Chapter Eight

“It’s almost here!” Billy held up the newspaper Saturday morning. There was another article about the upcoming Challenger launch with full-color pictures of the seven space shuttle crew members. “Hey, Nova, I forget…which one’s going to be the First Teacher in Space? This guy with the handsome mustache?” Billy pointed to astronaut and physicist Ronald McNair, who had a mustache like Billy’s and the same shade of brown skin, but unlike Billy, McNair wasn’t bald.

Nova shook her head and giggled.

She pointed to Christa McAuliffe, who had Francine’s light peach complexion and small nose, but her face was framed by curly brown hair with bangs, and she did not wear glasses.

McNair and McAuliffe were wearing Cornflower blue jackets with red-on-white NASA logo patches on the right, standing in front of the American flag.

The astronaut was holding his helmet while the teacher held a model space shuttle the length of a ruler which looked exactly like the one Bridget had drawn for Nova a million times, colored with Crayolas, when teaching her about space travel, except Bridget always wrote their last name, VEZINA, where it was supposed to say NASA.

In the pictures, Christa McAuliffe and Ronald McNair were smiling.

“Of course they’re smiling,” Bridget had said the first time she saw the pictures. “I’d be smiling so hard my cheeks would crack and crumble away!”

Nova hadn’t thought cracked, crumbling cheeks would be worth smiling over, but she liked the picture anyway.

After Billy read the article, Nova, flapping cheerfully, started up the stairs. She wanted to watch cable TV. But Francine was rushing down.

“What’s this?” she asked, holding out Nova’s Letters to Bridget notebook, the one Mrs. Pierce had said was full of scribbles.

“Mm,” said Nova, meaning “Mine,” reaching for it. Francine didn’t give it up.

“I found it when I was cleaning your room. It looks like writing. Have you been writing?”

“Mm,” said Nova, this time meaning “Yes,” reaching for it again.

“Look, Billy!” Francine opened the spiral-bound notebook and held it out to him. “Some of it is just scribbles, but this looks like me. And this word, this looks like moon. That one’s almost definitely Nova. And here! This could be ton.”

Ten, Nova wanted to say. That word is not ton; it is ten.

Only Bridget had ever been able to read Nova’s notebook and even she got it wrong most of the time, though Nova always pretended her sister’s guesses were right by nodding and saying “Mm!” a lot. She reached for it a third time. None of the words were “just scribbles.” All of the words were meant for Bridget’s eyes only.

“Can you read, Nova?” asked Billy. “Did Mrs. Pierce test her reading?”