I set another section of track on Zack’s train table. “Time to see Mama?” he asked me again. “Not yet, Zacky,” I said. “It’s only nine thirty and we have to let Mama have her catch-up sleep.”
“I don’t like ketchup.” Zack wrinkled his round nose.
I laughed. I knew he didn’t like either one—not the gooey red tomato stuff, and certainly not letting Mom sleep a little later on weekends.
“Nadie! Don’t laugh!”
“Sorry.” I tickled him under his chin. “Don’t laugh,” I teased. He squirmed away from my fingers. “How about seeing if your engine can pull the train over this long bridge?”
“My engine is strong!” Zack pushed his wooden train toward the bridge with his pudgy hands. I was building him a complicated track layout, trying to stall him until it was time to wake Mom at ten. I liked the way the toy track could weave back over itself in big loopy designs. I was going to have to show this to Nick for Brambletown.
The steady drizzle outside made the day feel wintery raw. Why had they named this town Springville if we were going to have April days like this one? The bad weather meant no Brambletown today, but that was okay. It was just the right kind of day to work on my dazzling issue of the Springville Spark. I planned to spend plenty of time on it, too. I’d show Mr. Allen that no one could do the art editor job the way I did it.
“I’m done with the computer, Nadie,” Dad called up from his studio in the basement.
“I want to play computer,” Zack said. He pushed himself to his feet, knocking over the bridge.
I looked at the clock. Nine forty-nine. Close enough. “Time to get Mama,” I said.
“Mama!” He bolted for my parents’ bedroom. I heard the springs creak as he flung himself onto the bed. When I got to the door, he had already burrowed under the blankets. Mom’s wavy hair trailed loose across the pillow and the outlines of her face looked soft. She turned over and held her arms out.
“Where’s my vitamin N?” She smiled with her eyes closed.
“Only a small dose for now,” I said, slipping in and out of her strong hug. “I have to finish up last week’s Springville Spark.” A little part of me wanted to climb into that warm bed with Mom and Zack and let everything that had happened yesterday spill out. But the rest of me was too busy thinking of how to make sure this issue of the Spark wouldn’t be my last.
I signed in to our homework connection page and transferred the folder for this week’s issue to the desktop. The Springville Spark’s “Life in Space!” There were six poems, three articles, a story by Jess, and one by Max. We’d chosen three of Gordon’s robot drawings after Mr. Allen had suggested he make at least one robot doing something un-robotlike. Lacey had submitted a drawing of flowers blooming on the moon, tended by moon beings dressed in flowing robes. Alima had painted a cool spiral of light and dark colors that was supposed to be the Big Bang.
An instant message popped up. It was from Nick.
Are you working on the Spark?
Just got started, I typed. I hit Send. Why don’t you come over? I added. I hit Send again. I counted to twenty. Nothing. I counted another twenty, then heard steps outside on the walk. Upstairs, the kitchen door slammed. Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, Nick thumped down to our basement.
He shrugged out of his raincoat and draped it over a chair. You didn’t need a raincoat to run across the street, but no one argued with Mrs. Fanelli.
“What took you so long?” I asked.
He held on to the arms of the chair and let himself down slowly. “I’m sore,” he groaned.
I laughed. “Guess I’d better stay off of those skates.”
“Nah—it’s worth it,” Nick insisted. He pulled his chair closer. “You have to get on those skates so we can start practicing on our course.”
“We have to finish drawing it first,” I said.
“You mean start again.” Nick pointed to the drops splashing against the high basement window. “The rain’s washing the chalk away.”
“Oh,” I sighed. “Right. Well, we have something more important to do today, anyway.”
I showed him the files on the computer screen. We inserted them into a publishing document and tried different ways of fitting them into our four-page layout. After we fixed on a layout, Nick played around with fancy fonts and came up with some good ones for the titles. Using my dad’s computer stylus and drawing tablet, I added illustrations for the stories and articles. I worked slowly and carefully, making border art for each page with repeat patterns of planets and stars. Feeling generous, I made one of Gordon’s robots small and put it in the pattern, too.
“Nice touch,” Nick observed. “I’m glad you thought of taking those border planets and stuff from the diagrams in our science lab packet.”
“Do you think this is the best issue we’ve ever done?” I asked, frowning at the screen. “It has to be the best ever.” I pulled the stylus out of my mouth and tried to rub off my teeth marks.
“I think it looks great,” Nick said. “I really like your drawing of the astronaut walking on the moon.” He was jotting down notes for his editor’s column. “These borders and titles go way quicker on your dad’s computer than on the one at school.”
“Yeah, and especially without Mr. Allen getting in the way.” Now that I thought about it, I was almost madder at Mr. Allen for assuming I’d been the lunchroom troublemaker than I was at Summer for starting all the trouble. Nick didn’t say anything.
“Come on,” I prodded, “you know Mr. Allen’s hopeless at computer layout stuff.”
“Well, he is a really good editor,” Nick said. “He shows us how to make the writing stronger and helps us decide what the stories are really about. And he’s great at suggesting which ones go together in an issue.”
I pursed my lips and started sketching for the cover. I wasn’t interested in hearing about our teacher’s good points. Now, if Nick wanted to talk about Mr. Allen’s pointy eyebrows or his ridiculous purple sneakers, that might be different. In the middle of the page I drew a big Earth and the moon orbiting around it. I added the International Space Station and a couple of other satellites. On my computer screen, the Milky Way and other planets with their moons and rings took shape in the distance. I washed in deep blues, blue-greens, yellows, and bits of red. The cover was the only illustration in the Spark that could be in color, so it had to be spectacular.
I closed my eyes and rolled my chair away from the computer. Then I turned back and squinted at the image on the screen. I liked the overall effect, but something was missing. Nick looked up from his writing.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
He rubbed his chin. He tilted his head and squinted.
“Out with it, Fanelli.”
“It needs something,” he ventured.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “But what?”
Nick and I both stared at the cover of the Springville Spark’s “Life in Space!” issue. “Some kind of connection to our class, maybe?” he said.
A picture jumped into my head. “Yes! That’s it!” I scooted my chair back to the stylus tablet. Hah! I’d show Mr. Allen— I’d send him into outer space! That’s where he belonged anyway, if he could possibly believe that I’d caused all the trouble in the zoofeteria. My stylus raced around the drawing tablet. Nick bent his head over his notebook. I put the final touches on my artwork and as soon as I was finished, I quickly switched to the editor’s page.
“Wait!” Nick protested. “I didn’t see it yet.”
“Let’s put your column in first.” I wanted to keep the suspense going.
“Okay.” Nick pulled his chair over to the keyboard and typed in his column. Then he moved back. He drummed a happy two-fingered rhythm on his knee while I read.
Who’s Out There?
One of the most interesting questions we asked during our study of the solar system is if life exists in other parts of space. Can we really be the only ones? It’s fun to think about other forms of life out there—where they might be and what they might be like. Contacting them would be exciting. It would change everything! If beings from outer space came to Earth, would we try to understand them? Would we show respect for them? That is what we have to work on.
Nick Fanelli, editor
I raised one eyebrow at him.
“What?” he protested, his eyes too wide open. Another really great thing about Nick was that he was just no good at lying.
“Oh, nothing, Nick.” Fine, I thought. If he’s going to pretend his column isn’t about getting along with Summer Crawford, then I can pretend I don’t get it. I moved Lacey’s drawing of moon flowers and moon beings next to his editorial. Then I switched back to my cover art.
Nick studied the screen. He grinned. “Nice,” he said, nodding. “Mr. Allen looks great in that picture. Good move. A total job-getter-backer.”
I folded my arms. “All it needs is a more exciting title. I’ll think about that later. Do you want me to show it to you before I e-mail it in?” I hit the Save button.
“Nah,” Nick said. “If it goes along with that drawing, it’ll be perfect!”