JAN 21, 1986

Dear Bridget,

T-minus seven days left until Challenger launch.

Seven days is one week.

That means, in one week, you will come back to watch the launch with me, like you promised. Remember how you promised?

And you never break a promise.

There was another story about it in the newspaper today. Joanie read it to me over breakfast.

“ ‘It’s such a quantum leap from what my life has been like,’ said McAuliffe.” Joanie laughed. “I’ll say! One day, you’re a high school social studies teacher in New Hampshire, the next you’re pretty much an astronaut. I can’t even wrap my brain around flying in a plane, never mind a space shuttle. Can you imagine, Nova?”

I said “Mm” because of course I can. I wanted to tell her, “I have imagined it with Bridget for almost my whole life,” but since I could not say that I just made NASA Bear raise his paw and nod so Joanie knew he could imagine it too.

Today I played a game with the other kids in my class. It was not an imagination game or a game about space, like what we always played with other foster kids.

It was called the Ball Game.

I had to bounce a ball five times and name an animal.

This is the part you will not believe:

I named sheep.

I have never been happy to think of sheep before. I never thought I could be happy to think about sheep but today sheep was my best animal. Like Joanie says, “Can you imagine?”

I want you to meet Joanie. I think you will like her.

She is like you in some ways. She does the stuff you used to do that made our last foster parents mad, like listening to loud music and reading magazines, wearing purple lipstick, and leaving after dinner to “hang out” with friends, but Billy and Francine don’t yell “Get back here, young lady!” They just say “Have fun, honey.”

Tonight she did not go out. Tonight, her friends came over.

Joanie said they were having a Game Night, but they did not play the Ball Game. They played a boring game with a big rectangle board that had rooms painted on it, like Kitchen and Conservatory, with six little colored wooden pieces that were supposed to be people and teeny tiny objects like a candlestick and a rope.

I did not play the game but Joanie let me stay in her room to watch and eat snacks. She called me “one of the girls.” It made me happy but also sad. It made me happy because I liked being one of the girls. It made me feel sad because it made me think of that movie we went to with your friends in December, I think it was called Clue. They had a candlestick and a rope in that movie too, just like in Joanie’s game.

You and your friends thought the Clue movie was funny. You laughed and laughed until you had tears on your cheeks. But I did not laugh at all, not even once, because I thought it was loud and dark and scary and confusing. I wanted to hold your hand but you were already holding hands with that boy who drove us. You said you couldn’t hold both of our hands and eat popcorn at the same time. I was mad because you picked his hand over my hand even though he was just your ugly old friend and I am your Super Nova. That’s why I knocked the popcorn on the floor.

Then one of your other friends said she could hold my hand instead, but I did not like her skin on my skin. That’s why I screamed and hit myself one-two-three-four times. I think you got mad because you dragged me out to the lobby the way Kindergarten Teacher dragged me to Principal’s Office. You said, “Please don’t ruin this for me, Nova! You have to stop screaming and crying so we can go back in!”

I’m sorry I kept screaming and crying and would not go back in.

I think that maybe means I ruined it for you.

I promise when you come back, we can go to the movies every single day with all your friends if you want, even that boy. I promise I won’t ruin it. I’ll be one of the girls.

I promise I won’t try to hold your hand. And after, maybe we can teach your friends the Ball Game.

I miss you.

Love,

Your Super Nova