First Star I See. Jaye Andras Caffrey

2 Peevers and Other Crew Mates

      After lunch, Ms. Bourgeois assigned us topics for our research papers. Planets went to the first nine children, with Jessica getting Earth. (Somehow, that didn’t seem fair.) Will Schiffer was eighth, and he got Neptune. After Breanna was assigned Pluto, the rest of the kids got their assignments one by one: the sun, moon, asteroids, meteoroids, comets, constellations, satellites, and telescopes. Finally, she assigned stars to me.

      Stars! I thought. I’ve got a head start! After all, Breanna and I have seen every single episode of Star Warrior at least once.

      That, of course, is just another one of the reasons I like Breanna so much. Unlike Jessica, Breanna doesn’t think I am dumb. In fact, she says I’m funny and that I have good ideas. She has pretty black hair, which she wears in cornrows or in a ponytail, with bangs like mine. (My hair, however, is curly reddish-brown and “impossible” according to my mom, so she always puts it in braids.)

      Breanna is very smart, and she almost never gets in trouble.

      Unlike me.

      Take what happened in geography class today, for instance. After the big announcement, Ms. Bourgeois told us to use colored pencils to make a map of the United States as part of our geography lesson. Somewhere between Mississippi and Texas I slipped into my own thoughts. I decided to add the state capitals for extra credit.

      Then I found out that if you added a few extra capitals in the right places, it made a beautiful web, especially if you marked them with stars. Hmmm. Stars reminded me of the opening scene of my favorite program. I started thinking about Dr. Kelsey sitting on the auditorium stage with the virtual crysto-laser in her lap. I imagined sitting right next to her and thinking of what I would say to her. I lifted my head, brushed my hair out of my eyes, and leaned back in my seat to admire my star-spangled country.

      “Paige.” Seeing Ms. Bourgeois standing over my desk made me jump. I hadn’t even noticed her coming.

      “Uh… yes, ma’am?” Full of dread, I waited for her to say something about the map, but she didn’t.

      “I’d like for you to go see Mr. Rodriguez.” Breanna and I looked at each other, and her eyes were full of sympathy.

      My heart sank. I must really be in trouble. Mr. Rodriguez is the assistant principal. Actually, if I wasn’t in trouble, going to see him would not have been so bad. He’s tall with black hair and kind, dark eyes, and Breanna thinks he looks just like Captain Stone Griffith. If you squint at him a certain way, he kind of does. We used to pretend that he really was Captain Stone, and one day Breanna even wrote in the dust on his car window, “BB loves CSG” (for Captain Stone Griffith).

      Nevertheless, this trip to see him could mean nothing but bad news. What had I done wrong? I tried to read Ms. Bourgeois’ face. She didn’t look like she was upset with me at all; in fact, she looked like she was trying to be nice.

      I could hear the kids whispering, “Paige has to see Mr. Rodriguez!”

      I did what any self-respecting kid would do under the circumstances: I stalled for time. “Um… Go see Mr. Rodriguez? Why?” My voice sounded funny in my ears. “Is it because I didn’t do my map right?”

      Ms. Bourgeois looked down at my work and frowned like she was noticing my map for the first time, but she said, “No, Paige. He would like to have a little talk with you. He’ll send you right back to class when you’re done.”

      She stood there waiting. It was no use. I got up feeling like I was going off to my doom, just like Dr. Kelsey must have felt that time she was on Planet Priamus and she allowed the Grumblions to capture her in order to save her star fleet. I walked as slowly as possible to the school office, trying desperately to think what I could have done.

      “Sit there,” said Ms. Landry, the school secretary, when I finally walked into the office. She pointed to an old wooden bench next to Mr. Rodriguez’s door. I obeyed quietly. Ms. Landry was a fat, blonde lady with painted-on eyebrows. She returned to typing on her computer keyboard and ignored me.

      I was glad. I chewed on my fingernails and, even though I wasn’t supposed to, bumped my feet against the bench. What difference did it make now, anyway? After all, I was dead meat as soon as Mom found out I had been sent to the office. What on earth did I do? I felt like my dog Peevers waiting for Mom to yell “NO!” after Peevers left a stinky present on the living room rug.

      Thinking of Peevers cheered me up some. She’s a good-natured, but goofy, Labrador mix that Dad brought home the week before he left to move in with his girlfriend, Susan. My little brother Mark and I fell in love with Peevers right away. She had big chocolate eyes and soft brown fur and was even more hyper than Mark. (If you knew my little brother, you’d know why I didn’t even think that was possible at first!)

      But even as I let the puppy tug at my shoelaces and lick my chin, I knew Mom would send it packing with Dad. After all, he had violated the First Rule of Mothers, which neither Mark nor I had ever been able to get around: Don’t bring pets home without consulting Mom first.

      Luckily for Mark and me, Susan refused to take the dog.

      “I don’t believe that man!” stormed Mom after she got off the phone with Dad that afternoon. “He expects me to take a pet that his girlfriend doesn’t want!” She threw down the dish towel she was holding and kicked it angrily.

      Later, when she had calmed down, Mark and I pleaded to keep the pup. Mom finally gave in, saying we might need a watchdog, and muttering that we were getting a “better deal than poor Susan.”

      Mom