go with you to see Phyllis. Do you think we should just casually mention that there are recorded cases of healthy babies being born to mothers in iron lungs?”
“No! No way!”
Gads,
I thought. Evelyn, for all her smarts, was a bit clueless. “Want me to get some scopes so we can see what’s up there tonight?”
“Sure.”
I brought down two very light ones. “Will you be able to see Orion yet?” Evelyn asked.
I was dumbfounded. Everyone knew, or at least I thought everyone did, that Orion was a winter constellation.
“Heck no! Orion only begins to rise in the fall. It’s a winter constellation. Evelyn, didn’t you know that?”
“Nope,” she said simply. “I know a lot about microscopic stuff, microbiology. Cells, nerve endings. My dad uses an electron microscope all the time for his research. It’s amazing what you can see. My dad has actually looked at the molecular structure of nerve endings through one. And he lets me look through it, too.”
“Have you ever looked through a telescope?”
“No. I mean not through a good one. Not one where you can really see out into space.”
“Well, you can take a look tonight.”
It seemed sort of like an odd crossing of fates that Evelyn had never looked through a good telescope and I had only looked through crummy little kids’ microscopes, the kind that come in science kits. It was as if we were both focused on different ends of a spectrum of life in our universe. She looked in, down to the teensiest particles of life on Earth, and I looked out toward the farthest reaches of time, to the very edge of the universe.
I brought back the best of Emmett’s telescopes and set it up, pointing it east, where the stars begin to rise.
“So where is Orion right now if you can’t see it?” Evelyn asked.
“Being chased by Scorpio,” I said softly.
“What?”
“Scorpio killed Orion. Stung him in the foot.”
“I didn’t know that part of the story. I thought he went blind.”
“He did, and then Scorpio chased him. So in summer, when Scorpio rises, Orion flees below the horizon.”
“Scorpions are a kind of spider, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” I replied.
“Yes, they are arthropods. That’s the class, but they belong to the same genus as spiders — arachnids, just different species.”
“Oh,” I said, and thought that Evelyn should be on a quiz show. Except for a lack in a very few areas, she had more information stuffed under that frizzled head of hair than anyone I had ever met.
“So where’s Scorpio?” she asked.
I pointed to the Southeast. “It hasn’t risen that high yet. But it’s right over there. You can see his tail flicking up into the night, like he’s dusting the other stars away.” We were quiet for a minute. “Do you see his heart?”
“Heart?” Evelyn asked.
“Yeah, it’s a red star, Antares. They say the name means ‘rival of Mars’ — because it’s so red.”
“Oh, wow, it really is red! No wonder Orion is running. When will he come back? Like, when is it safe?”
The question struck me as odd. I shrugged. “I’m not sure if it’s ever safe. But starting in December and through March, that is the best time. When it’s really dark. Orion is a thousand times lovelier than Scorpio.”
That night when Evelyn and I went to bed, I set to thinking about which small world I should take over to Phyllis. There was one that my mom called my namesake small world: Saint George and the Dragon. Then there were my Nancy Drew houses. They were really just scenes from some of the books, like
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,
or
Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock.
But when I began reading science fiction, I started making these really weird landscapes and modeling creatures out of clay that had three eyes and pointy heads. My favorite small world came out of
The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury. He described this place that had canals that were the color of violets and ships with sails made
“No! No way!”
Gads,
I thought. Evelyn, for all her smarts, was a bit clueless. “Want me to get some scopes so we can see what’s up there tonight?”
“Sure.”
I brought down two very light ones. “Will you be able to see Orion yet?” Evelyn asked.
I was dumbfounded. Everyone knew, or at least I thought everyone did, that Orion was a winter constellation.
“Heck no! Orion only begins to rise in the fall. It’s a winter constellation. Evelyn, didn’t you know that?”
“Nope,” she said simply. “I know a lot about microscopic stuff, microbiology. Cells, nerve endings. My dad uses an electron microscope all the time for his research. It’s amazing what you can see. My dad has actually looked at the molecular structure of nerve endings through one. And he lets me look through it, too.”
“Have you ever looked through a telescope?”
“No. I mean not through a good one. Not one where you can really see out into space.”
“Well, you can take a look tonight.”
It seemed sort of like an odd crossing of fates that Evelyn had never looked through a good telescope and I had only looked through crummy little kids’ microscopes, the kind that come in science kits. It was as if we were both focused on different ends of a spectrum of life in our universe. She looked in, down to the teensiest particles of life on Earth, and I looked out toward the farthest reaches of time, to the very edge of the universe.
I brought back the best of Emmett’s telescopes and set it up, pointing it east, where the stars begin to rise.
“So where is Orion right now if you can’t see it?” Evelyn asked.
“Being chased by Scorpio,” I said softly.
“What?”
“Scorpio killed Orion. Stung him in the foot.”
“I didn’t know that part of the story. I thought he went blind.”
“He did, and then Scorpio chased him. So in summer, when Scorpio rises, Orion flees below the horizon.”
“Scorpions are a kind of spider, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” I replied.
“Yes, they are arthropods. That’s the class, but they belong to the same genus as spiders — arachnids, just different species.”
“Oh,” I said, and thought that Evelyn should be on a quiz show. Except for a lack in a very few areas, she had more information stuffed under that frizzled head of hair than anyone I had ever met.
“So where’s Scorpio?” she asked.
I pointed to the Southeast. “It hasn’t risen that high yet. But it’s right over there. You can see his tail flicking up into the night, like he’s dusting the other stars away.” We were quiet for a minute. “Do you see his heart?”
“Heart?” Evelyn asked.
“Yeah, it’s a red star, Antares. They say the name means ‘rival of Mars’ — because it’s so red.”
“Oh, wow, it really is red! No wonder Orion is running. When will he come back? Like, when is it safe?”
The question struck me as odd. I shrugged. “I’m not sure if it’s ever safe. But starting in December and through March, that is the best time. When it’s really dark. Orion is a thousand times lovelier than Scorpio.”
That night when Evelyn and I went to bed, I set to thinking about which small world I should take over to Phyllis. There was one that my mom called my namesake small world: Saint George and the Dragon. Then there were my Nancy Drew houses. They were really just scenes from some of the books, like
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,
or
Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock.
But when I began reading science fiction, I started making these really weird landscapes and modeling creatures out of clay that had three eyes and pointy heads. My favorite small world came out of
The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury. He described this place that had canals that were the color of violets and ships with sails made
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