Close Out by Todd Strasser

“Did you see that?”
    She nodded. “Was it a shooting star?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œI’ve never actually seen one before,” Shauna said. “Have you?”
    â€œIn Hawaii a few times,” Kai said.
    â€œWhat’s Hawaii like?” Shauna asked.
    â€œIt’s the best place on Earth.” Kai smiled. “I mean, I don’t know much about what it’s like on the big island or on Maui. But Kauai … Hanalei … It’s just the best.”
    â€œYou really miss it?”
    Kai nodded. He missed it terribly, exceptfor one memory so bad that he still wasn’t sure he could ever go back.
    â€œAnd that’s where you saw shooting stars?” Shauna asked.
    â€œYeah. The sky there is much darker. You see tons more stars and they really shimmer. I guess it’s because there aren’t as many lights around. Sometimes at night my mom and I would put out lounges in the front yard and lie on them and look up.”
    â€œLet’s do it.” Shauna nodded at a pair of lounges by the pool. She and Kai moved over to them and laid back with their faces tilted up at the sky. The breeze came up again and sent the slightest chill across Kai’s bare skin.
    â€œKai, what happened to your mom?” Shauna asked from the lounge beside him.
    â€œI told you. She got killed in a car accident.”
    â€œBut there’s more, isn’t there?”
    Kai gazed over at her, wondering how she knew. “Yeah.”
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me,” Shauna said. “Unless you want to.”
    He looked up at the night sky again. He’d never told anyone. The only people who knew were those who’d been there that day, or who’d read about it in the newspaper on Kauai.
    â€œI used to think I was really hot stuff,” Kai said.
    â€œAs a surfer?”
    â€œRight. You think Buzzy Frank is competitive? You should have seen me.”
    â€œI don’t believe that,” Shauna said.
    â€œYou think Sam is a jerk about being a local and trying to keep everyone off Screamers? He isn’t half the jerk I was.”
    â€œKai, that can’t be true,” Shauna said.
    â€œBelieve it,” Kai said.
    â€œBelieve what?” Spazzy asked, coming back outside.
    Neither Kai nor Shauna answered.
    â€œUh-oh, another big secret.” Spazzy started to twitch. “I’ll go back inside and leave you two alone.”
    â€œNo, it’s okay,” Shauna said. “Guess what? We just saw a shooting star.”
    Spazzy pointed a finger toward the horizon. “Out over there, right?”
    â€œYou saw it, too?” Shauna asked.
    â€œNo, but that’s where the constellation Perseus is, and that’s where most of the shooting stars come from at this time of year.”
    â€œBut they’re not really stars,” Shauna said. “They’re just meteors.”
    â€œNot even,” said Spazzy. “Most of them are particles of dust. No bigger than a grain of sand.” He looked around. “If you really want to see them, let’s go down to the beach and away from the lights around the pool.”
    Shauna and Kai got up and went across the walkway through the dunes with Spazzy, who explained that the shooting stars were mostly particles of dust left in the trail of the comet Swift-Tuttle. “Every summer around now, the earth’s orbit passes through this huge dust cloud left by the comet, and we get these meteor showers called the Perseids because it looks like they come from around that constellation.”
    â€œI always thought meteors traveled through space and burned up when they went through the atmosphere,” Shauna said.
    â€œWell, maybe some do,” Spazzy replied. “But most of the shooting stars we see are tiny particles just hanging in space. They don’t come to us. We go to them.”
    â€œI never knew that,” Shauna said.
    â€œYeah, it’s