“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.