The Year We Fell From Space by Amy Sarig King

Author:Amy Sarig King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Lou has a fire pit down by the stream but we don’t use it much because the mosquitoes are relentless down there. But sometimes Mom has to cook on a fire and tonight is one of those nights.

The stars come out while we eat. Jilly looks up more than I do. No one mentions that I should be looking up, too. Plus, I know what the stars will show me if I look up. I know I made a deal with them. I just don’t know how to keep my side of the bargain. Especially now that Dad was in the store with his girlfriend.

“What are you looking forward to most?” Mom asks Jilly.

“Lunch and recess,” Jilly says. This is her standard answer. Jilly loves school and hates school. It’s a running battle. Mom and I stay quiet until she offers something that isn’t a joke. “I like social studies, I guess.”

“I wonder what you’ll learn this year,” Mom says.

“I hope they don’t divide us into girls and boys again to talk about periods and stuff. That was boring. And embarrassing.”

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed about getting your period one day,” I say.

“I’m not. I’m just embarrassed that they had to separate us! I mean, why can’t boys learn about periods? And why can’t girls learn about boy things? Wouldn’t it be better to know about each other?”

Neither of us answers because Jilly has entered the New-Jilly place-of-no-pauses. She talks constantly.

“Isn’t it cool that the trees might be talking to each other now? I mean, all these trees and they’re probably saying that the smoke from the fire smells bad or that they miss the moon or that they miss their friends who got pulled out in the storm last summer.” She breaks only to breathe. “You know, my feet keep peeling and I don’t know why. They don’t itch so I don’t think it’s athlete’s foot. I hope they stop peeling soon because it’s weird. Also, did you know that there’s a new kind of soap that’s made of ashes or something? They say it makes pimples go away. Maybe you might need that one day, Lib. Not to say you’re going to be all pimply but that’s what they told us in that assembly—that one day soon we’d get pimples and I thought, well Liberty doesn’t have any yet so I’m probably safe for another few years. Did you get your period yet?”

“No,” I say.

“Well, then I’m safe from that too. Mom, can I ask you a weird question? Does it hurt to have a tampon inside your body?”

I hold back laughter because Jilly is so free and I used to think it was because she was a kid but now I realize that it’s because she’s just like that. Mom doesn’t laugh at all. She just says, “Nope. You don’t even feel it.” I’m glad Jilly asked because I was wondering, too.

Jilly takes a big breath like she’s going to keep her monologue running until I’m in college,

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