The quintescope didn’t fit in Alma’s locker, so she had to carry it around all day.
Every time she looked at it, her stomach turned into a knotted, gnarled rope, and her throat felt like it was being squeezed by invisible hands, and her mind started whirring through the latest book of fears.
She was going to make a fool of herself at Astronomy Club. She didn’t know anything about astronomy, except that she liked looking at the stars. She’d barely even been able to put the quintescope together. She was going to have an episode in front of the other kids. They were going to laugh at her.
If those thoughts weren’t bad enough, there was also the little matter of the Starling who had come hurtling out of the sky and crash-landed behind her house last night.
“It was a dream,” she muttered. “A dream, a dream.”
By the end of the day, Alma was a knot-stomached, squeeze-throated, racing-thoughted mess. She thought she should just go home.
But she didn’t.
She had the flyer. She had the quintescope. And she still had that light—that little bit of Alma-ness—inside her.
She was going to Astronomy Club.
At the end of the last period, she stood in the hallway right next to the door of her History class instead of running out the front door like she usually did. She stood there and watched as the hallways filled and filled and filled, and then emptied.
Then she picked up the quintescope.
“Elements and quintessence,” she said to herself as she walked toward the Science Lab.
The lab was a big, sunny room with shining metal surfaces and glass tubes behind glass doors and neat rows of white aprons and goggles. Mrs. Brisa taught all the Science classes there, so Alma knew exactly where it was.
When she reached the lab, she peeked through the open doorway.
Seated on high stools were a boy dressed entirely in gray with a poof of curly black hair and a girl with two long braids and a butterfly-patterned dress. Their backs were to her. A pristine black telescope case was open on the counter in front of them, revealing a shiny white optical tube, new and modern.
The boy was staring down at his lap and talking in a loud, monotone voice. The girl was twirling a braid around with one hand and drumming the table with her other hand, both motions in rhythm, spin-tap, spin-tap, spin-tap.
Alma stood and watched. They looked friendly enough, she told herself. They looked fine. There was nothing to be afraid of.
But her legs wouldn’t move.
She was here, she told herself. She could sit by the door, leave if she needed to. It was time to go in.
Her legs still wouldn’t move.
“Elements and quintessence,” Alma repeated quietly.
But not quietly enough.
The Astronomy Club kids turned to stare at her.