Eight Days on Planet Earth by Cat Jordan

Author:Cat Jordan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

8:39 P.M.

It’s been forever since I’ve set this thing up, since my dad and I were side by side, each of us capturing a quadrant of the sky in our sights. Even so, my fingers know exactly where to go. Without a glance down, I unscrew the tripod legs and level it in a heartbeat, no second-guessing.

My Celestron has an equatorial mount, which means it’s easy to track objects across the sky but more complex to use because there are two gears to unlock and adjust, the right ascension and the declination. You unlock the gears, swivel it close to your target, then use the fine-tuning knobs to center it in your finderscope.

“Libra?” I ask Priya. “Is that what we’re looking for?”

“Yes,” she says with a tilt of her head. I can feel her impatience. Ever since we came back from Brian’s, she’s been bugging me to set up the telescope. Finally it’s dark enough.

“You’re sure it’s Libra, huh? It’s not Cassiopeia or something else?” I tease her, although maybe, just maybe, it’s a test. How committed to this is she, really?

“Matthew, my planet is not in another constellation. It is in what you call Libra.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just joking.”

I glance up at the sky to orient myself and find the Big and Little Dippers with my naked eye. Then I look through the scope, sighting the same thing. Libra is a summer constellation for stargazers in the northern hemisphere; a triangle of stars forms the scales. To find it, first you face south and locate the bright red star Antares in Scorpius. If you follow the line of stars that forms the scorpion’s body to the right, the next-brightest stars are Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgenubi in Libra.

Stardust swirls in front of my eye and I feel my breath inhale sharply. It’s as if I’ve been instantly transported back in time, back to the very first time my dad showed me how to find things in our vast Universe.

“Check it out, Junior. Those dots of light are all stars, billions and billions of stars,” he said, his voice hushed as if anything louder than a whisper would blow them all away.

“But where’s the moon?” I remember asking. “Is it gone?”

He laughed. “It’s there but we can’t see it now.” He added, “And if it were there, we wouldn’t be able to see much at all. The light would block out everything else.” He was so happy to teach me what he knew. And when I was five, he knew everything.

I find Antares but it’s too far away, so I swap out the eyepiece and refocus, and the sky explodes with stars. My breath catches in my throat; it feels like I’ve just dived into a pool of starlight.

I feel Priya and Ginger behind me, both within arm’s reach.

“Libra is an okay constellation but kind of boring.”

“Boring?” Priya asks. “Stars do not have a personality.”

“Sure they do. I think there are lots more interesting constellations,” I say. “Like Cassiopeia.”

I feel Priya’s hands wave the air impatiently.

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