And then they went tubing on the hill behind Pete’s house.
And then they made pizza with Pete’s mom and dad. And ate it for dinner.
And then they played chess.
And Ginette won. And Pete sulked a little.
And then Pete’s mom asked them what they were going to do their science projects on, which were due on Monday.
Pete had chosen to do his on map projections. And no one quite knew what map projections were, so he explained, “The Earth is a globe, right?”
And everyone said, “Yeah.”
“Yeah, and when you try to represent its three-dimensional surface in two dimensions, it creates distortions. Like, if you draw a map on an orange, say, with a marker, and then peel it and flatten it out, the images at the ‘poles’ get distorted—they get bigger. Which is why Canada and Russia and Greenland look so giant on maps. So I’m gonna talk about that.”
Pete’s dad fake-yawned and groaned, “Snoozefest,” and he grabbed his son and gave him a noogie to let him know he was kidding and everyone laughed and Pete’s mom said, “Guess somebody’s gotta think about … maps.” And then she asked Ginette what she was going to do her presentation on, and Ginette said, “The northern lights.” And Ginette’s mom said, “Ooh!” And Ginette explained that the northern lights appear when massive storms on the sun shoot streams of tiny charged particles into space. Those particles hurtle toward the Earth and collide with atoms in the atmosphere, exciting them and disrupting their natural state. The excited atoms want to return to their normal states, and when they do, the energy they give off is manifested in colorful little bursts of light, called photons. When enough photons are present, the northern lights appear.
Pete’s dad was impressed with Ginette’s presentation, because he had seen the northern lights his whole life and had never known what caused them. “Now that,” he proclaimed, “is a whole lot more interesting than maps!” And everybody laughed, and as they did, Pete took Ginette’s hand, because he was proud that she had impressed his dad.
And Ginette felt that strange lightness again. This time it felt like the northern lights were inside her. And she felt like Pete was one of those charged particles from the sun and he was disrupting her natural state and creating bursts of light inside her.
And she wondered what it meant.
And then she wondered what it meant that she and Pete were holding hands in front of his parents. Did it mean that they were more than more than just friends? Did it mean that they were boyfriend and girlfriend? And that they were dating?
She wanted to know. She wanted to name whatever it was that they were.
But naming what they were would mean assigning words to whatever it was that was happening between them. Which might minimize whatever it was that was happening between them. Because words can make things that seem huge in your heart seem small and insignificant.
But Ginette was willing to take the risk. Because the lightness inside her made her feel like something really wonderful was about to happen to her and Pete.
And it wasn’t going to happen while they were hanging out with Pete’s parents.
So Ginette got up and told Pete, “Come on,” and headed toward the door to put her coat and boots on.
Pete followed Ginette and asked, “Where are we going?”
And Ginette said that talking about the northern lights made her want to go outside and see if they could see them. Because it was the perfect night for them. It was clear, and there was no moon. And she had read that solar storms were currently raging on the sun. So chances were better than they usually were that the northern lights would appear.
And if they didn’t see them, Ginette added, they could just do some stargazing.
Pete didn’t really care if they saw the northern lights or not. He wasn’t interested in outer space like Ginette was. He was more interested in the Earth.
But he was more interested in Ginette than he was in the Earth.
So he was going to go with her to see if they could see the northern lights. Or just stargaze.
So Pete put his coat and boots on and they grabbed their backpacks and their flashlights and headed out to a place that was specifically designated for looking at the night sky—a tiny parcel of land called Skyview Park on the eastern edge of Almost.
The little park had been created by some folks who Pete’s dad called a buncha hippies. They wanted to make Almost, Maine, a dark-sky destination—a place for astro-tourists to visit and look at the stars. Because northern Maine was the largest light-pollution–free swath of land in the eastern United States.
And so the buncha hippies built an observatory—a small wooden platform on a little hill on the edge of Norsworthy’s Potato Farm. And they put a red wooden bench on the platform so people would have a place to sit when they wanted to stargaze.
Once the observatory was built, the hippies got in touch with experts from the International Dark-Sky Association and invited them to come check out the observatory and determine whether Almost qualified as a dark-sky destination.
The experts hadn’t shown up yet, but the hippies were hopeful.
* * *
The only way to get to Skyview Park from Pete’s house was on Almost’s main road—which had two names depending on which way you were going. If you were going east toward the big towns in eastern Aroostook County, you were on the Road to Somewhere.
If you were going west toward the wooded wilderness of northwestern Maine, you were on the Road to Nowhere.
Skyview Park was west of where Pete lived, so he and Ginette headed west on the Road to Nowhere.
As they walked, Pete slid his hand into Ginette’s. It was a warm night for midwinter in Almost, Maine—nineteen degrees. And there was no wind. So they didn’t need gloves. Ginette felt that strange lightness fill up her insides again while they held hands. And she wondered what she and Pete were. And couldn’t wait to find out.
In about ten minutes they reached the path that led up the little hill to Skyview Park. The path had been plowed already—probably by the buncha hippies so they’d be ready if any experts showed up to deem Almost a dark-sky destination.
It was a little before 7:30 when they reached the observatory platform and its red wooden bench, both of which the hippies had also cleared of the snow that had fallen earlier in the day.
Ginette and Pete clicked off their flashlights and slid them into their backpacks and sat down on the bench—Ginette on the west side of it; Pete on the east side. They tucked their backpacks underneath them and then sat up and looked out across the snow-covered potato fields that stretched endlessly to the north in front of them.
And then they looked up.
“Wow,” said Pete.
“Yeah.”
An uncountable number of stars twinkled above and in front of and behind and all around them. They felt like they were close enough to touch and far, far away—all at once.
The Milky Way’s thick band of stars arced overhead. It made the universe feel infinite. And it made the stargazers feel infinitesimal.
And humble.
The northern night sky will do that—make you feel humble. Because when you can see as many stars as Ginette and Pete could see, you can’t help but realize that there has to be more—much, much more—than just … you.