“What’s Ursa Major?”

“The bear.”

“I don’t see a bear.”

“No one does. Just like no one sees Cassiopeia—but everyone sees the W.” Ginette swiveled southward and pointed out a W-shaped asterism that is the identifiable part of the constellation Cassiopeia. Pete swiveled southward, too, and saw the W, and nodded, because he had seen that W before.

Then Ginette pointed out the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters, a small, bright cluster asterism that is part of the constellation Taurus, the bull, which Orion, the hunter, was fighting. Ginette helped Pete see Orion’s shield and his weapon—a club, which he was going to use to subjugate Taurus.

“Wow,” said Pete.

“What?”

“I guess I just didn’t know you knew all that,” said Pete, nodding skyward.

“It’s just stuff my dad taught me.” Ginette shrugged. “He used to take me here.”

“My dad thinks this place is hippie-dippie,” said Pete.

“That’s too bad. Everybody should come here. Or at least look up once in a while. To help them remember that things are possible. Everybody needs help with that from time to time.”

Pete wondered if Ginette needed to be reminded that things were possible. She seemed like the kind of person who thought anything was possible.

But Ginette’s mom wasn’t great at seeing what was possible. She was a great person and a great mom, but she was very practical and too often dwelled on what was impossible. And that had been wearing on Ginette lately.

“It helps me remember to dream, coming here.” Ginette missed her dad again, because he was a dreamer. But not a doer. Which was why Ginette’s mom had to ask him to leave. “You know,” continued Ginette, “I want to go up there someday. Space.”

“Really?” asked Pete.

“Yeah.” Ginette felt like she belonged up there, among the stars and planets. More than she belonged on Earth, sometimes.

“Wow.”

“You’ve gotta be really smart to go, though,” said Ginette, wondering how a girl like her would ever get to space—and then wondering if she should have shared her secret dream with Pete.

“You’re really smart,” said Pete. “You could totally go,” he added, looking up at the stars.

And Ginette looked at Pete and watched him as he stargazed. And she couldn’t have been happier that she had shared her secret dream with him. And that strange lightness surged through her body again. This time, it felt like it was giving her the courage to come right out and ask him if they were going out or dating or if they were boyfriend and girlfriend or what.

And she almost asked right then and there. “Pete?” she started.

“Yeah?”

But then she chickened out. And said something that wasn’t the question that she wanted to ask Pete. It was a statement—something she wanted him to know.

“I just … had a lot of fun today.”

“Me, too.”

“I always have fun with you.”

“Yeah.” Pete smiled. “Me, too. I mean—I always have fun with you, too. Not with me.”