How to Become a Planet Read online

  Donna was wrong if she thought Pluto was the reason her mom didn’t seem enthused by the idea, but Pluto wasn’t going to say so.

  “Hey,” Pluto’s mom said, bumping Pluto with her hip. “Get a move on with those worksheets, okay? Sit anywhere you want.”

  Her mom said things like that a lot. Get moving, get a move on, move, move, move.

  Her mom and Donna disappeared into the kitchen, and Pluto slithered into the closest booth, not caring that Donna would probably make her move to the counter. The cushioned seat, red and plastic and only comfortable because it was familiar, was ripped at the corner, fuzz poking out from its insides. She put her worksheets down on the table, slick from the cleaner Kiera had wiped it with. Pluto put in her earbuds, then pulled at the fuzz and scrolled through her phone to find her favorite astronomy podcast.

  Would bacteria from pizza grease survive in outer space? Pluto provided narration to her imaginary podcast. The Hayden Planetarium Astronomy Question and Answer Hotline, when she’d called them, didn’t have an answer to her pizza grease question. Instead, they told her all about the microbes that thrived on the Space Station.

  NASA says the International Space Station is covered in bacteria, so why don’t we send up a slice from Timoney’s to test this grease theory? Pluto pulled her earbuds out again, suddenly uninterested in listening to an actual podcast, and ran her finger over the slick table before wiping the wet disinfectant residue from her hand onto the cushion.

  The cushions were made of fuzz, the pizzas were made of dough, sauce, and cheese. Above them—and around them—the universe was made of stars and rocks and galaxies. Her mom always wanted to know what was beyond those stars and suns and rocks and galaxies, and Pluto did, too. Only, lately, Pluto just wanted to know what was beyond the skin and blood and bones and what was inside the brain that made her. She just wanted to know what made her want to stop, when everyone else seemed so eager to keep moving.

  The Hayden Planetarium Astronomy Question and Answer Hotline probably couldn’t answer that for her, either.

  The bell above the door jingled. It was still pretty early, so Pluto assumed another college student or Martin, their cook, was arriving to work. When she looked up, though, there was an actual customer standing there, one who looked about her age, dark frizzy hair, wild from the ocean air, surrounding her like a cloud. She wore a white T-shirt and long bathing suit shorts that were neon green—Pluto thought she might get a headache if she stared too long. She met Pluto’s gaze with ice-blue eyes that were just as bright as those shorts.

  When she saw Pluto, she lifted her hand in a small wave. Pluto quickly looked away, searching for Kiera, who had disappeared from the main room, probably to help Pluto’s mom and Donna with the deliveries.

  Luckily, Pluto’s mom appeared from the kitchen and said, “Hey, sweetheart, I’ll be right with you,” before disappearing again. But then just as quickly as she had gone, she popped back out again. “Actually, Plu, can you help her out, please?”

  Pluto’s eyes were wide and pleading as she looked over at her mom, whose eyes echoed Pluto’s desperation. The hope that shone in them made Pluto want to scream, and cry, and beg her mom to leave her be. Especially when the point of hiring Donna in the first place was for moments like these, where her mom couldn’t be in two places at once.

  Still, Pluto nodded, and with a relieved smile, her mom disappeared behind the kitchen door once again.

  Pluto slowly slid out of her booth and approached the register, and the customer in her bright neon shorts followed. Pluto kept her eyes down and picked up a pen and pad to take her order. She dropped the pen, and it rolled right near her feet, but that still felt too far away to pick it back up again. Pluto looked around for a new one as she waited for Neon Shorts to speak. When she didn’t say anything, Pluto looked up.

  Neon Shorts was staring right back at Pluto. “Are you ready?” she asked. “I just wanted to make sure you were ready. I wasn’t sure.”

  Pluto averted her gaze, again, and slowly nodded.

  “I just need a large plain pizza.”

  A large plain pizza was its own button on the register. It was their most popular and easiest order. Still, Pluto stared at the notepad, at the pen in her hand that should have been writing down the simple order. At the very least, she should be punching the button at the register to ring Neon Shorts up, so Pluto could take her money, and make her leave, and get the entire thing over with.

  “Are you okay?” Neon Shorts asked, and Pluto recognized the tone in her voice. It was the same one Meredith used when she started changing her mind about wanting to hang out. When Meredith was slowly realizing things were different with her best friend. “I mean, you just seem . . . I just need the one pizza.”

  Pluto wanted to tell this neon shorts–wearing kid that she didn’t mean to make things awkward, just like she wanted to tell Meredith she didn’t mean to stop being her best friend. She wished everyone could understand that she just wanted to be in her bed, that she didn’t want to talk to people, didn’t want to be there helping her mom, and that every part of her body ached in a way she couldn’t explain every time she had to get a move on. Her body seemed angry, too tired and sad, and was fighting her every step of the way.

  Sometimes that anger fought its way from Pluto’s body into her chest and up her throat, and she couldn’t help that either, but none of that had to do with this kid standing in front of her.

  “Should I wait for your mom?” Neon Shorts asked. “It’s okay if you don’t know how to take my order.”

  I do know how to take your order. I know how to do all the things, and your shorts hurt my eyes. Pluto wanted to tell her that, but sometimes it was just . . . too hard and too tiring to get her brain and her mouth to work together.

  It was no surprise when Neon Shorts lost her patience. Pluto didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed when she said, “Never mind. Don’t worry about the pizza.”

  Before Pluto could find the drive to say, Don’t go! I’m sorry, our pizza is the best but the doctor diagnosed me as broken, Neon Shorts was back out the door, the bell above it jingling her goodbye. The pizzeria seemed a little darker with her gone.

  That night, as Pluto’s bed was pulling her into it as if it were the central point of Earth’s gravity, her dad called. Her mom answered from the living room, but Pluto did not have a bedroom door, so she could hear everything.

  Pluto braced herself, hoping their conversation would carry on long enough that her dad wouldn’t ask to speak to Pluto, too. He lived in the city with his girlfriend and his closet full of business suits and weekends full of D&D. He sent her birthday cards with the writing done by Hallmark, signed simply, “Love, Dad.” He took her out to dinner once a month and ordered so much food they chewed more than they spoke. And that was before she’d been labeled with depression.

  Pluto rolled over, facing the light gray wall with the chips from where she’d removed the plastic stars. It was hard to know what to say to her dad on a good day. On days like this, it felt much too hard to try.

  She heard her mom sigh and move away from the doorway, as if that did anything to hide the conversation. “She’s still just not . . . herself.”

  I am, thought Pluto. I’m right here.

  “No, I know. It’s not that, I just could really use your help paying for it,” her mom said, her voice hitting a desperate twinge that made Pluto’s chest feel tighter. “The tutor is supposed to be great. She’s supposed to know how to handle kids like Pluto. And she’s right here, in Keansburg. I really think Pluto should still stay right here.”

  Her mom and dad had been having that fight more often. The one where he said, She is better off here where I can get her help, and her mom said, Please don’t take her away from me.

  Pluto would not listen to her mom begging her dad to stop asking to take Pluto away. But before she could drown out the sound with a podcast, the desperate note in her mom’s vo
ice disappeared, and she sounded weary and small and tired as she said, “Do you really think it would be better for her there? It wouldn’t be too big of an adjustment?”

  Pluto couldn’t breathe as her mom continued, saying, “I just want my girl back. She’s just not my girl anymore.”

  Pluto pressed play. Turned the volume all the way up, but it wasn’t enough.

  She wished she had a door to slam shut, even if she couldn’t have gotten herself to move from her bed to do so.

  4

  Some mornings were different, and Pluto knew the moment she woke that this was one of them. Her body did not ache in protest as she sat up in bed, and her heart was racing in a way that suggested she could get a move on. A note sat on the dresser beside her, a checklist that her psychiatrist had suggested she make when she and her mom visited at the start of the month.

  Take your medication

  Drink water

  Eat (particularly something healthy!)

  Brush your teeth

  Take a shower

  Do something you enjoy

  It seemed simple enough, but some days she couldn’t check off anything more than taking the medication her mom practically shoved down her throat. Pluto tucked a greasy strand of hair behind her ear. Today she felt an overwhelming need to complete everything.

  Particles can never travel faster than the speed of light, but we could test that theory, here, with how quickly Pluto Jean Timoney can accomplish basic tasks.

  Next to the checklist was a glass of water and that morning’s medication. One pill to help with the depression, and half of another to help with anxiety.

  She took her pills, drinking the water as fast as she could (which wasn’t anywhere near light speed), and checked both tasks off the list. Her pulse was still racing, though, even though the list was already much shorter. “Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars,” Pluto said out loud to herself. “These are the planets near our star.” Her mom had taught her the rhyme on Pluto’s fifth birthday, when the lights went down during her very first visit to the Liberty Science Center’s planetarium. Pluto, her heart racing in the darkness of that dome much like it was racing this morning, squeezed her mom’s hand tight, her own palm sweaty. Her mom leaned over and began whispering. “Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, these are the planets near our star. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, too. Neptune, Pluto, we can’t see you.” By the time she got to the end, to Pluto, this Pluto forgot to be nervous. “These are the nine planets that we know. Round and round the Sun they go.”

  And then the stars turned on, the dome of the planetarium full and bright, and Pluto didn’t care about any­thing else.

  Sometimes the rhyme still helped.

  When she left her bedroom, heart racing a little less quickly, she found her mom lounging on the worn couch in the living room, her pajamas and reading glasses on, a throw blanket draped over her and a book in her lap, Netflix playing an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on the TV. Her mom didn’t like silence, often filling the living room with the sounds of frequently watched and much adored episodes of her favorite shows.

  Pluto glanced over at the clock on the wall. It wasn’t yet 8 a.m., but neither of them slept like they were supposed to anymore. “Mom?” Pluto’s voice was hoarse, and she cleared her throat.

  Her mom, startled, nearly fell off the couch. “Jesus, Plu! You scared me. You haven’t said a word in like two days!”

  Pluto paused. “Oh,” she said, realizing it was true. She held up the checklist. “Breakfast?”

  “I went shopping yesterday. Cereal, pancakes, you name it.”

  Her mom was always painfully eager when Pluto asked for something these days. Pluto turned toward the kitchen.

  “Need help?”

  Pluto shook her head. Cereal she could handle. At least today.

  Her mom followed her into the kitchen anyway. Hovered while Pluto pulled out the box of cereal, and handed her a bowl. Pluto poured the cereal and was grabbing the milk from the refrigerator when her mom spoke again. “So, your birthday’s coming up,” she said, handing Pluto a spoon. “Do you still . . . I mean, we always go to the planetarium. Are we . . . We haven’t done space things together in a while, so I didn’t know . . .”

  It was true. It had been a while since they’d checked out an astronomy book from the library to read together; it had been a while since she and her mom had watched a documentary—or Star Trek—together on Netflix.

  Pluto changed the subject instead, the words bursting out of her like a popped balloon. “I don’t want to live with Dad.”

  Her mom looked as though she might cry. “Plu—”

  “I’ll go to the planetarium with you if I don’t have to live with Dad.”

  Her mom rubbed at her eyebrows, leaning against the counter as if she could no longer hold herself upright. “I’m not . . . It’s not set in stone, I just . . . Your dad thinks he could get you better help there. Schedule regular therapy visits. See better doctors.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Her mom’s voice had a laugh to it that wasn’t funny. It made Pluto’s chest squeeze. “Don’t you miss your friends? Don’t you miss . . . God, laughing? Because I miss your laugh, and I miss talking about what you’ve learned in school and reading with you and seeing you happy.”

  “No,” Pluto said, the squeeze in her chest pushing hard, making her tense, making the hand holding her spoon grip harder and harder. I miss the way you used to look at me before you broke my door down.

  “Meredith’s birthday party is coming up, and her mom told me how much she misses you, too. Don’t you want to be able to go? To have fun again?”

  The metal of the spoon was digging into her palm. “Stop.”

  “You’re mine, Plu. You really think I want to give you up?”

  “Stop!”

  They were both breathing heavily, and Pluto’s mom had tears in her eyes, making the gray of her irises look like clouds in a storm. A storm that Pluto had caused. She pushed her cereal bowl away. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

  A silence fell over them, and usually her mom was the type of person to fill that silence with anything and everything. When the air between them stretched too long, Pluto felt the tightness in her chest, the way her heart raced as she thought about wasted time and the checklist in her hand and the intense need to get it done.

  “Can you help me wash my hair?”

  The look on her mom’s face was pure relief.

  There were three main things that scientists looked at when deciding whether or not a planet qualified as a planet. The planet must orbit the sun, it must be big enough for its own gravity to make it round, and it must have cleared its orbit of smaller objects.

  Pluto wasn’t a planet, but in order for her to be the real, full Pluto—a Pluto without a diagnosis—she needed her own list.

  So she wrote one down.

  Take medication

  Visit the planetarium with Mom

  Go to Meredith’s birthday party

  Go to 8th grade in September

  Was that all? Could she do that?

  And what would happen if she couldn’t?

  5

  Asking her mom if she could take a look at her workbooks without her mom nagging first was a bad idea. Pluto realized that once she saw how her mom’s face lit up, how she made a big deal of wiping down one of the tabletops in the pizzeria for them to work at, how when Pluto’s pen ran out of ink, her mom basically threw four more at her.

  (She then needed to take a pen back when she couldn’t find one to write down the next customer’s order.)

  At least Donna wasn’t there. It was only Pluto and her mom (and Martin their cook and the college girls) in the pizzeria, just like it used to be.

  “Hey, come on, we did these together earlier this year. You know how to do this,” her mom said in between orders, tapping her finger on the pape
r next to the math work Pluto had been staring at for the last five minutes.

  Truth was, she did know how to do it. She liked algebra. She liked how there were set steps to solve for x that never changed shape, always gave the same answer, and couldn’t decide suddenly that x wasn’t the number it was supposed to be. The answer on her worksheet for x wouldn’t change, but Pluto was all too aware that maybe she did, and she couldn’t focus on remembering how to solve for x, could only think about how she had so much work she needed to do, that Mrs. Beckett used to smile at Pluto when she handed back her tests, and what would it be like to have to sit in Mrs. Beckett’s seventh-grade math class all over again come fall.

  It was a little after lunchtime, and the rush was thinning out. Still, most of the booths were filled with flip-flop-wearing and sunscreen-scented families. The sound of ice in paper cups filled the restaurant as they drank, trying to cool down from the hot June sun. Her mom was busy, even with the help of two servers, but she kept bouncing back and forth nervously between the counter and Pluto, with a money pouch tied around her middle and a dirty red-and-white-checkered rag thrown over her shoulder.

  Pluto’s eyes drifted away from her math sheet, homing in on the world outside the pizzeria door instead. It was easy to turn her mom off, to let the math work fade away as she watched the boardwalk, just like when she’d sit around watching SciShow Kids, her favorite science show on YouTube. She let the algebra drift out of her head, adding imaginary narration: It is a hot, humid day at the Jersey Shore, but you don’t need to feel the heat to be able to tell. You can see, there, the woman walking with her daughter. The daughter is pointing at the shop with vinegar fries, but her mom, with her thick black hair pulled up high on her head, perspiration dripping down her neck, leads her instead toward the ice cream booth.