The Same Stuff as Stars
Read The Same Stuff as Stars Online
Authors: Katherine Paterson
“The Bear Went Over the Mountain”
The Other Side of the Mountain
Clarion Books
a Houghton Mifflin Company imprint
215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003
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Copyright © 2002 by Minna Murra, Inc.
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All rights reserved.
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Excerpt from “Take Something Like a Star” from THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1949, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Co., © 1977 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
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For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Paterson, Katherine.
The same stuff as stars / Katherine Paterson,
p. cm.
Summary: When Angel's self-absorbed mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl worries not only about her mother and brother, her imprisoned father, and the frail old woman, but also about a mysterious man who begins sharing with her the wonder of the stars.
ISBN 0-618-24744-0
[1. Family problemsâFiction. 2. Brothers and sistersâFiction.
3. Great-grandmothersâFiction. 4. Self-relianceâFiction.] 1. Title.
PZ7.P273 Sam 2002
[Fic]âdc21
2002003967
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eISBN 978-0-547-53300-1
v1.0413
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This book is for my sisters
Helen and Anne
as token payment on the family debt
Elizabeth
who never let me run away from home
and
Caroline
who loved our brother, Ray
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ONE
When she heard the first yelp, Angel was at the sink washing the supper dishes. She thought the sound had come from the couple in the upstairs apartment beginning their nightly fight. She was late washing up, having waited supper, hoping that since it was Friday, Verna would get home in time for the three of them to sit around the table and eat together like a family.
It was when the yelp turned into crying that she realized where it was coming from. “Bernie!” Angel raced down the hall to the living room, not even stopping to wipe the suds off her hands. Bernie sat on the rug, whimpering and staring at the couch. Flames were dancing up from a worn cushion. “What are you doing?” she yelled, slapping the open box of kitchen matches from his hand. The matches scattered over the rug. “You want to kill us all?”
“I just wanted to see if it would really burn,” he said, still whimpering.
She raced back to the kitchen and grabbed the dishpan, not stopping to take out the dishes before she ran back to the fire. Angel sloshed the dirty dishwater over the flame. It sizzled angrily and died. She stood watching the steam, her heart pounding. When she could speak, it was a yell. “I swear, Bernie Morgan, how old are you?”
“Seven,” he muttered.
“Well, you act like you're two.” She knelt, putting the dishpan down, so she could pick up the matches and put them back in the box. Her hands were shaking. “Now I'm going to put these away, and don't you ever touch them again, you hear me?” She stood up. “You can bring the dishpan to the kitchen for me.”
He followed her down the hall, rattling the dishes against the side of the plastic pan. “Don't tell Mama,” he said.
“It won't matter if I tell Mama or not. The minute she comes in here she's going to smell smoke and know something happened. I swear you're going to run me crazy if you don't kill us both first.” On tiptoe, she put the matchbox on the highest shelf she could reach. Bernie plumped the dishpan down on the floor. “Where do you think you're going?” she asked his retreating back.
“To watch TV. You're too mean to talk to.”
She put the dishpan back into the sink and marched down the hall. Snatching the remote out of his hand, she threw it on the sodden couch. The whole room stank.
“Quit it!” he said.
“Do you think you can just sit there on the floor watching TV like nothing happened? Come on.” She grabbed Bernie's hand, dragging him to his feet. “We'll go out and wait for Mama to come back, and then you can just tell her yourself what a fool thing you did.”
He set his feet and tried to wriggle his hand out of her grasp, but Angel was wiry, and the boy was no match for her. Still, by the time she had dragged him out the heavy front door and onto the porch, her fury was spent. He was always into things. She should have been watching more closely. That's what Mama would say when she came home.
Just where were you, Miss Angel Morgan, while your brother was trying to burn down the house? Huh? Where were you?
And where are you right now, Verna? Did you forget tomorrow is Saturday and we have to make an early start?
Angel let go of Bernie's hand and went over and sat down on the edge of the porch, her feet on the top step. It was nicer outside than in the hot, smelly apartment. The night had absorbed some of the stickiness of the summer day. “Sit down, Bernie,” she said gently, and patted the spot next to her. He stayed where he was. She could almost feel the stiffness in his little body. He was still angry with her and scared by what he had done.
In the strained stillness between them, she could hear the hum and honk of city traffic a few blocks away. Their own street was quiet and dark. Someoneâshe would have suspected Bernie if she'd thought he could throw a rock that farâhad broken the single streetlight weeks before, and the city had yet to replace the bulb. Burlington didn't seem to worry about fixing things in this neighborhoodâjust about poking around trying to catch drug users. The large houses, most, like theirs, divided into two or more decaying apartments, squatted like old women, staring at each other, fat and sullen, across the narrow, potholed street. She hated this place, but it was better than some they'd lived in, certainly better than foster care.
Then she saw the star. Just one, through the cloudy night sky, but blinking like a friend above the house across the way. It was like a sign. Like a promise that things were going to get better.
“Look, Bernie,” she said. “With the streetlight out, the star looks really bright.”
“So?”
“So wish. Wish on the star, Bernie.”
“I don't want to.”
“You got to.”
“How come?”
“'Cause I told you to, okay?”
“You can't make me. You're not my boss.”
“Bernie, we got to do it.” She craned her neck around to look at him. He was standing where she'd left him, his small back pressed against the screen door. “How else are we going to get Daddy home?”
“I don't want him to come home.”
“Yes, you do. C'mon, Bernie. Wish. âStar light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.' Now, go on....I wish Daddy would soonâ”
“I wish that stupid guy would
never never never
come home.”
“Bernie!” She jumped to her feet, hands on her thin hips. “Take that back! You don't wish any such thing!”
“Do, too. I hate him. I never want to see him again.”
What was Angel to do? Bernie had messed up the star wish, and there weren't that many first-star wishes you could make in the middle of Burlington, Vermont. If the streetlight hadn't been broken, they probably wouldn't have had this chance. And now Bernie had ruined itâcanceling out her wish with his terrible one.
“I'm never going to speak to you again as long as I live, Bernie Morgan.”
“Good. Then you can't boss me around no more.” He stuck his thumb into his mouth, but just as he turned to go back into the apartment, the lights of a vehicle turning into their dead-end street swept across the yard across the way. “It's Mama!” Bernie said.
“Wait,” she cautioned, standing on the porch, squinting her eyes to try to see past the headlights. It was the old pickup, going too fast for this short street, making a wide turn into the driveway. It passed by the waiting children. Beside the kitchen entrance it slammed to a stop. Bernie, as though he'd forgotten he was in big trouble, raced down the drive to meet Verna as she got out of the cab of the truck. Angel followed behind.
“What are you doing up, boy?” Verna's voice was thick but not unkind, so maybe she hadn't drunk too much.
“We was waiting for you,” Bernie said.
If they all went in through the kitchen, maybe Verna wouldn't even go into the living room. Maybe everything could be put off until after tomorrow. Angel didn't want to mess up Saturday morning. Not after Bernie had ruined the star wish. Verna would have to know eventually, but maybe they could get through tomorrow morning without a blowup.
***
Angel undressed in the living room by the light of the bare bulb in the hall. It wouldn't do to turn on the living room light and attract Verna's attention. She took the cushions off the couch. The wet one really stank. If she turned the burned side over, though, maybe it would be days before Verna noticed. For tonight she'd hide them between the back of the couch and the wall. Maybe by morning it would be dryer and not so smelly. She yanked hard and lifted up the couch seat, turning it into her bed. Mama had told her not to leave the sheets on, but Angel usually did. It was so much trouble to put them on every night, and Verna hardly ever noticed, whatever she might say.
Angel took off her clothes and laid them on top of the dresser in the closet. In the morning she'd put them away properly. She got her pillow off the closet shelf and pitched it onto the couch. Then she fumbled in the top drawer of the dresser for her nightshirt, really just one of Verna's old T-shirts, and slipped it over her narrow shoulders.
She could hear the murmur of Verna's and Bernie's voices coming from across the hall. They sounded almost cheerful, so Bernie hadn't told Mama what he'd done. That was for sure.
As she settled down under the rough sheet, she remembered the dishes. They weren't even soaking. The leftover macaroni and cheese would be stuck on like cement. She ought to get up and finish washing them and putting away the leftovers, but she couldn't make herself. She was tired. Besides, Mama had been drinking. Even though tomorrow was Saturday, she'd want to sleep in as long as possible. Angel would have time to clean up in the kitchen
and
give Bernie his breakfast before Verna was up.
***
Angel made sure the water was boiling hard before she poured it on the heaping spoonful of powdered coffee. She stirred it well and then carried it into the bedroom.
Verna was sprawled across the width of the double bed. Her bleached hair with its dark roots was damp with sweat. Her face, which could really be pretty when she fixed herself up, looked tired and unhappy even when she was asleep. Whenever Angel got mad at Verna, she tried to make herself remember how hard Verna's life was, had always been. Angel and Bernie had only been in foster care twice, and they had been back with their mother for almost a whole year. Verna had never lived with her real mother or father. She'd spent time in eight different foster homes and a group home before she ran away and married Daddy. She'd hadn't even finished high school. How could anyone expect her to know about being a good mother? She couldn't remember having a mother of her own.
“Mama?” Angel said. “I brought you some coffee.”
“Oh, crap, don't tell me it's morning already.”
“It's past eight, Mama. If we don't get there before ten...”
“Okay. Okay. Get Bernie something to eat and get his clothes on. I'll be ready in a minute.” She flopped over on her stomach and put her pillow over her head.
“We've already had cereal, Mama, and Bernie got himself dressed.” He'd picked out his own T-shirt and pantsânot the ones Angel would have chosen, but she wasn't going to fight that battle this morning. She was hardly speaking to him since last night's near disaster.