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and take appropriate caution. That’s why teens need rules
    and guidance, he told me. We’re not biologically capable of be-
    ing fully rational. I swore right then that I’d be a smart, cautious
    teenager.
    Now those underdeveloped parts of my brain were perking
    up and looking around.
    I kept my head down as we hurried through the corridor,
    aware of the security camera’s gaze. We took a dark staircase
    up, the butterflies awake in my belly. Wilder picked a lock and
    opened a door.
    The air on the roof was cool yet humid enough to feel cozy,
    the stars splashed out and sizzling on a teflon sky. He’d already
    spread a blanket on the roof’s gravel top, left a pair of binoculars
    waiting.
    I could see one of the guard turrets from here. Its windows
    were black. I hoped no one was inside looking out.
    Wilder and I sat about ten centimeters apart and took turns
    gazing at the bright dot blazing through the constellation Cas-
    siopeia. I loved comets, engines of nearly endless motion and
    reminders that the sky wasn’t a flat, static surface but a window
    into vastness.
    Afraid of the silence, I blurted the first thing on my mind.
    “You know, the Lyra comet was born beyond our solar system,
    which makes it an alien here, the nearest exotic thing.”
    “Besides the foxy Latina on my right,” Wilder said.
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    Shannon Hale
    “Do girls usually respond to that kind of talk?” I asked.
    He frowned. “You’d be easier to woo if you were dumb.”
    “Then don’t woo me,” I said.
    I didn’t mean it.
    I sort of meant it.
    I didn’t know what I meant.
    We were quiet, two tiny specks glued down by gravity,
    peering at a universe that didn’t notice us back. The quiet and
    dark made me feel mysterious and stilled, a thing that glints in
    the dark, an object that can only be understood by careful study.
    Something like a poem.
    I said, “‘All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a
    dream.’”
    I had a bunch of poems memorized, and whenever some-
    thing reminded me of one, out it came. Spewing dead poets at
    my parents was one thing, but I knew immediately I’d made a
    mistake with Wilder.
    Hide your geekiness, Maisie.
    But Wilder asked, “What does that mean?”
    If Luther didn’t know, he’d pretend he did.
    “It’s Poe,” I said. “I think of it whenever the world seems
    especially mysterious.”
    “Memorizing poets doesn’t seem a practical hobby for the
    first one-handed freak in space.”
    I know it sounds odd, but from Wilder that seemed like a
    compliment. I honestly considered blushing.
    “Poets seem to know things that scientists don’t. And vice
    versa. Maybe they balance each other out somehow. If I’m going
    to get to space, I’ll need all the help I can get,” I said, lifting Ms.
    Pincher. “Poe included.”
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    Dangerous
    “What do you want up there anyway?”
    “To learn things you can only study in a weightless environ-
    ment. And besides that, space is the place. Nebulas and novas
    and galaxies and massive expanses of endlessness. My brain
    can’t think about it without having a heart attack.”
    “Your brain has a heart?”
    I laughed because I was sounding ridiculous, and for some
    reason, I was loving it. “Sure, and it suffers a massive coronary
    any time I try to comprehend the hugeness and possibilities of
    space. I mean, just think about Jupiter’s moon Europa. With its
    oxygen-based atmosphere and liquid ocean beneath a sea of ice,
    it’s very likely a home to extraterrestrial life, which would be the
    biggest discovery since . . . since . . . ever .”
    “Someday we’ll spend trillions to get to Europa only to dis-
    cover very expensive bacteria,” he said.
    “By examining what’s different from us, we understand our-
    selves better.” Why wouldn’t I shut up already? “Um, what lured
    you to astronaut boot camp?”
    “I have a crush on Cassiopeia.”
    “Cassiopeia.”
    Wilder nodded, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. “She is stacked .
    Have you seen