Arno was rooting through every drawer in the kitchen in a frantic search for batteries when his dad arrived home for lunch. By then, Arno had emptied most of the contents onto the kitchen counters and pawed through everything, leaving a jumbled mess.
“Whoa! What’s going on?” Arno’s dad asked while Comet leapt all around his legs.
“My batteries died!” Arno cried. He held up the dead transistor radio.
“Why the panic?”
“There’s a contest for tickets to tomorrow night’s opening of the new observatory! They could ask an astronomy question any minute! I have to be the first to phone in, and I already missed out on the first two questions! This is my last chance!!”
“I see.” Arno’s dad took the radio and popped off the back cover. “This needs a 9-volt. And I don’t know where your mother keeps the spares.”
He went to the sink to wash his hands.
“But I need one!” Arno said, close to crumbling.
“What about your toys? Some of them take batteries, don’t they? Maybe your Show Me projector?”
Arno had been given a toy projector two birthdays ago. It was battery-operated and came with short strips of cartoon cells with information written on them, set in cardboard so they could slide in and out of the projector. One of the sets that Arno bought later was a month-by-month depiction of all eighty-eight constellations.
“No. That takes three D batteries. But wait!”
Arno bolted to his room. The projector was sitting on his shelf next to the toy robot that shot missiles from his head and light from his eyes. Arno knew that his robot took a 9-volt battery.
Arno slid the plastic cover off the back with shaky hands and removed the battery from inside. He tossed the emptied robot on his unmade bed and dashed to the kitchen to insert the battery into the back of the radio, fumbling in his hurry. He turned on the radio but accidentally knocked the front dial out of alignment so that all he got was static.
“Blast it!” he cursed.
He adjusted the dial and locked into his station just as the radio announcer was asking the last question.
“… is the ninth planet in our solar system, the farthest one away from the Sun, which makes Pluto the coldest planet we know. Pluto got its name from the Roman god of the underworld. The PL in the name also stands for the initials of Percival Lowell, the astronomer who caught hints of the planet twenty-five years earlier.”
Arno knew all about Percival Lowell from one of Jean Slayter-Appleton’s columns. An observatory named after him was now being used to create detailed maps of the Moon to prepare for a lunar landing.
Arno stood beside the telephone and dialed six out of the seven numbers for the radio station, which he had memorized. He stuck his finger in the hole of the last digit and got ready to dial it as soon as the announcer asked the last question, confident that he would know the answer. All he needed was to be the first to get through.
Meanwhile, his dad was laying slices of white bread on the only remaining clean counter to make ham sandwiches. Comet sat politely at his feet. He could smell the ham.
The radio announcer continued.
“First sighted in 1930, it turns out that Pluto is the smallest planet in our solar system. But which, dear listener, is smaller? Pluto or our own moon?”
“Pluto!” Arno shouted as he dialed the last digit.
Arno pressed the receiver to his ear and held his breath.
His dad paused from spreading mustard on the sliced bread, but not on Arno’s slices because Arno hated mustard.
Busy tone.
“Nooooo!” Arno slammed down the receiver and collapsed against the kitchen wall. Comet perked his ears in alarm.
“Maybe the caller will get the answer wrong,” Arno’s dad said.
“Any dipstick knows that Pluto is smaller,” Arno said glumly.
“I didn’t,” Arno’s dad admitted.
Arno stared at him for a long minute, then redialed the phone number except for the last digit. He stood with his finger in position on the dial while they both listened to the radio.
“Hello. You’re our first caller.”
“Hello!” the caller answered.
Arno’s dad turned up the radio.
“Well, good luck to you because this is our last question for the contest. Now, which do you think is smaller? Pluto or our moon?”
“Our moon, of course. Pluto is a planet.”
“Wrong!” Arno whooped, and he dialed the last number.
“I’m so sorry,” the announcer said. “That is incorrect. But thanks for calling. Who’s next on the line?”
Arno couldn’t believe his ears. The radio announcer’s voice was speaking to him on the telephone!
Arno cleared his throat. He could hear his own nervous breathing on the radio. His dad turned down the volume so that Arno could concentrate.
“Arno. Arno Creelman,” Arno stammered.
His dad gave him the thumbs-up sign.
“And how old are you, Arno?”
“Eleven, sir,” Arno said.
“Eleven? My, my. With all this Space Race business going on, many kids tell me that they want to grow up to be astronauts, to be the first to land on the Moon. Is that your dream, too?”
“No, sir,” Arno said.
“Oh?”
“I like telescopes. I want to discover new things that are way out there. Things that are so deep in space, it would take forever to reach them.”
“What kinds of things?”
“I don’t know. Maybe exoplanets.”
“Exo what?”
“Exoplanets. Planets that might exist outside of our own solar system.”
“Do you mean planets that orbit other stars?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Other stars, not our sun?” the announcer asked.
“Yes, sir. I believe that many stars must have planets orbiting them. And once we discover them, there’s a good chance some will have intelligent life. Maybe even more intelligence than here on Earth.”
There was a long pause. It was as if the radio announcer didn’t know what to say.
Finally, he spoke.
“That’s certainly food for thought, Arno.”
“I have plenty more ideas about outer space,” Arno said. “I keep a list in my notebook, along with articles by Jean Slayter-Appleton.”
“Wonderful! Speaking of which, how about we get back to the contest?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, then. If you’ve been listening, you’ll know that our last caller got the answer wrong. Pluto is actually smaller than our moon.”
“Yes, sir. I knew that.”
“I’m sure you did. So, Arno, I’m going to ask you a related question.”
Arno twisted the telephone cord around his hand and held his breath. What else was there to know about Pluto? He knew that Pluto moved on a different orbital plane than the other planets and that it actually crossed Neptune’s orbit from time to time. He knew it took Pluto 247 Earth years to revolve around the Sun and over six Earth days to rotate. He knew it was the only new planet to be discovered so far in the twentieth century —
“Do you know how much smaller Pluto is than our moon?”
“Yes, sir! Pluto is only two-thirds the diameter of our moon.”
Arno’s dad’s eyebrows shot up.
“And it’s less than twenty percent of Earth’s mass,” Arno added for good measure, untwisting the telephone cord around his free hand.
Arno’s dad’s jaw dropped.
“Correct!” the radio announcer exclaimed. “You’ve just won the last invitation. We’ll see you and your guest tomorrow night to help Jean Slayter-Appleton cut the ribbon. She’s also promised to show visitors several of her favorite globular clusters from the new observatory’s telescope. I’m not even sure what that is.”
“A globular cluster is a dense collection of stars that form a spherical shape and are tightly bound by gravity,” Arno said. “And when —”
“Wow,” the radio announcer said. “Enjoy!”
“Yes, sir!” Arno shouted while Comet joined in the excitement by dancing a tight circle around him.
“Clear skies, Arno,” the radio announcer said.
“Clear skies,” Arno replied.
After he hung up, he beamed at his dad, who said, “Congratulations!”
“Thanks, Dad!”
Arno’s dad cut the sandwiches into triangles and placed them on plates. Then he dropped some extra pieces of ham into Comet’s bowl, which Comet devoured. “Who will you take as your guest?”
Meeting Jean Slayter-Appleton was serious business, and Arno didn’t want anyone to spoil that. Especially anyone like Buddy.
“You, Dad,” Arno said.
“I’d be honored,” his dad said. He gave Arno a smile before placing the plates on the kitchen table. “What do you want to drink with the sandwiches?”
“I made lemonade this morning but it’s all gone.”
“Then ice water will do,” his dad said. He opened the freezer. “Hey! What happened?” He held out the empty trays.
Arno explained about Buddy’s astronaut endurance test.
“You should have heard him,” Arno said. “What a scream.”
“I’ll bet,” his dad said, filling the trays with water and putting them back into the freezer. He poured two glasses of milk instead.
“I also met the new kid on the block this morning. Robert.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s from London,” Arno said. “Not England. Canada.”
He didn’t want to bore his dad by telling him about the astrology nonsense.
The telephone rang. Arno answered.
“Hi, Arno. It’s Mindy.”
Mindy was in the same grade as Buddy and Arno. She also lived on Arno’s block. She had been Arno’s science fair partner, and they made a tool that calculated what latitude they were from Earth’s equator by measuring the angle of Polaris to the horizon. They came in second place.
Anton Spagnolli and Heimlich Fester won first place for their project about the revolutionary birth control pill and its predicted impact on society. Smaller families. Big deal. Both Arno and Mindy agreed they’d been robbed.
“Hi, Mindy. Guess what? I just won a contest to go to tomorrow night’s opening of the new observatory.”
“You did? That’s fab.”
“Thanks.”
“Buddy told me you met the new boy.”
“Yeah. Robert.”
“My mom said she’ll drive me to the movies this afternoon, and that I can invite him, you and Buddy.”
“What’s playing?”
“A new documentary about outer space!”
“Far out!” Arno buried the mouthpiece in his chest. “Dad, can I go to a movie about outer space? Please? Mindy’s mom will drive.”
“Sure.” His dad dug out a dollar from his wallet and handed it to Arno. “So long as you make your bed right after lunch. You need to earn your allowance. Remember?”
“How’d you know I didn’t make my bed?”
“Lucky guess.” His dad pointed to the counters. “And tidy all this while you’re at it.”
“Thanks, Dad!” Arno turned back to the telephone. “I can go,” he said.
“Fab. We’ll pick you up at one.”
Grinning, Arno sat down to eat his sandwich. Winning a contest and now going to a movie about his favorite topic? What a great day!
After lunch, Arno’s dad left the house to continue his rounds. He took Comet, who jumped up into the passenger seat and peered over the dashboard as if Shotgun was his middle name.
Arno stood in the driveway waving goodbye, the blazing Sun pounding on his head and shoulders, heat waves wafting up at his ankles. As the white van backed out, Arno got a clear view of the company logo.
Stinky’s.
The boxy letters loomed large. There were lines of air wafting above the company name with a housefly weaving in and out as if overcome by the smell. Painted cartoon flames streaked from the wheel wells like a hot rod, only the flames weren’t red or orange. They were painted baby-poop brown.
The whole thing was meant to be funny. And it had been until that fateful day Arno got trapped inside.
He shuddered to think about it, so he quickly went back inside. Besides, he had to make his bed and attend to the mess in the kitchen.
Every item in Arno’s room had something to do with astronomy. The curtains had constellations printed on them. His bedside lamp was shaped like the crescent Moon. He had a large map of the solar system pinned to his ceiling above his bed. It featured data about each planet: its diameter, its distance from the Sun, its length of day and its axis tilt. On his bookshelf were his notebooks filled with “Clear Skies” newspaper clippings and his own deep thoughts.
He put his gutted robot back on the shelf beside the projector, then pulled up the sheets and smoothed out the bedspread, which was printed with spinning galaxies. He fluffed up his pillow and set it down just so. Done.
Arno paused to admire his clay solar system, the one he had built that morning, and forgot about the mess he’d made in the kitchen. He counted eight planets drying on his desk.
He frowned. Saturn was still under his bed.
Arno wished Comet was with him. Maybe he could coax the little dog to crawl under and retrieve the planet by making a game out of it. Comet was pretty gullible.
But Comet was bouncing around in the van with Arno’s dad, looking forward to the ice cream cone that his dad would surely buy for him because he always did.
“Well, then, I’ll just have to rescue Saturn myself,” Arno said firmly, squaring his shoulders. “No sweat,” he said. “Only take a second,” he said.
Arno didn’t budge. He didn’t even bend down to try. He had made the mistake of picturing himself stuck under the bed, trapped, the weight of the mattress collapsing on top of him. His chest tightened, his breath became ragged, his mouth went dry.
Suddenly, Arno felt dizzy. He took a few staggered steps backwards until he stood in the door frame and leaned against it for support.
“Blast it,” he said quietly.
The doorbell rang.
It was Mindy, putting him out of his misery.