First Day On Earth Page 7

  I look back down at the screen.

  For years, the desert in California has served as a spaceport for civilian attempts to reach the stars.

  “My parents took me to see a rocket launch when I was younger,” Darwyn pipes up. He’s done what he does best — he’s inserted himself into a conversation he wasn’t having.

  “I thought we could go,” Posey says. “Anyway, we could go stargazing afterward. You know, make it a thing.”

  “I don’t have any plans,” Darwyn says. “I can bring food.”

  “Why don’t you just go, then?” I ask Posey. I am not trying to be mean, but I have plans to go to my own space launch. And there will be no civilians involved. Except me, hopefully.

  Posey cocks her head to the side as if to say, Are you serious?

  “No one likes this kind of stuff but you, Mal,” she says, spelling it out for me.

  “I like a lot of stuff,” Darwyn says. “I’ve been meaning to get into space stuff.”

  I realize that I always hear Darwyn saying that. He’s always doing exactly what everyone else is doing. But he’s never doing his own thing.

  I give Posey back her phone.

  “I’m pretty busy,” I say.

  Then I walk away.

  44.

  Hooper comes to me after I leave an Alateen meeting. He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs at the community center. He’s touching my bicycle and then pulling on his hair. He’s agitated.

  “Mal,” he says. “I got a message. There is a mining ship near this solar system. They are willing to come get me.”

  That feeling. That feeling bursts inside of me. Hooper is going to go and I’ll be alone again. It’s like the sun setting. Like being condemned to eternal darkness.

  “I want to go home,” he says.

  “That’s great,” I say. “So I guess this is good-bye.”

  “Will you help me go meet them?”

  “Why do you want to leave here so badly?” I ask. “Why don’t you just stay?”

  “I’m all alone,” he says.

  And for all the alone he likes being, I realize that he’s lonely. I know all about lonely and it’s terrible.

  When there has been a disaster, people seek out aid workers. Hooper might be alone, but for him it’s a galactic-size crisis. And I’m his only hope.

  “Okay. I’ll help you.”

  45.

  When they come, I’ll ask him to take me with him.

  46.

  I’ve been looking at the map to nowhere that Hooper gave me, the map to the middle of the Mojave Desert. I am poring over it. Trying to see what possible place Hooper could imagine that the ship is telling him to head toward.

  Everywhere in the Mojave seems like a road to nowhere.

  But then I see something. It’s not that far from the place that Posey talked about. The road he wants to be dropped off on is near the road that leads to the Mojave Air and Space Port.

  I’m worried now that Hooper could just be crazy.

  The only way to find out is to talk to him in person. Not in group.

  Which is why I am hunched over the last working pay phone at school because Mom forgot to pay the cell phone bill again. I press the numbers on the keypad. I just hope he’s in his room at the shelter to pick up and not out wandering around.

  “Hello?”

  “Hooper?”

  “Mal.”

  “Yeah. We gotta talk.”

  “Not now. I’ll call back in ten minutes.”

  I give him the number and he hangs up. Since he got word from the mining ship, Hooper has been acting strange. He’s been sweating a lot. His temper has suddenly gotten short. And he’s digging holes all the time.

  The bell rings and classes let out. I figure I’ll wait ten minutes and then I’ll call him back. I go over to the nearest picnic table.

  Kids come pouring out of class. They look like water. Or molecules. Or excited atoms.

  “Hey.” Posey is suddenly at full stop, standing in front of me. Suki and Natalie keep walking, failing to notice that she’s not with them anymore.

  Darwyn has noticed. He’s at the next picnic table. He’s tying his shoe. Eavesdropping.

  “I just wanted to tell you that I have a telescope,” Posey says. “What?”

  “I’ve got a really good telescope.”

  “For what?”

  “If you’re going out to the desert to stargaze or try to see that unannounced launch.”

  The halls fill to maximum capacity and then it ebbs, the flow of bodies going down from a steady stream to a trickle. To nothing. Doors close. Stragglers rush. I am a rock.

  The late bell rings.

  “You’re going to be late for class,” I tell her.

  I think she’s going to say something else to me, but all of a sudden the pay phone rings. I jump up to get it.

  “Hello? Hooper?”

  “Mal. Did you get the coordinates?” he asks.

  “Yes. There’s nothing there.” Except a civilian spaceport. But I don’t tell him that.

  “That’s the point,” he says. “They are coming tomorrow night. I don’t have much time. Can you get away from your educational obligations tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow? Sure. What time?”

  “Eight thirty in the morning.”

  “I thought you said it was at night.”

  “I have some things to get on the way.”

  Which I think means he wants to dig some more holes. He’s got a sack of rocks in his room. They don’t look special. They look like regular rocks.

  “Got it. Eight thirty. I’ve got to fill up the tank. Meet me at the gas station at La Cresta and Moore.”

  I hang up the phone and lean my head on the receiver.

  There’s only one thing left to do: pack my bags and figure out how to convince him that I want to go along.

  47.

  I’m extra nice with my mother that night. I don’t know how long I’ll be away. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back to Earth. Why would I want to? It’s like Hooper says — humanity kind of sucks.

  But I feel bad that she’s going to be alone. I feel worried.

  I make sure that the pantry is fully stocked with stuff, and the freezer, and the fridge. I know that she’ll probably stop eating for a while when I go. So I got some nutritional booster drinks as well.

  48.

  I pull up to the gas station at seven because I want to make sure the car is in tip-top shape for our drive to the desert. First I fill up the tank. I check the oil and the transmission fluid and fill those. Then I fill up the tires with the perfect amount of air. I’m cleaning the windows when I hear another car pull up. I look up and I see Dr. Manitsky’s veterinarian truck. She waves. I wave back.

  I think she’s just here to fill up her tank or something. I’m even thinking of asking her if she wants me to check her tires or clean her windows or something, when the side door opens and Posey comes out of the passenger side of the car, lugging a telescope. She’s got a thermos in the other hand and a big backpack with a sleeping bag strapped to it. Dr. Manitsky waves again, and then pulls away, leaving me and Posey staring at each other.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I heard your rendezvous time for the launch. I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I brought my telescope, like I said I would.”

  The screen door of the house that’s next to the garage slams. I look over and I see Darwyn jogging over to us.

  “Did I miss it? I woke up late. Are we leaving now?” Then he looks from Posey to me. “Where is everyone else?”

  “No one else thought rocket launches were cool enough,” Posey says.

  “And you guys aren’t coming,” I say.

  I could stand here and argue with them all day. I could stand my ground. Actually draw a line in the sand.

  But the morning is cut with the sound of whistling, a melancholy tune that we hear
carried on the air. And then we see him, Hooper, like a mirage that’s just appeared on the highway. He’s walking with his long, skinny legs. He’s got his silver backpack on. He’s got a blue jumpsuit on. He’s wearing a sun hat. The rising sun is behind him. So it looks like he’s all aglow. He sees us all but he doesn’t acknowledge us. He’s staying in his own little world. Population One. Whistling his tune. Which he finishes as he steps up and joins our little circle.

  “Is this everyone?” he asks.

  Posey is the one who nods.

  “I brought my telescope,” she says, indicating the package under her arm.

  Hooper gets right into the car, placing his backpack on the floor at his feet. He pulls out a fancy device and places it on the dashboard.

  “I’ll be the navigator,” he says.

  I put my hand up to stop Posey and Darwyn from heading into the car. I get into the driver’s seat.

  “Hooper,” I say, “they don’t know where we’re going. They think we’re going stargazing or something.”

  Hooper looks at me.

  “It will be easier for you when I leave if you’re not alone,” he says. Then he rolls down the window and waves for Posey and Darwyn to come into the car. I reluctantly open the trunk for Posey to dump in her stuff, and then they get in the backseat.

  As Hooper introduces himself to Posey and Darwyn — not mentioning the alien part, but saying he’s a friend of mine — I curse under my breath and put the car into drive.

  “Where am I going?” I ask.

  Hooper turns on his little machine.

  “North,” he says. “Head north.”

  49.

  I know what I have to do. I have to get Hooper alone, away from the others. And tell him about my plan.

  I’ll hitch a ride out of this place.

  I’ll get as far away as I possibly can.

  I’m going to go see a new sun.

  Step my foot on a new planet.

  Make myself into a new kind of human being.

  50.

  Hooper is leading them in rounds that no one has ever heard of, so they are singing songs when it happens. First there is a sound, then the car goes a little wobbly and there’s the sound of metal on asphalt.

  “The tire’s blown,” Darwyn says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Better pull over,” he says.

  “I know.”

  I pull onto the shoulder. We get out of the car to survey the situation.

  “Shredded,” Darwyn says. “Unsalvageable. We’ll need a new tire.”

  “Well, I have to change this one,” I say.

  He hovers there, like he wants to help, but this is a one-man job. I stare at Darwyn as I get the spare and the tire iron and the jack from the trunk, until he stops hovering and moves over to Hooper and Posey.

  Posey is sitting on a rock. She’s put on a huge pink hat. Darwyn has his hand on his hip. Hooper is sweeping the ground with his weird machine and is telling Posey and Darwyn the story of one time when there was a malfunction on a vehicle that he was driving. It sounds like he was driving in the Arctic or something. Not that he was in the dead of space.

  The machine beeps, and he gets out his tiny garden shovel and starts to dig. Somehow, it seems like a perfectly normal thing to everyone. Like he’s just looking for buried change.

  I wipe the sweat from my forehead and get to work.

  51.

  “Look at this!” Hooper says.

  Hooper keeps leaning over me, like his leaning is going to help me somehow, but instead, he’s just kind of blocking the light, showing me a very tiny rock. I wave him away.

  Darwyn and Posey are having a serious conversation. At first I tune them out, concentrating on the task at hand. But snippets of their conversation keep sliding in. So now I’m listening, even though I’m crouched on the other side of the car with the jack and I’m trying to get the bolts off the wheel. They’re rusty.

  “She was brain-dead when they found her,” Darwyn says. “I was little. I slept through the whole thing. Imagine that? A car goes spinning around a bunch of times and I’m thinking that I’m just on a cloud or something.”

  Three bolts off. One more to go.

  “I woke up when the sirens came. My mother just looked like she was asleep, so I don’t remember being too worried. They put her on the gurney and took her away. She looked like a queen being carried away like that. Like a sleeping beauty. My dad came, and he was holding on to me and crying. I had never seen my dad cry before, so that was what scared me. The next day he came home, and sat me down, and told me that she wasn’t coming back. That he had told them to unplug her and that she was dead.”

  Fourth bolt off. Wheel removed. I’m sweating. I might also have something in my eye. I look over at Darwyn, sitting on the side of the road with Posey. She’s very attentive to him. Hooper is standing there, between us. Protective but also giving everyone space.

  “So you never got to say good-bye?” Posey asks.

  Darwyn makes a noise that sounds kind of like an elephant honking. It’s not pretty, or sad, or mournful. It’s just ugly. But it’s full of feelings that I recognize. It’s full of grief.

  “They donated her organs. Someone’s got her eyes, her liver, her kidney, her lungs, her heart.”

  “An act of beauty and kindness,” Posey says.

  “I hate when people at school call me the Lung,” he says. “It hurts in a way that they can’t possibly understand.”

  Posey starts to hold his hand. I’m a little jealous, but I brush that feeling away along with the sweat on my face. Hooper joins them.

  I pull the wheel off. The force of doing it sways me off balance. I fall flat on my back with the wheel on my chest. I’m looking up at the sky. There’s only one cloud. I’m winded, so I watch that cloud for a minute.

  Darwyn continues. “I keep thinking that anyone walking around could have a part of her. And if I just found one person that had a piece of her in them, I could go right up to them, and I could say good-bye.”

  While I’m waiting to get my breath back, I’m thinking. I breathe in. I breathe out.

  “You could do that,” I say from my side of the car, the wheel resting on me. It’s warm and heavy, like all the worries that I carry.

  “What?” Darwyn says.

  “I didn’t even know you could hear us,” Posey says.

  “You could find someone, maybe a woman, about your mother’s age, and just tell her that story. And then, you could look right at her heart, and you could say good-bye to her.”

  “Would that work?” Darwyn asks.

  “Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

  “It won’t be her heart,” Darwyn says.

  “It could be,” I say.

  “If they are a good human, they’ll understand,” Hooper says. “They’ll take your love in. That’s what I’ve come to understand about your species.”

  Darwyn doesn’t say anything. He just gets up and dusts the dirt off his backside and takes the wheel off my chest. Then he finishes changing the tire like an expert.

  “We need to get a real tire,” he says, putting the tools back into the trunk. “This dummy wheel won’t do for the rest of the driving. Good thing you have me along. I’ll be able to put it on myself. It’ll cost us less.”

  Posey gets up, and as she does, she catches my eye.

  “You’re nice,” she mouths.

  And what’s funny is that I feel nicer. Even though I realize that I always feel this way.

  52.

  When we pull into Mel’s Garage it looks deserted. But after pressing on the horn for a second, a mechanic comes around the side of the building.

  “Can I help you?” the woman in coveralls asks.

  “We need a tire,” Darwyn says, taking things under control. He tells the woman the kind of tire that we need.

  “I think I’ve got one of those,” she says.

  I notice that her name tag says MEL. She’s about fifty. She’s got blo
nd and brown hair, like a rockabilly chick. When she turns to walk away from us, she swings. For an older lady, she’s kind of sexy.

  She disappears into the garage and then comes out rolling a tire. She rolls it right up to us. Darwyn inspects it and then says it looks all right. Then he gets to work jacking up the car.

  Hooper pays for the tire with cash.

  Once the tire is changed, I watch as Darwyn puts the jack carefully back into the trunk. He wipes his sweaty forehead and looks back over at Mel, who is sitting at a plastic picnic table, drinking an orange soda and talking on a cell phone. The orange is so bright against the color of the desert.

  “Ready to go?” I ask.

  “Yep,” Posey says, opening the door.

  We all get in, except Darwyn, who’s staring at Mel.

  “Darwyn?” I say. “Come on, let’s move.”

  “Hang on a second,” he says. He takes off his glasses and cleans them with the hem of his shirt. Then he squats down and looks in the side-view mirror and kind of cleans his face and runs his hand over his hair to smooth it a bit. Then he heads across the asphalt lot, over to Mel.

  Mel looks up at him, kind of startled. We watch as he says something to her and she motions for him to hang on a second and then hangs up her phone. They start to talk. Darwyn is standing there and Mel is looking up at him, and just by the look on her face, and the way it changes, we can all tell what he’s doing.

  “Is he telling her?” Posey asks. “Oh my goodness. He’s telling her.”

  Darwyn sits down. He puts his head in his hands. Then he puts his head on the picnic table. I can see his big chest heaving up and down. Mel has leaned over and she’s rubbing his back.

  From way over here, it’s heartbreaking.

  “I’m going to check in on him,” Posey says. She scoots out of the car and heads over to Darwyn and Mel. When Posey reaches him, she puts her hand on his back, and he hugs her waist. And I watch as she leans over and whispers something to him. Then he gets up and heads with her to the bathroom.