Full Cicada Moon (5 page)

It's my turn to talk to Mrs. Stanton

about my science project.

She shows me a book about lichen.

“But I don't want to do a report on lichen,” I say

respectfully.

“That's fine, Miss Oliver. What do you want to do?”

I'm not afraid to tell her, but I am afraid she might laugh,

like the homeroom kids on my first day.

“Something about the space program,” I say.

She doesn't blink. “You mean Apollo?”

I nod and

hold my breath.

Mrs. Stanton takes the lichen book from me

and closes it. “That's a wonderful idea. What will you focus on?”

There are so many things to study about the moon—

Training

Building the rocket

Living without gravity

Navigating there—

I know what I'll focus on: “The moon's topography and its phases.”

Mrs. Stanton rests her chin in her hand for a moment,

then says, “All right.”

I smile, relieved.

“Your report outline will be due next week,” she says.

“I'll help you with whatever you need, and

I have a book on the subject at home.”

“Thank you,” I say, and

button my coat

and pick up my books.

But Mrs. Stanton doesn't say “You're welcome” or even “'Bye,”

or shuffle the homework papers on her desk.

She keeps looking at me,

and I know we're not done.

“I hear you want to be an astronaut,” she says.

“Yes.” I put my books down

and wait for her to laugh

or tell me all girls want to be mothers

or teachers or secretaries or nurses.

Instead, she says, “I wanted to be a scientist.

I wanted to research viruses and find a cure for diseases.”

“But you didn't?”

She shakes her head. “My father said I'd be a disgrace.

My mother wouldn't talk about it.

They said I'd never find a husband—

they didn't understand I could do both.

Then . . . my . . . I lost my husband. So I would have had nothing.”

“Don't you like being a teacher?” I ask.

She smiles. “I love teaching. If I can help my students attain their dreams,

then I'm doing my job well. That makes me happy.

And when my husband died, I was happier than ever

to belong somewhere every day.”

It's a big surprise to hear Mrs. Stanton talk about dreams

and belonging,

but now I would do anything to make her happy,

because she wasn't able to attain her dreams,

and because . . .

“You didn't laugh at me,” I say.

“Why would I laugh, Miss Oliver?

Our dreams are a serious matter.

When you take them seriously,

everyone else does too.”

“You sound like my dad,” I say.

Mrs. Stanton picks up her red pencil

and looks down at the papers on her desk.

“I will give you that book tomorrow.”

On this clear and moonless night,

Mama and I wrap up in our winter clothes

and go outside to watch and listen.

The trees beyond our backyard form a torn-paper line

between the snow and this sky

filled with stars.

The snow glows lilac

as we step on its crust,

guided by faint starlight.

Mama and I don't need to talk.

We are in awe of the magnificence above—

impossible to understand, impossible to hold.

There were no skies like this in Berkeley,

where light from the cities chased the stars away.

Here I can't look long, deep, or wide enough

at the Vermont sky

on a new moon night.

I hold out my arms and twirl,

etching the sky above me in rings of starlight.

“Don't fall, Mimi-chan,” Mama says, then

holds out her arms

and twirls.

“Pattress!” calls the boy next door,

breaking the winter quiet.

The brown dog leaps off the back steps

and disappears into the snow,

and the boy follows her out of the house.

Pattress appears

and disappears in the snow

again and again.

“Ruh! Ruh!”
she calls, begging to play.

The boy packs a snowball and pitches it

way to the back of his yard.

Pattress chases it,

sniffs around where it should be,

then looks at the boy. She waits.

He throws another snowball

and another and another.

Her bark—insistent, joyful—

echoes off the surrounding woods.

She does her leap dance toward the long bump that divides our yards.

When the snow melts, I'll find a fence under there.

The boy throws another snowball,

and—
whup!
—

it hits the empty turkey coop,

making it rattle.

He raises his arms,

either like “I'm sorry” or “Sock it to me.”

I accept the challenge

and throw a handful of snow his way.

It doesn't even reach the fence,

and he bends over, laughing . . .

At me? This time,

I pack a snowball tight as ice,

wind up,

and pitch.

It explodes against a tree, spraying

the boy and his dog.

Soon we're having a snowball fight,

and we step closer and closer to the fence-bump

in the middle, laughing.

Pattress watches the snowballs sail past her,

biting and barking and leaping.

And just when I reach the fence,

ready to deliver the final blow,

Papa calls, “Mimi!”

his voice cutting through the laughter, slicing the mood.

“'Bye,” I say, and hold up my hand

empty of snowballs but coated in snow.

“'Bye,” says the boy.

I go inside

and take off my boots

and shake the snow off my clothes.

When I look out the door,

Pattress and the boy are still standing by the bump.

Stacey and I spin the stools at the soda fountain.

Then we sit on them and spin.

“You girls want something?” asks the man behind the counter.

We stop spinning, and Stacey says, “Let me see,”

putting her finger on her chin as she studies the menu.

He taps his fingers and looks at her while she decides.

“What about your friend here?” he asks Stacey,

as if I'm not sitting right next to her.

I only have a dollar

and I also want to buy a headband.

“Can I have a hot-fudge sundae?” It's fifty cents.

“Oh, you speak English,” he says. “I thought you was,

you know, a foreigner.”

“I'm from California.”

“Well you look kinda different.”

I look big-eyed at Stacey in the mirror facing us.

She looks back at me the same way.

“You ready, miss?” he asks Stacey,

and she says, “One scoop of pistachio

and one scoop of chocolate.”

He doesn't say anything about the way she talks.

After he goes away,

Stacey asks, “Do people always ask you stuff like that?”

“You get used to it, kind of.”

“I'd want to cuss them out. Don't you want to cuss them out?”

“I just want them to stop.”

“Well, I'd want to cuss,” she says,

and then we both giggle.

I can tell Stacey anything

and she won't think I'm bad.

“You want to know what Mother calls him?” she asks,

her giggles like hiccups. “A . . . soda . . . jerk.”

“Soda
jerk
?” I ask, my giggles choking me,

and she nods

hard, because she can't talk.

Then we spin some more,

but a lady in the cards section gives us a dirty look,

so we stop

and I make a pig face in the mirror.

Just like my cousins, Stacey makes one back.

Then the man brings our ice cream

but doesn't go away. I pick up my spoon

and he's still standing there.

“So, I have to know,” he says,

“what are you?”

But just because he has to know

doesn't mean I have to tell him

anything.

I put my two quarters on the counter,

then slide off the stool.

“Wait for me,” Stacey says,

and spoons a mound of pistachio in her mouth.

Outside, she says, “We know what
he
is—

a real soda jerk

minus the soda.”

Before today, I've only skated on an ice rink at a mall,

where you go round and round

in the same direction,

while organ music gives your glide its tempo.

There is always one girl

with a little skirt

who breaks away from the crowd and skates into the center,

and twirls. She starts slow, throwing her arms out,

bent as if in worship to the ice and the force of gravity,

and turns, her skirt flaring

and hands weaving invisible ribbons in the cold air.

Then, arms crossed over her chest, she spins

faster and faster into a blur,

drilling the ice

until she stops—

a flash of skates and spray.

I've always wanted to be that girl.

The pond behind our yard has frozen

solid, and Papa said it's time to skate.

He brought Stacey and me home after school.

Mama gave us cookies and a thermos of cocoa

and told us to be very careful.

I know she wanted to come and watch

over us, but Papa said we'd never learn anything on our own.

They can see us through the kitchen window

and the bare trees.

Stacey and I hang our skates over our shoulders.

They glint in the thin sunlight

as we walk the snowy path to the pond

that's ringed in dry timothy grass

and cattails poking out of the snow.

I brush off a stump

and we take turns lacing up our skates,

our bare fingers turning numb.

“Ready?” Stacey asks.

We tiptoe to the edge, where snow meets ice.

“Here goes,” I say,

push off on one skate,

slide both together,

and push off on the other.

Stacey catches up, wobbly,

and we circle the pond slowly

side by side, our arms held out to steady ourselves

and each other.

After one time around, I know how this ice feels,

how frozen ripples change the sound,

and how to swerve around pebbles and twigs.

“Look—I can skate backward!” I call,

and show Stacey how I wiggle

into the center of the pond

like that girl at the mall rink.

“Twirl, Mimi!” Stacey says, clapping her mittens.

I laugh and hold out my arms.

“Watch me,” I say,

and stop—

Because I'm not the girl with the cute skirt

and the ponytail that sticks out when she spins,

the perfect girl in the center

who everyone wants to be. I'll never be her—

No—

I'm the girl with cooties, the foolish girl

who wants to be an astronaut,

who eats by herself in the cafeteria.

I'm the girl all alone at the center

of attention,

not because of what I can do

but because of what I am.

I wanted Stacey to stay longer,

but she has to be home for supper.

“You can take me back to school, Mr. Oliver,” she says in the car.

“It's no trouble to take you home,” Papa says,

and asks for her address.

“It's hard to find . . . lots of twists and turns.

My mother is picking me up at school.

She'll be coming from the dentist's, anyway.”

I don't know why Papa doesn't insist on taking her home,

but he says no more.

When we get to school,

the sky and the snow are coral with dusk.

There are two cars in the parking lot,

but neither one belongs to Stacey's mother.

“Thank you very much,” Stacey says, and opens her door.

“We'll wait for your mom,” Papa says.

Stacey steps out. “No, don't. She'll be here soon.”

“But it's getting dark.”

“I'm fine, Mr. Oliver,” she says, her voice a note higher,

her smile brittle.

Papa drums the steering wheel.

“I'll drive over there and wait until she comes.

Would that be all right?”

Stacey's face softens into a smile that looks like a cry.

“Yes. Thank you. I'm . . . sorr—”

Papa raises his hand, cutting her off. “It's okay.

You're welcome to visit us anytime, Stacey.”

She shuts the door and waits at the top of the steps.

Papa parks near the track and turns off the lights and engine,

and we wait. The sky grows fuchsia.

Stacey's mother comes soon, and Stacey gets in.

Her mother turns around to look at our car,

and they drive away,

two black silhouettes against the purple sunset.

Falling snow

is the sky

touching the ground.

Last night

the sky drifted

down—

flake

by flake

by flake,

so pretty and graceful

and quiet—

then it bent low,

poured out,

and lay down in itself.

This morning I wake up startled—late

for school!—and run down to the kitchen,

where Mama and Papa are eating together.

They only do that on Saturday.

“I'll be late!” I say, panicked that I'd broken

my perfect attendance.

“No school today,” Mama says. “Look outside.”

“Today's a snow day,” Papa says.

We never had anything called a “snow day” in California.

Outside, the snow blankets our yard

in one even layer, all the way to the trees in the back.

Instead of falling quietly, now it races to the ground

hard and determined.

All the cars and tanks around Farmer Dell's house

are soft white hills.

Papa pushes back from the table.

“Get dressed, Meems. We have to shovel the driveway.”

“But it's still snowing,” I say.

“Listen to Papa,” Mama says,

setting a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me. “But first, eat.”

“Can we ask Mr. Dell for his snowblower?”

“I don't think so,” Papa says.

Papa started shoveling at the house end of the driveway

and moved toward the middle.

Mama and I started at the street end

and moved toward Papa.

Shoveling snow is like cutting up a cake–

you drop the shovel straight down to slice,

then push it flat underneath,

then lift and serve the snow to the side.

And repeat and repeat

unless the wind is blowing,

when all your hard work

ends up in your face.

I'm shivering in my sweat,

Mama is sniffling,

and Papa is puffing.

Down the road, I hear Farmer Dell's snowblower.

With it, we could clear our driveway in ten minutes.

Papa might not ask Mr. Dell,

but I will.