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.