with a fancy carved headboard. The mattress was soft, the pillow was softer, and the blanket was plush and purple, covered in tiny silver stars.
It was too big.
The bedroom was long but narrow. It had two windows, one facing the front yard and the other facing the back. Out back there was an in-ground pool, covered up for the winter. Out front a pathway leading up to the door was guarded by two giant stone lions. At midnight the town switched off the streetlights, which made Nova happy because total darkness meant she could see the Big Dipper lurking along the horizon, where the sun set shortly before dinner each night.
It was too nice.
The upstairs bathroom had a tub long enough to stretch out in. The kitchen always smelled of fresh-baked brownies or banana bread and the color television had a remote control. Most rooms had wall-to-wall carpeting. There were lots of windows through which the sun shone.
It was too much like a home.
Nova didn’t want it to start feeling like home. Bridget always warned, “If it feels like home, it’s harder to leave.”
Nova hugged her teddy bear tighter, trying to picture her big sister in the bedroom beside her. What had Bridget been thinking, deciding to run away like that? It was already January 1986, and in August she’d be eighteen. Then Bridget could raise Nova herself, like they’d always planned.
Only Bridget was gone.
And Nova was lonely.
“You’ll start school on Monday,” new foster mother Francine warned during breakfast.
Nova hated new schools more than she hated new foster families. New schools always spent the first week or two testing her and always came to the same conclusions: “Cannot read. Does not speak. Severely mentally retarded.”
Bridget hated the word retarded.
“My sister’s not dumb,” she’d tell anyone who’d listen. “She’s a thinker, not a talker.”
The truth was, Nova rarely spoke and when she did, she had difficulty controlling her volume, so sometimes she’d be whispering on a crowded playground and other times she’d be shouting in church. Even when she did manage to find the right sound, forming a whole word was its own challenge. She coul
d say “Oh” or “Kay” but not “Okay.” She could say “Wah” or “Ter” but not “Water.” She could say “Coo” or “Kee” but not “Cookie.” And sometimes when she’d try to say a simple word like “Cat” an entirely different word would come out, like “Boo,” which didn’t make sense to anyone, not even Bridget.
Most of the time Nova didn’t bother to speak at all.
Rocking back and forth on top of the fluffy blankets in the bedroom she had all to herself, Nova wondered for the two millionth time where Bridget had gone and whether she would keep her promise to return in time to see the first teacher skyrocket into space.
“No matter where we end up,” Bridget had said, “even if we have to be separated for a while, I’ll come back to see NASA make history, okay? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Both sisters had been dying to see Challenger launch ever since President Reagan announced the contest to find the perfect teacher over a year ago. Nova was glad the waiting was almost over. She wondered if Bridget was glad too.
Nova kissed NASA Bear’s belly. His plastic bubble astronaut helmet pressed against her forehead. He had been a gift from their mama, who had very strange ideas about how the 1969 moon landing actually happened.
“Government orchestrated!” Mama liked to say. “All on a soundstage, babies, thanks to movie magic! Did you see the way the astronaut’s boots kicked up dirt? The way the flag waved? There’s no wind on the moon, girls! How was it waving? It was government orchestrated, that’s how! That means the government made it up, to trick us!”
Their mama thought a lot of things were government orchestrated.
“Nova, honey?” foster mother Francine called through the cracked-open bedroom door. “How about we go to the store and get you some school clothes? You’ve almost grown out of everything the last family sent.”
Most of what the last family had sent wasn’t even hers, but they needed it to seem like they’d been providing more than fraying sweaters and too-small stretch pants so they sent along a big cardboard box full of clothes their other foster daughters were growing out of. They kept the heavy winter coat they’d bought for Nova and all the slouch socks Bridget had given her for her twelfth birthday.
The only clothes in the box Nova would willingly wear were three pairs of pj’s, one pair of red overalls, and two T-shirts she’d inherited from her sister. The first had the words ONE SMALL STEP on the front with the moon landing date on the back, JULY 20, 1969. The second was from David Bowie’s 1978 World Tour, black with red and blue print, which they’d found at a thrift shop.
Nova’s other possessions included NASA Bear, Bridget’s Walkman and favorite mix tape, the Little People figure who looked like an astronaut, the one they’d stolen from a previous foster home where they had so many Fisher Price sets no one would notice, a small spiral-bound notebook, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a few faded photographs, a box of sixty-four Crayola crayons, and a silver-banded mood ring with a sky-blue stone that didn’t change color anymore. Francine and Billy had given Nova a toy box—her first-ever toy box—in which she could keep her treasures. It was a large wooden crate with JOANIE ROSE stenciled across the top in flowery Carnation Pink letters.
“It belonged to our daughter when she was little,” Francine had explained. “Pink is Joanie’s favorite color. She’s so happy to have you here, Nova. She hated being the youngest and the only girl. Growing up with three big brothers was lonely, I think.”
James, Joseph, and John. Those were the three big brothers. Shortly after Nova arrived at the Wests’, Billy had pointed to a picture of the boys hanging on the wall above the television. “My three sons!” he’d said proudly. “Doctor James, Carpenter Joseph, and Recreation Director John.”
Nova couldn’t ask where the three brothers had gone, whether they’d disappeared like Bridget. Maybe they went to the moon, thought Nova, picturing the boys from the picture floating weightlessly above a crater. She imagined James with a stethoscope and Joseph with a hammer but didn’t know what a recreation director might have.
“Every Christmas Joanie wrote Santa asking for a little sister, but we had our hands full then.”
Nova glanced down at Francine’s hands. They weren’t full anymore. They were placed upon the wooden lid of the toy box. Her nails were long and shiny and she wore three rings, two sparkly gold ones on her left hand to show she was married, and one thin silver band on her right pinkie. Her fingers ran over the letters spelling JOANIE ROSE like there was something in the box much more important than toys.
“When the weather gets nicer,” Francine had continued, “we’ll buy some wood stain and paint and have it redone with your name.”
Nova stared at the toy box and imagined her name in place of Joanie’s. NOVA BEA VEZINA. It was a perfect name. Bridget said so, and Bridget never lied.
“Nova?” asked Francine again, poking her head into the bedroom, tugging Nova free from the memory. “Clothes shopping?”
Nova shook her head one-two-three-four times. She did not want to go clothes shopping. She hated trying things on, pants that pushed against her belly and socks that touched her ankles and shirts with itchy tags and dresses—oh, the dresses! Nothing could be worse than something she had to wear tights under. Tights stretched from her waist to her feet and always, always had a seam line across her toes. She hated lines across her toes.
Francine stepped all the way into the room, which made Nova hug NASA Bear tighter. “Mrs. Steele told me how you feel about clothes, but we need to find at least enough to get you through this first week of school, right? You can’t wear jammies forever.”
Mrs. Steele had been Bridget and Nova’s social worker for most of the years they’d been in foster care. She was okay. Except she used the R-word a lot.
Cannot read. Does not speak. Severely mentally retarded.
Bridget hated the R-word.
“Nova?”
Nova let out an involuntary squeak. That happened sometimes. She couldn’t help making noise, even when she was trying her hardest not to.
Francine sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, facing Nova.
“I’m sorry. I know this must be very difficult. But Billy and I are so happy to have you here. So is Joanie.”
Billy was Francine’s husband, Nova’s new foster father. Joanie was their daughter, home from college on winter break.
“Mm,” said Nova, nodding her head ever so slightly. She imagined what Bridget would say: “Suck it up, Super Nova, ’cause you can’t go to school nekkid.”
Nekkid. Nova’s lips curled into a smile, then parted to let out a high screech, followed by several hiccupy squeals. Her body twitched, her hands flailed. Bridget loved the word nekkid.
“Are you laughing?” asked Francine, her smiling growing into a grin. “I haven’t heard you laugh before! I love your laugh!” Francine laughed too, for some reason, so Nova kept right on flailing and twitching and laughing about Bridget and nekkid. She laughed until tears stung her eyes. She used NASA Bear’s matted furry leg to wipe them away. Nekkid. Oh, Bridget!
“Come with me, Nova. You can pick out whatever’s comfortable. If you want to buy nothing but T-shirts and overalls, that’s fine. No dresses, I promise.”
Francine stood, holding out her hand. Nova mulled this over for a moment before taking Francine’s hand and allowing herself to be led out of the bedroom, not loosening her grip on NASA Bear.
Maybe clothes shopping with Francine wouldn’t be too bad.
Maybe they could buy slouch socks.
JAN 18, 1986
Dear Bridget,
T-minus ten days until Challenger launch.
Today is Saturday. I don’t know how long it’s been since I got here, but you missed Christmas. I missed you on Christmas. It was not Christmas without you.
I’m sorry I did not write
before today. My hands and arms and shoulders were hurting and I was tired. Plus maybe I was angry.
I am angry because you are gone.
I am angry because Christmas was not Christmas without you.
I am angry because only you can understand my letters, because everyone else calls them scribbles, because without you here to see the words I try to make, it’s like I’m writing to nobody.
I’m ready for you to come back.
I have a new foster family.
The mom is Francine West. She is tall and skinny with light skin and light hair. The dad is Billy West. He is shorter and rounder with dark skin and no hair. They have a daughter named Joanie West who lives here, except when she’s at college, plus three grown-up sons who live far away.
Francine says I am their first-ever foster child.
I laughed today and she did not yell “Stop making that weird noise!” like our last foster mother. Francine laughed when I laughed but it did not feel mean like when kids laugh.
Will you be mad, Bridget, if I laugh and you’re not here?
Will you be mad if I laugh with Francine?
I know you always say “Foster families are not forever families” and “We should not get attached,” but I think you might like Francine. She talks to me the way people talk to you. Not too loud and too slow, the way they talk to me.
She talks like I am a person.
This is a nice house, Bridget. There are four big bedrooms. One is for Billy and Francine, one is for Joanie, one is for me, and they said the downstairs one is for guests. My bedroom has a door in the back of the closet that goes to the attic, which is my favorite part of the house, even though there is a lot of dust that makes me sneeze. The attic is dark with sloped wooden ceilings and a round window at the far end. It is a perfect place to pretend to be in space.
In the upstairs living room, they have cable. Have you seen cable? Cable is where there are extra TV channels and one is called Nickelodeon, special for kids. Nickelodeon has a show of The Little Prince. The same one from our book! Joanie puts it on for me every single day and does not get mad when it makes me so happy I jump on the couch and squeak and flap. She just says “Sit quietly, Nova,” and then I try to sit quietly.