The Year We Fell From Space: Prologue–Part One

I knew this conversation was coming. Or I’d hoped. But I’d miss Dad, too. It was complicated.

It’s been cloudy or raining for three days. Atmospheric interference. It’s when clouds get between me and the most important project of the twenty-first century.

I’m Liberty Johansen and I’m going to change the way people look at the night sky. I’m going to free them of old- constellation rules and teach them how to draw their own maps because the sky is trying to tell them something...only they don’t know it yet because I’m a sixth grader and nobody ever listens to sixth graders who say they’re going to do big things.

For example, if you take the dots on my map and compare them to a map of our town, we live on Polaris. We always point north and we help sailors and adventurers and lost hikers find their way. That’s our job as Polaris. The North Star. Always right. Always consistent.

Start with the Big Dipper, inside the old constellation Ursa Major. See a soup ladle, see the cup at the end of the handle. Follow that line up, out of the ladle, soup splashing twice its height, and you’ll find us: bright, dependable Polaris.

I was thinking that the science wing hallway walls were too boring. I was thinking they needed a little panache. I only drew the best constellations.

Crepuscule. That’s a real word. It means twilight.

It’s not a steep hill, so it’s easy to get to, and Lou keeps the trail cleared all year round.

At the top, there’s a small, flat clearing.

Because this one is coming right for me, on top of this hill, and I start to wonder if I’m going irrational like Dad did.

A satellite component is falling to Earth.

I stare up and try to find Mars to get my bearings.

“I feel weird.”
“Maybe you got adducked by aliens.”
“Abducted,” Mom corrects from the kitchen.

Jilly takes her place on the couch and we listen to Mom telling Lou she can tape the windows up herself. She has to insist.

And just because no one will believe a meteorite the size of a football landed in my woods doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

It’s the answer to the wish I made on the star even though I didn’t ask specifically for any of this.

Wishing on stars isn’t like making a birthday list. Even if you’re specific, the sky can send whatever it wants to help you because the sky is kinda mystical and old. It has different ideas about what we need.

NOT EVERY ROCK THAT FALLS TO EARTH IS A METEORITE. JUST BECAUSE A ROCK WASN’T THERE YESTERDAY DOESN’T MEAN IT’S A METEORITE. PLEASE DON’T CONTACT ME ABOUT YOUR SO-CALLED METEORITE.

I think about how I could buy a telescope with that money. A really good telescope, too—maybe one that can see Saturn’s rings and the Orion Nebula.

I don’t know why I doubted myself because I saw it fall from the sky. But I’m twelve. I’m an amateur creative astronomer.