By the time Mom figured out where I’d disappeared to, Cash and I were sitting at his kitchen table, eating egg-salad sandwiches and talking about exoplanets.
“So we really know for sure that there are planets orbiting other stars out there, like Earth does with the sun?” I asked, a dollop of mayonnaise and egg dropping down onto my chin.
“Tons of them. I’ve seen them myself,” he said. “We’re finding new stuff out there all the time.”
“Like what?”
“They found an exoplanet thirteen times bigger than Jupiter. It’s so big, they’re not sure what it even is,” he said.
“Could it have life on it?” I asked, suddenly too excited to eat egg salad. Who could eat egg salad when aliens were a possibility? Come to think of it … who could eat egg salad, period? It was gloppy and smelly and left a weird texture on the roof of your mouth. “Could any of these exoplanets have life on them?”
He leaned forward. “You ever hear of Gliese five eighty-one?” he asked. I shook my head. “It’s a star. A few years ago they discovered a couple of exoplanets around it. And some scientists believe there is life there. One professor said he’s one hundred percent certain.”
I gasped, unable to swallow the bits of egg left in my mouth. “One hundred percent? Intelligent life?” This was huge. To me, this seemed like the hugest thing in the world, and I couldn’t figure out why everybody on Earth wasn’t talking about it.
He leaned even closer. “There has been a mysterious radio signal detected,” he whispered in his gravelly voice. “The planet is in a sweet spot, not too far and not too close to its sun. There could be water, and anytime there’s water …”
We nodded in unison, our faces just inches apart. “… There is potential for life,” I finished for him.
“No,” Cash said, his voice so low I had to lean in even farther to hear him. “Where there is water …” I leaned in even closer. “… There … are …” Closer still. “Zombies!” he yelled, and lunged toward me.
I’d like to say I giggled and played it cool. But I didn’t. I screamed like a four-year-old girl and flung my hands in the air, my egg-salad sandwich flying out of my hand and thwacking against Cash’s wallpaper, where it stuck.
He, on the other hand, laughed like crazy.
And that’s when Mom did her knock-and-enter thing again. Only this time I didn’t want her to save me.
“Hello? Mr. uh … it’s Amy!” she called.
“In the kitchen,” Cash called back.
She came into the kitchen, waving her hand in front of her face. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. You’re supposed to tell me where you are, Arty.” She said it in that polite company voice, but I knew that was just for Cash’s sake. When we got home she was going to rip into me for making her worry.
“Sorry, Mom, I forgot.”
“Well, I hope he hasn’t been bothering you,” she said to Cash.
“No more than expected,” Cash grumbled.
“Mom, Cash is an astronaut!” I said, hoping it would soften her some. “And there’s an exoplanet out there, it’s called—what’s it called again, Cash?—and it probably has life on it! That’s what some professor said, right, Cash?”
Cash shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich. “That is if you can believe professors.”
But Mom wasn’t even listening. She was doing that uh-huh thing moms do when they want you to think they’re listening, but they’re really thinking about something totally different from what you’re talking about, like onions or how a ketchup stain got on the living room ceiling. “Uh-huh, I see, that’s very interesting, now come on, Arty, it’s time to go.”
I stood and came around the table. “But I don’t want to go home. You heard me, right? About the exoplanet? There was this radio transmission and they think there could be water and you know what Dad says about anytime there’s water on a planet. Cash has a real-life astronaut suit back there. A whole secret room. Remember where Widow Feldman used to keep her ferns? He’s got moon rocks back there, Mom!”
Mom put her hands on my shoulders to steady me, because apparently it’s possible to be so excited about something that you can be jumping up and down without even knowing it. “Arcturus,” she said sternly, “we need to go now.”
Dejected, I gave in and followed Mom out.
“Thank you again, Mr., er, Cash, for having Arty over,” Mom said as she led me away.
Cash grunted in reply. I turned and looked just in time to see my sandwich slide a couple of inches down the wall and fall onto the table. Cash reached over, picked it up, and took a bite.
It was weird how just days ago I was scared to death about having to go to Cash’s house, and now … I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.
“That man …,” Mom muttered as we walked across the lawn that separated our house from his. “He’s such a rude old cuss, I honestly don’t know why you would even want to go back there, Arcturus. And to leave me wondering where you were like that. I have a mind to—”
“Oh! I forgot something,” I interrupted. “I’ll be right back.”
“Arty,” she complained, but I had already sprinted back into Cash’s house.
I raced into Cash’s kitchen. “Can I come back tomorrow?” I asked, breathless.
Cash looked up from his (my) sandwich and chewed slowly. Finally, he swallowed, picked up his stubby cigar, took a puff, and nodded.
“Just don’t bring any water in with you,” he said. “Unless you have a death wish.” Again, he threw his head back and laughed.