“What’s yours for again?”

I cleared my throat. She’d liked my other plan, my sandy-locker plan, but I didn’t know what she’d think about Cecilia Payne.

“It’s for this contest at the Smithsonian. Ms. Trepky told us about it once, on the day you came. They’re making a new Women in STEM exhibit, and you do a project to teach people about a woman scientist you think people should know about, and then you write a letter about it and submit it, and the winner gets twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Talia choked on the piece of chicken she was eating. “Twenty-five thousand dollars?”

“I know.”

“Dude. You’ve gotta win this.”

“I know. Then I could use the money to help my sister when her husband is looking for a better job.”

I said it without thinking, and then right away wondered if this was one of those wrong things to say. One of those times when what I thought or said was strange or weird, and I didn’t know it until afterward, when people gave me funny looks. I’d keep the Universe Deal to myself, but now Talia knew why I wanted that money, and I had no idea if she’d think I was being naive or dumb or silly.

But she didn’t. She nodded, looking thoughtful and focused, if I was reading her face right. “Who are you writing about?” she asked.

“Mine’s about … well, there’s this woman—her name is Cecilia—and she was a professor at Harvard a long time ago and she figured out what stars are made of. Like the chemicals and stuff. Then another professor sort of took credit. It’s a little complicated. But anyway, she’s not in our textbook. And I think she should be.”

Talia leaned back in her beanbag. “She figured out all that about stars, and she’s not in our textbook? That’s dumb.”

“Exactly!” I said.

She looked up at the ceiling for a minute, her long dark hair billowing around her face like a cloud of thought.

“Start simple,” she said. “Say, ‘Listen, I may be a young girl, but I’m writing to you about something very important.’”

I paused, my pencil held above the paper. “Hey, that’s really good.” I scribbled the words down before they left my brain. I’d type everything out nice and neat later.

She sighed again. “And yet I can’t come up with a freaking thing to say about … what did he call it? ‘Petrarchan love.’ I don’t know what to say about some dead white dude.”

“Hey,” I said. “That’s what your sonnet should be called.”

“What?”

“‘Some Dead White Dude.’”

Talia laughed so hard she snorted. “Oh man, Mr. Gradey won’t like that very much. I’ll do it.”

She crossed out a few lines she’d written and wrote “Some Dead White Dude” in big letters. I hoped I wasn’t getting her in trouble again. My dad says it’s important to be a Good Influence Friend, and I couldn’t tell if I was being one or not.