The day was getting hotter by the minute. Even on Arno’s shady front porch, the heat was strong enough to blast both boys back in their chairs, as if they’d been hit by a solar flare.

A trickle of sweat ran down between Arno’s shoulder blades. Comet lay sprawled beneath his legs, flattening himself against the wood deck, his pink tongue lolling out. A fierce sunbeam inched steadily toward the little dog’s water bowl while neighborhood cats sought shade beneath parked cars on the street.

Arno concentrated on listening to the radio, which was now playing one Motown band after another. Buddy reached for the top copy from Arno’s well-worn collection of Life magazines stacked on the table between them. Arno saved all the copies that featured something about outer space on the cover.

Buddy flipped to an article about the Mercury Seven. He read how the American astronauts were being tested in a heat chamber as part of getting ready to fly into outer space. He studied the photos of men who had been zipped into spacesuits and were being strapped inside the chamber.

“What a tight squeeze,” Buddy said, holding out the magazine to Arno for a look. “My dad told me that astronauts have to be 5 feet 11 inches or shorter so that they can fit into the spacecraft. Lucky for me, my dad is only 5 feet 9.”

“Yeah. I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Arno said.

Buddy was, by far, the shortest boy in their class.

Although the astronauts were smiling and giving the photographer the A-OK sign, it only took one look for Arno to feel the beginnings of panic flutter in his stomach. He would be terrified, strapped into a chair that was bolted to the floor, then locked inside that cramped chamber. The mere thought made him want to throw up. It was a powerful reminder about why becoming an astronomer was so much better. Arno would still be able to see everything in the universe, only he would do so from wide-open fields on Earth.

Arno pushed the magazine back toward Buddy.

“Read on your own,” he said gruffly. He closed his eyes to better concentrate on the radio.

Buddy settled into his chair and flipped to an article Arno had already read about Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut who had been launched in a rocket ship that spring and made over seventeen orbits around Earth before ejecting himself and parachuting to the ground separately from his capsule. Then Buddy read out loud the part about American navy commander Alan B. Shepard Jr., who followed the Soviets by rocketing away from Earth’s surface a few weeks later on top of a Mercury-Redstone rocket. Shepard’s fifteen-minute spaceflight reached a high altitude, yet his spacecraft, Freedom 7, wasn’t fast enough to achieve orbit.

Buddy was about to continue, but he was interrupted by the sounds of a heavy diesel engine. A moving van came rumbling down their street. It backed into a driveway five houses from where Arno lived — a house that looked much like his but with a Sold sign planted in its browned-out front lawn.

Arno put down his glass of lemonade, and Buddy closed his magazine to watch.

The movers unloaded a kitchen table set with tubular steel legs and molded plastic seats, a starburst wall clock, baked enamel cabinets with sliding plate-glass doors, pole lamps with fern-green shades, plaid swivel chairs, matching avocado-colored appliances and a long sleek couch in gold fabric.

Then a glossy white station wagon with skylight windows pulled up in front of the house. When a family of four tumbled out — a dad, a mom, a boy and his older sister who was wearing a tall beehive held back with a hairband, Arno could see that the interior of the car was racy red.

“Do be careful, lads!” the dad warned, dogging the movers as they carried a television in through the propped-open front door.

Arno wasn’t all that impressed. Almost every house on his street owned a television by now. What was more unusual was that the dad had an accent that sounded like the Queen of England.

As soon as a bicycle was unloaded from the moving van, the boy grabbed it and climbed on. He pedaled lazy figure-eights in the empty street, heat waves wafting up from the softening black pavement, until he spotted Arno and Buddy. He charged straight toward them.

“Hello!” he called out, coming to a full stop on the sidewalk in front of Arno’s house.

“Hi,” Arno said, tugging at his sweaty T-shirt.

Comet lifted his head but was too hot to move from beneath Arno’s legs. Buddy just stared with his mouth open.

Arno knew that they should be a titch more friendly.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” he added.

“Thanks.” The boy got off his bike and pulled out the kickstand. He walked up to the porch, stood on the top step and thrust out his hand. “I’m Robert Fines. That’s my house,” he said, nodding in the direction of the movers.

Robert had an accent, too, but not as strong as his dad’s. “House” sounded like “howse,” not “hoos,” which was how Arno and his friends said it.

“I’m Arno Creelman,” Arno said, reluctantly standing up to shake hands because his own was so sweaty.

“Buddy Clark,” Buddy said, doing the same after wiping his brow with a corner of his shirt.

Robert ran his fingers through a huge cowlick. His ears stuck out, glowing pink in the sun, and when he smiled, Arno saw there was a small gap between his two front teeth.

“Is that your dog?” Robert asked, crouching down to peer at Comet. He said “dahg,” not “dowg.”

Comet gave two thumps of his tail but otherwise stayed put.

“Yeah,” Arno said.

“What’s his name?” Robert pressed.

“Comet.”

“Sorry. Did you say Comet?”

“Yeah. He was born the year two really bright comets were spotted in 1957. They came close and could even be seen by the naked eye. And they were the first ones since Halley’s Comet back in 1910.”

“Here we go,” Buddy muttered.

“What?” Arno asked, wheeling around to catch Buddy rolling his eyes.

“Hey, Robert,” Buddy said, settling back into his chair. “Check this out.” He held his hands palms up and tilted his head. “Say, Arno? What are comets?”

Arno took the bait.

“Fun fact. The word comet is very old. It comes from the Greek word meaning hairy, a hairy star. Comets are leftovers from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. They move around the Sun and are made up of ice mixed with dust. As they move past Jupiter, they begin to defrost, and when they approach the orbit of Mars, they start to form long tails. Blown by the solar wind from our sun, the tails of comets always point away from the heat. Halley’s Comet is famous because it returns within a human lifetime. Do you know when it will next come back?”

“Beats me,” Buddy said. He winked at Robert, who stood with his eyes wide open, eyebrows raised.

“Halley’s Comet appears to Earth about every seventy-five years. Right now it’s too faint to be seen, but it will return in 1986.”

With that, Arno sat down.

“And by then I’ll have left my footprints on the Moon.” Buddy smiled his toad smile. “Careful what you ask about around here, Robert,” he added, nodding toward Arno. “You’ll get way more than you bargained for.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Robert said. “Are you both outer space fans?”

Arno nodded, and Buddy added, “My dad met John Glenn. I’m going to be an astronaut just like him.”

“You, too?” Robert asked, turning to Arno.

“No,” Arno said. “An astronomer.”

“Astronomer. Astronaut. Cool. But it’s astrology that’s boss.”

Arno and Buddy leaned forward, wrinkled their brows and together said, “What?”

“Astrology. The study of the movements and positions of planets that impact us and our natural world.”

“Do you mean like how the Moon pulls on the oceans to make tides?” Arno asked.

“It’s far more than that!”

Both boys looked at him blankly.

“Our entire personality depends on the planets’ locations when we’re born.”

This took some time to sink in, and then Buddy started to laugh.

“You can’t be serious!”

“Check it out. What’s your zodiac sign?”

Buddy stopped laughing.

“My what?”

“When’s your birthday?”

“April Fool’s Day,” Buddy boasted.

Arno could never understand why Buddy didn’t see how that was so funny.

“So, April 1st. That makes you an Aries,” Robert said. “Aries are eager, quick, dynamic and competitive. Does that describe you?”

Buddy widened his eyes. “You’re right!” he said.

“And when’s your birthday?” Robert asked Arno.

“September 18th.”

“That makes you a Virgo. Virgos are practical, loyal, gentle and analytical.”

Arno said nothing.

I’m all those things, he thought.

Still, Robert must have used some kind of trick. But how?

“Nifty, huh?” Robert said smugly. Then he added, “Phew. I’m roasting.” He eyeballed Arno’s pitcher of lemonade sweating on the table next to the magazines.

“Do you want some?” Arno asked, still trying to figure out how on earth Robert had got those things right. It sure wasn’t because of phony-baloney astrology, that’s for sure.

“Yes, please.”

“Where’re you from?” Arno asked, filling a glass for Robert after retrieving one from the kitchen.

“London,” Robert said.

“So, England,” Arno said. He was pretty good at geography.

“No, Canada. There’s a London there, too. My dad’s from England. But then my parents moved to Canada. And now we’re here.”

Robert took a sip of lemonade. “Mmmmmm,” he said.

“It’s my mom’s recipe,” Arno said proudly.

“It’s very … lemony,” Robert said carefully. He puckered his lips.

Was that meant to be a compliment? Arno wasn’t sure.

“Yeah. That’s because there are lemons in it,” Arno said, more defensively than he would have liked. “Fresh lemons.”

“I told you Tang was better,” Buddy leaned over and whispered loudly into Arno’s ear.

Arno batted him away. Smiling, Buddy poured himself another tall glass of lemonade, emptying the pitcher.

“It’s primo,” Robert said peering into his glass. “Really. Only, I wondered if you might want to tone down the tartness of the lemons with a bit of ginger.”

“Ginger?”

“Ginger or cucumbers. Or vanilla. Have you ever tried any of those? Delicious.”

Arno just stared at him, dumbfounded and annoyed.

“Just a friendly suggestion,” Robert said cheerfully, setting down the glass on the porch railing. It was still mostly full. “Well, I’d better burn rubber. Sorry. Lots of unpacking to do. Nice to meet you both.”

He climbed on his bike and pedaled home.

Arno poured the rest of Robert’s rejected lemonade onto the lilac bush by the steps.

Ginger? Cucumbers? Vanilla??

He looked up at his new neighbor’s house, Robert’s bike now abandoned on their front lawn next to the Sold sign.

“What a flake,” Arno said, sitting back down.

“Polite, though,” Buddy said. “Can I borrow a bucket?” he asked.

His innocent tone put Arno on high alert.

“What for?”

“Another astronaut test. They can keep their feet in ice water.”

“Ice water?”

“That’s an actual test. An endurance test that astronauts have to pass. Just like the balloons. So do you have a bucket or not?”

“Under the kitchen sink,” Arno said, reaching for a Life magazine from the stack.

Buddy dashed inside. When he came back out, he was lugging a bucket filled with water and ice. He set it down on the deck, sloshing contents that splashed Comet, it was so heavy.

Comet grunted as he shifted to a drier spot.

“Want to give this a try?” Buddy asked.

“I do not,” Arno said.

“Chicken.”

“I’m not chicken,” Arno said. “You heard Robert. I’m a Virgo. And Virgos are practical. I don’t want to lose precious time drying my feet before I can run inside to the phone when they ask the last astronomy question on the radio.”

“Point taken,” Buddy said. “The least you can do is time me.”

“No problem,” Arno said, closing his magazine. He was genuinely curious about how long Buddy would torture himself. “Ready when you are.”

“Hang on a sec,” Buddy said.

He yanked off his idiotic boots, then repositioned the bucket of ice water. Taking a deep breath, he plunged one foot in right after the other. He made two clenched-white fists and began to screech immediately.

It was ear-splitting.

It didn’t sound human.

Arno doubled over with laughter.

Buddy only stopped when he stumbled out of the bucket, water slopping across the deck. Comet perked up to scavenge a few spilled ice cubes that skittered his way.

“How many seconds?” Buddy asked after sitting down to rub his feet.

“I forgot to count,” Arno admitted after he finally stopped laughing. “You sounded like Comet if he breathed in helium from a balloon and started barking at a cat.”

“Buddy! Lunch!” Buddy’s mother hollered from the front porch of Buddy’s house, which was up the block in the opposite direction from Robert’s.

“Thanks for nothing,” Buddy said, picking up his boots. He made his way barefoot down the steps and onto the boiling sidewalk. “Hot, hot, hot!” he yelped before he could jump on his bike and pedal home.

Arno sat back in his chair just as the music on his transistor radio, along with his last chance to win the contest, died.

There was nothing but silence, followed by the buzz of grasshoppers.

“Blast it!” Arno yelled, jumping up, the sweaty backs of his legs peeling off the seat. “My batteries!”