Night of the Purple Moon

“Three words: Gripping. Palpable. Well-developed.”
WORD SPELUNKING blog

“Beautifully written and youth friendly.”
Reader review

“Outrageous and completely 'out of the box'.”
MY HOME AWAY FROM HOME blog

“Cramer creates a picture of our world that's both frightening and inspiring in this heartfelt story that both young adults and adults can enjoy.”
KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Strong recommendation!”
YA YEAH YEAH blog

Thick fog rolled in and swallowed Abby whole. Unable to see her outstretched hand, she clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. Homichlophobia — fear of fog. Millions had the phobia, but how many of them lived in the fog capital of the universe?

“Abby.”

Her father’s voice sounded far away. He’d been next to her a moment ago. She reached for him and grabbed damp air. A chill rippled through her and she started flailing her arms.

A hand pressed down on her shoulder. “Hey, sleepy.”

Abby opened her eyes and blinked at the silhouette, tall and lean with a curly mop of brown hair. “Dad!”

“Swimming somewhere?”

“Yeah, Cambridge.” Abby always found a way to let her dad know how she felt about moving from the city in Massachusetts where she had grown up—where her friends still lived—to a small island twenty miles off the coast of Maine. Her mom also shared part of the blame for going along with his crazy idea to move here.

“Tonight’s the night!” he said with a gleam in his eye and headed off to wake up her twelve-year-old brother Jordan.

“A purple moon?” she called out. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Abby sat up in bed, still shaken by her dream. Just then the long blast of a horn signaled the 7 a.m. ferry arriving from the mainland. She had to hurry to get in the shower first.

She entered the hallway at the same time as Jordan, and together they raced for the bathroom. She ducked inside first, but he blocked the door from closing. Each pushed for all they were worth. Abby, a year older and stronger than her brother, slammed the gap shut and locked the door.

“Come on,” he said, banging. “I need to take a shower.”

“Me, too!”

“Save some hot water!”

“Can you say
please
?”

He banged again.

Abby kicked aside Jordan’s dirty socks and underwear he’d left on the floor and turned on the shower. She stepped into the warm spray and sighed. Sunday, two days from now, could not come fast enough. Abby would spend spring break with her mother in Cambridge. For the first time since moving to Castine Island three months ago, she would hang out with her best friend, Mel.

When Abby stepped out of the bathroom, she found Jordan camped in the hall. He pushed his way past her. “Jerk,” he said. “There better be hot water.”

“Grow up!” she fired back. “And get your dirty stuff off the floor!”

Later, Abby placed her backpack on the kitchen floor, ready for breakfast. Her two-year-old sister, Toucan, sat in her highchair eating Cheerios, grinning, and babbling. “Abby, Comet, Cheeries.”

Abby planted a kiss on her face. “Morning, Touk.”

Dad was washing dishes piled high in the sink—
Power cleaning
, he called it. Preparing for Mom’s arrival on Saturday, he always started picking up the house the day before.

Abby poured a bowl of cereal and studied the newspaper. The front page had a big picture of the comet
Rudenko-Kasparov
, named for the two amateur comet hunters who first spotted the fuzzy blob in the Andromeda constellation. The headline declared: GET YOUR BROOMS READY. That was a joke — nobody would be sweeping up space dust, but when Earth entered the comet’s tail for the first time tonight, astronomers predicted weeks of colorful sunsets and sunrises and, best of all, a purple moon.

Not everyone was looking forward to the comet. One cult believed it signaled the end of the world and were hiding out in a cave, as if a hole in the ground might offer some type of protection.

Abby didn’t worry about the world coming to an end, though she was quite curious what space dust smelled like.

At school, Abby’s seventh grade teacher, Mr. Emerson, told the class he had a story about hippopotami in Africa. “There’s a connection to the comet!” he said, looking pleased. He’d spoken enthusiastically about the comet for months.

Several of her classmates rolled their eyes. Toby Jones blew into his hands and made a loud noise. “The hippo farted,” he cried.

Toby, the class clown, had another black eye today. Since January he had showed up two other times looking as if someone had punched him. His friends, Chad and Glen, laughed at the lame joke.

Abby and the rest of the class—all four of them—sat in stony silence.

Mr. Emerson glared at Toby. He couldn’t send him to the principal, since Mr. Emerson was the principal of the small Parker School, which served grades one through eight. High-school students took the ferry to Portland. He did what he so often did, ignored Toby’s outburst.

“Every day hippos would come out of the jungle to drink from a pond next to a village,” Mr. Emerson began. “The village had been there for hundreds of years. One day a team of doctors arrived to open a clinic. A doctor told the villagers to kill all the hippos because they might introduce germs into the pond. The villagers did as the doctor requested. The next rainy season the pond overflowed and washed away all their huts.”

Mr. Emerson used the whiteboard to draw hippo tracks leading from the jungle to the pond. “The hippos made deep tracks. When it rained, the water overflowed down their path into the jungle. When there were no tracks, look what happened.”

“What does that have to do with the comet?” asked Derek Ladd. Derek’s father was chief of police.

“When you interfere with the natural order of things,” Mr. Emerson replied, “you never know what will happen. Tonight we’re entering the comet’s tail. Pollution has damaged the atmosphere. As a result, we’ll all be breathing space dust tomorrow. How will that affect us?” He shrugged. “Nobody knows.”

Kevin Patel’s hand shot up. He was Abby’s neighbor and he raised his hand a lot. “I heard the astronauts on the International Space Station will analyze the dust to look for signs of life.”

“That’s right, Kevin,” Mr. Emerson said. “Some scientists think the building blocks for life came from outer space millions of years ago.”

Zoe Mullen inhaled sharply. “Will it be safe to breathe space dust? I mean, what if there’s something alive in it?”

Abby tried hard not to stare at Zoe’s arms and legs. They reminded her of toothpicks.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Mr. Emerson said.

“Hide in a cave,” Ryan Foster joked. Ryan, the only redhead in Parker School besides Abby, sat in front of her.

Toby made another loud farting sound. “The hippo is stinkin’ up the cave!” he blurted.

Mr. Emerson’s face turned red. “Toby, see me after school.”

Toby grinned slyly. He knew that Mr. Emerson, who lived on the mainland, had to catch the 3 p.m. ferry.

Mr. Emerson stepped to the board. “Thanks to Mr. Toby Jones, all of you are getting homework over spring break.” Everyone groaned and shot Toby dirty looks. “Your assignment…” Mr. Emerson smiled and wrote: WATCH THE COMET!!!

Abby’s father ordered purple pizza for dinner. Every business, it seemed, was cashing in on the comet. You could buy purple soft drinks, purple milk, purple beer. She guessed that the pizza’s tomato sauce had food coloring, but she had no idea how they had made the cheese bright purple. While it looked absolutely disgusting, it still tasted like regular pizza.

After her dad put Toucan to bed, he set up three lawn chairs on the back deck. Jordan took one look at this viewing arrangement and declared, “I’m watching from the roof.” Most of the houses in the neighborhood had a widow’s walk.

Abby suddenly had an uneasy feeling about the comet. She didn’t want her brother to be alone. “Jordan, stay with us,” she said in a friendly tone.

He narrowed his eyes. “Why should I?”

He’d laugh if she admitted her concern. “We can share the binoculars.”

“Who needs binoculars?” he scoffed and headed up to the roof.

Abby sat back in the chair and pulled the blanket to her chin to stay warm. She gazed up. Stars burned fiercely in the coal-black sky. The outlines of the moon’s craters were crisp. A bright dot moved slowly across the sky. It was the International Space Station; the astronauts onboard, according to her nerdy neighbor, were ready to analyze the space dust for signs of life.

“I wish Mom was here,” she said.

Dad, who was next to her, chuckled. “I’m glad I have another four hours to power clean.” Then he nodded wistfully. “I wish she was here, too, Abby. But the comet will still be here tomorrow night.”

“Dad, is she really going to look for a job in Portland?”

He trained the binoculars on the moon. “We’ll be a family again.”

“Are you going to sell the Cambridge home?”

“Yep, as soon as she finds a new job.”

“You know, there are other ways we can be a family. You could go back to work at the Cambridge Public Library. We could move back home.”

Her dad said nothing, and Abby felt like she’d be stuck living here for the rest of her life.

The comet appeared in the east around 11 p.m. The head was a dark orb with a bone-white halo. Abby heard the voices of Kevin, his sister, Emily, and Mr. and Mrs. Patel next door in their backyard. The parents worked at the marine biology lab on the north shore of the island. The Patels had moved to Castine Island in December, one month before her own unfortunate arrival.

By 11:30, the fuzzy white tail stretched across half the sky. Energy crackled in the air, like before a thunderstorm. The first color appeared at midnight. Abby and the others oohed and ahhed as a thin film of violet covered the moon and the stars twinkled purple. It seemed incredible that space dust could travel one hundred million miles.

The color deepened. The comet’s halo glowed bright purple, and swirls of lavender swept over the moon. Broad purple brush strokes painted the night sky. Abby thought her earlier concerns about the comet now seemed silly.

When she heard Jordan go inside, she glanced at her phone. 1:30! She had lost track of the time.

“Bedtime for you, too,” Dad said.

“No way!” she protested. “I’m almost an adult!”

“You win,” he said with a smile.

Not long after that, unable to stop yawning, Abby took one last look at the comet. Those crazy people hiding out in a cave didn’t know what they were missing. She drew in a deep breath. Funny, space dust smelled like nothing at all.

Abby kissed her dad goodnight and went up to bed.

Bang! Bang… Bang! Bang!! Bang!!!

Awakened by the loud pounding, Abby shot up in bed and looked at the clock—7:20—she was late for school! No, it was Saturday, she remembered, the first day of spring vacation.

The ferocity of the banging frightened her—someone was striking the front door hard with the meaty part of the fist. She raised her bedroom window shade and gaped out at the sight – she might as well have been on another planet. The sun radiated deep purple and waves of space dust shimmered in the cloudless lavender sky.