There was a strange white car with Kansas license plates in Cash’s driveway the next day.
I sat on the porch steps and stared at it, willing it to go away.
“Looks like your pal has company,” Dad said. He was up on the ladder again, this time cleaning out the gutters.
“He didn’t say anything about having company,” I said, frowning.
“Maybe it’s surprise company,” Dad said. “You should probably stay away until his guest is gone.”
My frown deepened. “But we were supposed to get Huey out tonight.” I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and unfolded it. “I translated the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ into Morse code. Took me forever.”
I heard a sigh and the clap of the screen door closing behind me. Cassi, in her cheer clothes, had stepped out onto the porch. “Ick, make him stop talking like that, Daddy. Brielle is coming and if she hears him, she might die from his nerdiness.”
“What was that?” I said loudly, my voice echoing down the street. “I couldn’t hear you over the clinking of the medals you earned in space camp. Mom must be packing them. I hope she remembers to keep them with your space rover obstacle course completion certificate.”
She glared at me, her fists planted on her hips in perfect cheerleader formation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “You’re the space nerd, not me.”
“Are you sure?” I yelled. Brielle’s mom’s car turned the corner and crept toward us, the sun glinting off the windshield. “Because I definitely have a sister, named CASS-EE-OH-PEE-AH, who knows exactly who Phobos and Deimos are.”
“Okay, shh, Arty … Daddy …”
“And that sister of mine, the one named CASSIOPEIA, looks a lot like you. Who are Phobos and Deimos again? I’ve forgotten. Huh. If only Cassiopeia were here to remind me …”
“Shut up, Armpit! Dad, make him stop.”
“Oh! I know who Phobos and Deimos are! Pick me!” Dad said, raising his hand like we were in a classroom.
Brielle’s car thumped into our driveway, and now we could make out Brielle’s upturned I-just-smelled-the-inside-of-Tripp’s-gym-shoe face. “If she’d remind me, I could stop talking about it. Phobos and Deimos, Phobos and Deimos … I wonder if Brielle might know.” I snapped my fingers and made like I was going to follow Cassi off the porch and to the car.
Cassi turned abruptly and through a barely open mouth she hissed, “Fine. Mars’s moons. Happy now?”
I grinned. “Yes! Thank you, Cassiiiiii.” She started down the driveway. “But I’d be so much happier if I knew what Phobos and Deimos meant in Greek.”
She shot a half-scared, half-furious look at me and loped down the driveway. Just as she opened the car door, I snapped my fingers and shouted, “Oh, yeah! Phobos and Deimos! Fear and Panic!”
She slammed the car door shut and they backed out of the driveway, and I would have felt really proud of myself for having given her such a hard time if my eyes had not immediately gone right back to the strange car in Cash’s driveway.
“You think they’ll leave soon?” I asked.
“Who?” Dad asked, then followed my gaze. “If you had plans, I’m sure his guest will be gone in time.”
But they weren’t. The sun began to set, and Tripp and I played catch in the front yard. The car was still there. The sun moved lower in the sky, and Mom made raisin spice cupcakes. Tripp and Priya and I ate them on the porch. The car remained. The sun lowered and Priya had to go practice her cello, and Tripp went home to babysit his baby brother Guts. The car was still there. I ducked inside to eat dinner. I thumbed through a Discovery magazine. I watched half an episode of a cartoon. I packed a snack and made a thermos of Kool-Aid and rolled up a blanket and stuffed everything into a backpack. I loitered around the kitchen. I watched Mom pack the last of the knickknacks in our living room. And the car was still there.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. Just as I saw the first firefly blink, I went to Cash’s door, hoping Dad wouldn’t catch me and yell at me for not giving Cash and his company some privacy.
A woman opened the door. She had short gray hair and a smooth, friendly face and was holding a dish towel in one hand. There was a lamp on behind her in Cash’s living room.
Wait. That should go in all caps.
THERE WAS A LAMP ON BEHIND HER IN CASH’S LIVING ROOM!
For a second, I feared I might have actually dreamed the whole thing and Cash Maddux didn’t really live here. Which would have been both the best and worst dream ever.
“Hi,” I said. “Is Cash home? Er … Mr. Maddux? Is he … here?”
She smiled down at me, one of those smiles my mom sometimes gives before she says something like, Well, aren’t you precious, or Bless your heart. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. He’s not.”
“Oh. Okay,” I said. “Can you tell him Arty came by?”
“Oh. You’re Arty? The boy he’s been stargazing with? He told me all about you.” I nodded, and a little jolt of happy wound its way through me at the thought of Cash telling someone about me. But also a little jolt of disappointment at the word “stargazing.” We weren’t “stargazing,” we were changing the course of humanity through scientific discovery!
“Please, come in.” She stepped aside and let me through the door. Once I was inside, she shut the door, then sat on the edge of the couch and resumed her saintly smile. “I’m Cash’s sister,” she said. “You can call me Sarah.”
“Okay,” I said, still standing awkwardly in the doorway, afraid to sit on anything now that I’d seen it in full light. Cash’s house was … ugly.
“Honey, I’m afraid Cash is in the hospital.”
“What? Why?”
She looked at me sympathetically. “He isn’t doing very well.”
I felt myself go numb from the chin down. “How not very well is he doing?” I asked.
She shook her head sadly, tilted to the side. You know the news is never going to be very good when it’s coming to you from a sideways head. “Did Cash ever tell you about his cancer?” she asked in a small voice.
And then I did sit down, but not by choice. My legs and butt pretty much made the decision for me, plopping me right down onto Cash’s recliner. “He has cancer?” I asked.
“Lung cancer. He’s had it for some time,” she said. “And I’m afraid it’s finally caught up with him.”
I said nothing. What did that mean, finally caught up with him? She’d made it sound like a monster, rushing through the woods after him, leaping forward and snagging him by the ankles, making him fall into the leaves.
Immediately I thought about our last few walks back from Huey, how Cash had coughed and gasped and how he’d had to stop and put his hands on his knees a few times.
Maybe my vision of the cancer monster wasn’t too far off.
“When will he get out?” I asked.
She did that sad head shake thing again, and I almost told her not to answer me at all, if her answer was going to begin with that shake or come out sideways. “I’m—I’m not sure …”
Suddenly it didn’t matter that we were moving to Vegas. It didn’t matter that the Bacteria ate all our food and talked only in single syllables. It didn’t matter that the Brielle Brigade couldn’t spell the word “science” or that I’d never climb into the tire rocket ship anymore or that I was walking around in a shoe that had once lived in Comet’s stomach for a whole day.
All that mattered was that my friend was dying.
“Can I go see him?” I asked.
Sarah gazed at me for a long moment, squeezing the towel in her fist. Open, close, open, close. She stood and placed the towel on the couch where she’d just been sitting.
“Let’s go ask your parents, and I’ll get my car keys,” she said.