Outside In (22 page)
Authors: Karen Romano Young
Never before had anything changed so much in—what? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Here I was again, back in my bed, facing out toward the windows, looking up in the direction of the moon, so far away it looked like a face. It wasn’t a face, I knew from my report, but mountains and valleys, craters made by asteroids that came zinging in from every direction. The man in the moon was just a story, not a warning story like the one about leaves on the side of the road, but a story to make you feel safe, like the hedge Mom prayed around me—a big face smiling down.
All year long I’d felt like a big ear, letting in so much news. Now I felt like a big eye, looking out the window at the familiar face. I imagined I could see the Apollo spaceship, the astronauts, their TV camera looking down at me. But here’s where things went inside out: I’d been inside the camera eye that gave me the view from the outside in.
From the moon, Earth seemed hardly real. I couldn’t see countries or houses or trees or people—people in the
houses or under the trees. Was that how the man in the moon, or Santa, or God saw Earth, just beautiful colors, the people hidden?
The moon shone into my new window and lit my new bedspread so I could see its blue. My bed was my bed, no matter which window or room or house it was in. I looked up at the moon’s face and prayed a hedge around the Ascontis—Uncle Joe and Aunt Bonnie, Pete, and especially Dave. Then I fell asleep in the room under the maple trees.
When Karen Romano Young was growing up, she and her sisters and brother spent most of their time exploring the wetlands down the road. The mill there was home to a woman who taught her about the wetlands and only once yelled at her for destroying frog eggs by stepping on them. These days the author lives near a marsh full of frogs in Bethel, Connecticut, with her husband, three children, two guinea pigs, a dog, and a cat.
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Outside In
Copyright © 2002 by Karen Romano Young
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EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03433-5
www.harperchildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Young, Karen Romano.
Outside in / by Karen Romano Young.
p. cm.
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: In 1968, as the Vietnam War continues and violence erupts throughout America, twelve-year-old Chérie tries to understand the changing nature of her relationship with the two teenage brothers across the street, as well as other aspects of her unpredictable world.
ISBN 978-0-06-203433-5(trade). ISBN 978-0-06-203433-5 (lib. bdg.)
[1. Family life—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Brothers—Fiction. 4. United States—History—1961-1969—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.Y8665 Ou 2001 [Fic]—dc21 00-031625
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FIRST EDITION
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