story

My Starduster Friends, a story by Julia Marcus, 13

Julia Marcus, 13Culver City, CA My Starduster Friends Julia Marcus, 13 It’s Friday the 13th. Rosie doesn’t believe in superstitions, but she can’t shake the feeling that today’s an unlucky day. In what way, she doesn’t know. She stayed up late last night, scribbling in her beloved journal, and she only woke up around twenty minutes ago when the rain hammering on the roof became particularly annoying. Then she panicked, realizing it was 7:57 and school starts at 8:15. Between bites of toast, she asked her dad to drive her to school–she usually walks, as it’s only ten minutes from her house, but the rain and the time on that dreary day made it kind of impossible. She and many other kids cram inside the hallway before first period, elbowing each other out of their way. If everyone’s supposed to get out of the way, Rosie thinks bitterly, who’s supposed to move? There’s nowhere to go. A tall eighth grade girl with mascara-painted eyelashes becomes the authority in the area as she puts her hands on her hips and shouts, “Listen, guys! There’s waaaay too many of us in here. We’re probably transmitting the virus.” The all-too-familiar word that’s been floating around for the past few weeks puts a general hush on the hectic crowd. A couple people mumble things like, “She’s right,” and slink out of the way. Rosie lurks in a corner, by the door to her class. She sighs. She’s really getting tired of talk about the coronavirus. Back in January, it was only this faraway thing that was unfolding somewhere else in the world. She didn’t care where it was, or how contagious it was, or how many people had gotten it in China. But now, in March, she’s hearing about it every five minutes. The virus isn’t distant anymore. It’s real. It’s here. And later that morning, her math teacher announces that the district has decided to close schools. No one finds the volumes of any cones that day. Rosie can only think of how the word “cone” sounds so similar to the word “corona.” “I guess this is it,” she says to her friend Marla after sixth period, “for a little while.” “Yup,” Marla groans. Normally, they would give each other a friendly hug, but today Rosie just manages a dismal wave from around six feet away. ~ Some number of months later, Rosie hasn’t really been counting ~ “And that,” Rosie announces, “is the end of today’s episode. Thanks, everyone, for supporting the show and see you next week!” She’s not sure which week next week is, or even if she’ll know when seven days have passed. She’ll probably come back to this in a few days, thinking it’s been three months. For now, she turns off her camera and sighs, leaning her head against the side of her bed. She opens Messages on her phone, scrolling through her list of contacts. It’s not very long. She only has her parents, grandparents, older sister, and Marla, along with seven or eight other friends. Rosie doesn’t feel like texting any of them. There’s nothing to say. She’d much rather be in contact with Ivy and Marco and Emmalyn. Not that she knows them. Not that they even exist. At the moment, her three favorite people are superhumans from a book series called The Stardusters. They’re teenagers from three different planets that meet after a disaster shatters their world. Over the course of four lengthy books, Ivy, Marco, and Emmalyn have earned a permanent place in Rosie’s heart. So much of her consciousness is devoted to them that she’s started interviewing them. She films herself asking them questions, then dresses as her fictional guest and gives incredibly detailed answers to her questions. She’s even edited the whole thing and put it on a private YouTube channel. Today, she asked Ivy, “How did you first react when you found out that Marco and Emmalyn visited the Sacred Planet without you?” Ivy said, “I’ve never been more devastated. See, the whole reason I started trusting Marco and his friends from his planet was because they said we’d get to save the Sacred Planet. When I found out that he and Emmalyn were there, I got so mad that I didn’t speak to them for a week. I hadn’t told anyone, but . . . I had a huge crush on Marco back then, and if he was going to the Sacred Planet with Emmalyn and without me, I wasn’t really sure how to go on with life. Then Emmalyn told me that without the detective work I did when they were gone, we would never have found the rebels’ spaceship, and they would have destroyed countless other planets like they ruined the Sacred Planet. We were good after that.” Rosie’s thought process is that Ivy, Marco, and Emmalyn don’t have the virus, so hanging out with them isn’t going to get her sick. Therefore, she spends at least fifteen hours a day talking to them. Especially with her dwindling online schoolwork–she thinks the school year ends on June 12, but she’s not entirely sure how far away that day is. And she’s sick of her computer screen. The Stardusters exist on paper. Being a fairly new and relatively obscure series, there’s no TV adaptation. Rosie wouldn’t watch it if it existed, though. She’s the type of person that abides by the universal rule “THE BOOK IS BETTER.” She has a sign on her door with that motto, in red block letters, her inaccurate sketches of characters from The Stardusters standing around the words. “I suppose it’s hypocritical of me to be filming my own talk show when I wouldn’t even watch a TV Stardusters,” Rosie comments to the second book of the four, which is propped open next to her on her bed. It’s her favorite one, especially because of all the drama that unfolded between the characters after the Sacred Planet incident. In February, when

The Writer, Artist of Words, by Michaela Frey, 12

Michaela Frey, 12Herndon, VA The Writer, Artist of Words Michaela Frey, 12 A fog has fallen over the people, a devastating, colorless, mist of despair hanging over the humans. Those consumed in the fog are mourned; yet the numbers of those taken rise every day, a staircase leading up, and all the same, leading downwards in a spiral. Anyone watching from the outside is relieved and happy, though anything that would ever rely on humans is missing that part. Animals in city parks, usually fed by tourists, look around with confusion, wondering where their food is. You write this paragraph with disdain. A school project? Hardly anyone cared at your school; with the grades not counting, the assignments optional. But writing, writing is the only thing that keeps you working. You are a writer. An artist of words, shaping, molding, hands working with a fragile clay called language. Flipping away the page in your notebook, you turn to a blank page and stare down at it. After writing for the past few hours, you need a break. But a break from what? A break during quarantine is staring out your small apartment’s window, the one housing your mother, father, and siblings–each a handful of their own, but together, they are loud, tired, and angry. Outside, the city is deserted except for the occasional car passing by, a person with or without a mask walking down the street. The normally bright restaurants, the ones you have been able to walk to your entire life, are either closed for quarantine or closing permanently due to lack of business. You sigh and go back to your writing. A magical young reindeer, with sparkling cream-colored horns, emerald eyes, streaks down the city streets, bringing color to each part of the dull, deserted, infectious roads– With a groan, you shove the page to the side. Too corny. Hope would not be corny. If your writing was hope, you wouldn’t be cringing at it. Even your report that was for a school project was not hope, just a blatant, unemotional report about the facts everyone knew. If it was published in a paper, people would look at it, skim through briefly with a heaving sigh, and go to the next report. You know people want hope. You, a writer, an artist of words, a sculptor of stories, know this, from the top of your head to the tip of your shoes. But how do you give it to them?