Planet Earth Is Blue

by Nicole Panteleakos

  “I know you’re excited, Nova, but please calm down and try a little harder,” said Mrs. Pierce, rubbing her temples like her head was hurting. “Francine told me how well you did with words and letters over the weekend, but if you can’t show me what you already know, I won’t know what to teach you next.”

  Nova tried her best, but she was too excited and distracted and…she thought back to that word Francine used all the time…overwhelmed, that was it. She felt overwhelmed. So when Mrs. Pierce asked for N she handed her M and when Mrs. Pierce requested Q she got O and when she wanted Z she got H, which didn’t look similar at all. Nova started to get agitated and bounced in her chair, making an angry “Mm” sound.

  “Maybe you should take a deep breath?” said Mrs. Pierce. “Francine said you did a good job taking deep breaths this morning.”

  Nova took a deep breath. It didn’t help.

  Finally it was time to put the flash cards away.

  “Class!” said Mrs. Pierce, clapping her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Please return to Morning Circle. As you all know, the Challenger space shuttle launches today, and as a nice surprise, we have a special guest here to talk to us about it!”

  Nova cocked her head to the side, her eyes wide. A nice surprise? A special guest? Could it be Bridget? Wriggling her fingers excitedly, she hurried to the circle and sat in the same seat she’d occupied earlier, beside Alex.

  “Maybe is a astronaut,” said Alex. “A real-life one!”

  “Maybe it’s Valentina Cornucopia,” said Mallory. “The first woman in space!”

  Nova let out her biggest laugh, shaking her head. Mrs. Pierce had read them a book about the first woman in space, a Russian cosmonaut who orbited Earth forty-eight times in 1963, but her name wasn’t Valentina Cornucopia; it was Valentina Tereshkova.

  “What?” asked Mallory, her eyes flashing furiously. “What’s so funny?”

  Nova shook her head again, but she had no way of correcting her friend, so when Mrs. Pierce asked them all to have quiet voices and calm bodies she folded her hands across NASA Bear’s tummy and held back her giggles. Mallory must not have stayed mad long, because she shrugged and smiled and took her seat too, right next to Nova.

  Once they were all sitting with Quiet Voices, Listening Ears, and Calm Bodies like the list of rules reminded them to, Mrs. Pierce nodded to Miss Chambers, who was standing by the door. Miss Chambers opened it, and Nova, clutching NASA Bear, held her breath.

  Bridget?

  But the smiling teenage girl who entered was not Bridget.

  “Class, this is Stephanie! She’s a student at the high school, right across campus, where she’s studying astronomy and space travel. She would like to work for NASA someday. Would any of you like to work for NASA someday? Raise your hands!”

  Nova jumped out of her chair, put both hands in the air, and squeaked. Not Bridget, but she was happy to see Stephanie. Wispy Lip Luke and Mallory had raised their hands too, but just one each.

  “Stephanie already knows Nova because they went to the planetarium together last week, but let’s introduce ourselves one at a time…from our seats.” (Miss Chambers motioned for Nova to return to her chair.) “Let’s start with you, Buddy. What is your name?”

  At the end of the semicircle, Bouncing Buddy touched the center of his chest with an open palm, then made a sort of X with the index and middle fingers of both hands, and finally folded his thumb across his left palm, raised the other four fingers, and waved palm-out.

  “He signed, ‘My name’s Buddy,’ ” explained Mr. Malone, handing him a piece of gummy worm. Nova felt a surge of jealousy. If she could talk with her hands like Buddy, she could tell Mallory the first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova. Nova sighed. She hugged NASA Bear and imagined him saying, “Don’t feel bad, Nova. No one can hear me talk or read my ‘scribbles’ either.”

  After the rest of the class had been introduced, Stephanie unfolded a huge piece of black cardboard split into three parts. Mr. Malone helped her prop it up on the Morning Circle easel. Nova tried her hardest not to squeak and bounce, but it was beautiful. As beautiful as the solar system poster.

  In the middle of the center panel, there was a huge glossy cutout of the space shuttle. Beneath it, a color photograph of the seven astronauts. They were wearing their powder-blue uniforms, holding their helmets. Other pictures included the famous photo of the American flag from the moon landing TV broadcast, a shadowed image of Earth as seen from the moon during the Apollo 8 mission, in which the top of the planet was bright blue and green while the bottom was in the dark, and the exact same image of smiling Sally Ride that Bridget used to have saved inside her Trapper Keeper.

  On the left panel, in white writing surrounded by dotted stars, Stephanie had listed SPACE TRAVEL FACTS. On the right panel, she’d pasted newspaper clippings, including many of the ones Nova had saved at home, under the heading CHALLENGER LAUNCH FACTS. All words Nova recognized.

  “Let’s start with some space travel facts!” said Stephanie, grinning. “Does anyone know who was the first human in space and where he was from?”

  Nova whimpered. Not this again!

  “Yuri Gagarin!” shouted Mallory. “Cosmonaut! Russia! We learned that in Mr. O’Reilly’s room.”

  “Very good!” Stephanie handed her a small square of something pink that looked like hard cotton candy. “Anyone who gets a question right gets some astronaut ice cream. It’s freeze-dried, which means all water has been removed by a vacuuming process that lowers the air pressure, turning it from liquid to solid! Don’t worry, there’s enough for everyone.”

  Nova shot Mallory a sharp look. It wasn’t fair. She wanted the most astronaut ice cream because she knew the most about space!

  “Next question! Does anyone know who the first woman in space was?” asked Stephanie.

  “Valentina!” shouted Mallory.

  Not Cornucopia, thought Nova.

  “Cornucopia!” added Mallory.

  “Mm,” grumbled Nova. She folded her arms across her chest, nearly knocking NASA Bear from her lap.

  “So close! It was Valentina Tereshkova, another Russian cosmonaut.”

  That was not close, thought Nova.

  “Let’s remember to raise hands,” said Mrs. Pierce gently. “And give our friends a turn.”

  “Can anyone tell me who was the first American in space?” Stephanie gestured toward Alex, whose face had just lit up. “Do you know?”

  “Yes!” said Alex. “Name is Alan, almost Alex! We readed it in the book, right, Mrs. Pierce?”

  “Read it,” corrected Mr. Malone softly.

  “Read it in the book,” said Alex. “Alan.”

  “That’s right!” Stephanie was beaming. “It was Alan Shepard. And John Glenn was the first to orbit the earth.” She handed a small white square to Alex, who ate it right away, unlike Mallory (who was still holding her pink square).

  “What about the first American woman in space?” asked Stephanie. “I’ll give you a hint. She did it in 1983, and bonus points if you can tell me the name of her spacecraft.”

  “Ahh!” shouted Nova, jumping from her seat. NASA Bear landed by her feet. “Ahh!”

  Without waiting for permission (and before Miss Chambers could tell her to sit back down), she rushed up to Stephanie’s board, slapped her right hand against Sally Ride’s smiling face, then tapped the cutout of the Challenger repeatedly with the first two fingers of her left. “Ahh!” she said over and over. “Ahh, ahh!”

  “Well done, Nova! Nova’s right! The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, and she went up twice on the Challenger, the same Challenger launching today! You’re an expert, Nova. I bet you could teach everybody even more about space than I can!”

  “Mm, ahh!” said Nova, clapping her hands together as she turned to face her class. She glanced
at the door. She wished Bridget was here to see this, to see her teaching the other kids about space, to see her being an expert.

  “Here’s your ice cream!”

  Nova accepted her soft brown square (chocolate!) and returned to her seat. She let NASA Bear have a nibble first, then popped the rest in her mouth, which momentarily distracted her from the lesson. It was the strangest sensation. It wasn’t cold, and yet it was. It melted in her mouth like ice cream but didn’t taste like melty ice cream. It was weird and good at the same time.

  “Well done, Nova!” exclaimed Miss Chambers, squeezing her shoulders. “That was wonderful, the way you gave the answer! So smart!” Her face was pink.

  Nova did not like the shoulder squeeze much, but she did like being “so smart.” She glanced at Mrs. Pierce, whose watery eyes didn’t quite go with the huge smile on her face. Nova returned focus to her chocolate astronaut ice cream square and the lesson. Stephanie continued asking questions and giving facts about space travel, the upcoming mission, and the Challenger.

  “In addition to launching the first American woman, Challenger was the vehicle that sent to space the first-ever African-American astronaut, Guion Stewart Bluford, Jr. One of the women going up today worked right here in New Hampshire before she joined NASA. Does anyone know what Christa McAuliffe’s other job was?”

  Nova did, of course, but Quiet Mary-Beth was the first to raise her hand.

  “Teacher,” she whispered once called on. She accepted a pink square of astronaut ice cream with a quiet “Thankth.”

  “You got it! Challenger is special for a lot of reasons. It was the first orbiter to land at Kennedy Space Center!” Stephanie tapped one of the newspaper articles. “Today it will take off for time number ten and it will return to Earth after one hundred forty-four hours and thirty-four minutes, or about six days.”

  Nova puffed out her chest a little. She didn’t already know all of the information Stephanie was sharing, but she knew that.

  Stephanie asked more questions, some super-hard, some super-simple, until everyone had a piece of ice cream except Margot, who ate through a tube and earned a Saturn sticker instead.

  Finally, Mrs. Pierce thanked Stephanie, gave her a hug, and told everyone to stand and stretch—it was time to head to the other classrooms to watch the launch on CNN.

  Nova hummed louder and louder and flapped harder and harder on her way down the hall as she mentally counted down all of the things that had made her morning perfect.

  Ten: Billy helped her cut out a picture of the seven astronauts from the newspaper.

  Nine: Francine said the sun was shining in Florida, which meant no more delays.

  Eight: She was wearing her best launch outfit.

  Seven: She’d held up Margot’s head and made her laugh.

  Six: NASA Bear smelled good because he’d gotten washed while she was sleeping.

  Five: Now she had five friends: Mallory, Alex, Mary-Beth, Buddy, and Margot.

  Four: Stephanie told everyone she was a space expert.

  Three: She’d been able to answer a question and a bonus question about Sally Ride.

  Two: She was about to see Christa McAuliffe become the First Teacher in Space.

  One: Bridget was on her way. She’d promised.

  Nova wasn’t sure which of the ten things had her most excited.

  Wait.

  Yes, she was.

  Seeing Bridget again.

  That was the most exciting.

  But it was close.

  JAN 28, 1986

  Dear Bridget,

  T-minus zero days until Challenger launch.

  I am at school. It is almost time. I am waiting for you. Miss Chambers, Mallory, Mary-Beth, and me are watching the television in Mr. O’Reilly’s class. Jefferson Middle School, first floor, sixth-grade wing, room 106, past the Bridge to Terabithia poster, just like I told you.

  Mr. O’Reilly has a brand-new digital clock, which is good because I need to know the time and it is too hard with the regular round clocks.

  It is 11:15 now.

  Do not be late.

  I am wearing my One Small Step T-shirt over the blue long-sleeved shirt with silver dots that look like stars and your old Neptune-colored mood ring. I picked this outfit out special. I wish I had a Cornflower blue NASA jacket like Christa McAuliffe and Ronald McNair.

  It is 11:21.

  NASA Bear is ready too. He is wearing his plastic bubble helmet and white NASA T-shirt, like always. He says he feels very excited but also nervous because he thinks you might be late even though I told him you would not miss it for all the planets in the solar system.

  You promised.

  It is 11:25.

  You are still not here. Now I am starting to get nervous too.

  The space shuttle Challenger looks like a toy, like the toy model in Christa McAuliffe’s newspaper picture. A white cylinder with long wings to the sides, wings that jut out into triangles at the bottom, it is hoisted up on a tall brown tower with a tip like a bullet and two smaller white same-tipped silos on the sides. On the left wing is the American flag under the letters USA in black. On the right, the NASA logo, same as the one on NASA Bear’s T-shirt, with the word Challenger under it. It’s beautiful, exactly as I’d hoped it would look, like the one you’ve drawn for me so many times, with VEZINA where it should say NASA and NovaBridge instead of Challenger.

  11:29.

  It is hard to keep my body still but I know if I move too much Miss Chambers will squeeze my shoulders and say “Calm Body,” which I hate. My thighs twitch, itching to bounce. Maybe it is okay if I rock just a little.

  11:32.

  You are going to miss it, Bridget.

  Very very very soon, the astronauts will be rocketed into space and you are going to miss it.

  I am writing it all down so you will know exactly what happened.

  The TV screen is fuzzy. Static.

  Mr. O’Reilly bangs his hand on the side.

  The picture comes back into focus.

  “That’s all we need,” he says, moving back to sit on the edge of his desk. “CNN in every classroom and our old set goes on the blink!”

  “Say it ain’t so!” cries a blond boy named Jeremiah, who is sitting front and center. Mallory calls him the class clown. He puts his hands over his heart and falls out of his chair. Some of the boys laugh. Mr. O’Reilly laughs too. I do not because it is not funny. Space is serious business.

  Now I am filled with extra worries. What if the television stops working? I will miss the launch. And if you do not get here soon, you will miss it too, and then neither of us will have seen what we’ve been waiting for all this time.

  “Isn’t this exciting, Nova?” asks Miss Chambers. “Your foster mom says you love this stuff.”

  She has no idea.

  My thighs bounce. I cannot stop them. I hear a high-pitched noise, like the whine of a puppy. It happens again four more times before I realize it is coming from me. It is a new noise. I cannot stay still. I am a volcano, about to erupt, but not angry. The lava filling me from my toes to my nose is not angry. It is nervous, happy lava. Excited lava. Overwhelmed.

  “Let’s try taking deep breaths, Nova,” says Miss Chambers. But I do not want to take deep breaths. I want to watch Challenger launch. I want you to watch it with me. I do not want you to miss it.

  “Deep breaths, Nova,” says Miss Chambers again. I cover my ears to block out her voice.

  11:35.

  11:36.

  11:37.

  WHERE ARE YOU, BRIDGET?

  It’s time.

  The class counted down together out loud.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”

  “We have main engines start,” said the TV announcer. Nova gla
nced toward the classroom door. It would open, Bridget would run in, and they’d watch together because she promised.

  She promised.

  But the door did not open.

  “…four, three, two, one…”

  Nova drew her eyes back to the television at the front of the classroom without a second to spare. She focused on the bottom of the shuttle, where the fire burned.

  Lift-off.

  Thick white clouds like marshmallow fluff billowed up around the bottom of the space shuttle, from which a thick line of orange-yellow fire trailed. Birds, black dots against a gray-blue sky, flew off in all directions as the space shuttle shot up, attached to the reddish-brown bullet-shaped launcher. Challenger cleared the tower. It rose higher and higher into the sky, each second closer to the outer edges of Earth’s atmosphere.

  On the ground, crowds cheered and took pictures.

  “Three engines running normally,” the TV announcer said. Fire continued to follow the shuttle, like the tail of a zooming comet. Now that sky in the background was darker blue, true blue, like Francine’s eyes.

  “That voice belongs to Public Affairs Officer Steve Nesbitt,” explained Mr. O’Reilly. Several students wrote that down to add to their postlaunch reports. Nova didn’t. She would remember. She would remember every moment, every detail. She had to.

  Someone would have to tell Bridget.

  A trail of fire, cloud, and smoke continued to follow the space shuttle like the tail of a flying comet. One minute had passed since lift-off.

  “So the twenty-fifth space shuttle mission is now on the way, after more delays than NASA cares to count…,” the announcer was saying. The screen identified him as Tom Mintier, CNN Correspondent.

  They were doing it! They were headed into outer space! Unable to control herself, Nova hopped from her seat, flapping and squeaking and ignoring Miss Chambers, who was saying “Sit down, please! Take deep breaths!” It was too exciting for sitting. It was too exciting for deep breaths. Up it went. Up and up and up, closer to the sun, closer to the stars. Up and up and up…