Mr. Fahrenheit by T. Michael Martin Page B

behind his eyes so his ceiling’s glow-stars winked like the sky’s real ones. The Homecoming Week Carnival! Spared from Papaw’s wrath by the Lightmans’ one and only tradition! Huzzah, random sentimentality!
    Benji whispered the simple truth: “ Wow , do I not want to go, though.”
    Traditions are gravity , Papaw liked to say. They kept you connected to something bigger than yourself. So making an excuse to avoid going to the carnival would wipe away Papaw’s good spirits. Just as important, it would activate the astounding mental machinery that allowed Benji’s sheriff grandfather to apparently X-ray his brain. Which was not number one on the list of things you want when you’re deciding what to do with a downed spaceship.
    Maybe Ellie and CR and Zeeko can come by the carnival. The thought adrenalized him. He got up and thumbed a quick group text:
    Morning! Going to set up the carnival.
    Not much else going on in my life.
    Pretty bored, TBH.
    U?
    Then a smiley emoji, lifting its sunglasses to wink.
    After he pressed Send and got dressed (wearing an older, beat-up winter coat, because these carnival mornings were often messy), he felt like someone had synthesized the buzz ofevery Christmas morning ever and mainlined it into his brain cells. He still had no clue what to do about the saucer. But in a way, that was part of the joy. The future was an utter enigma, and for the first time Benji could remember, the unfathomableness didn’t frighten him.
    Papaw stood at the front door buttoning his navy policeman overcoat. “’S’actually not too cold this mornin’,” he said, just above a whisper. Always soft-voiced on these mornings. “Why they scheduled homecoming so late this year, I’ll never understand. Typical government screw-u—” He stopped short of his rant, though. And then promptly went into another: “Why’re you wearin’ that coat, Benjamin? You make it look like we can’t afford—” Stopped again. As if in apology, he said, “How about breakfast on the go, bud?” and handed Benji a brown bag turning translucent from the greasy sandwiches inside. Benji caught the smell of Robert Lightman’s Breakfast Special (Papaw’s accent made it “ Brake-fist Spay-shul ”), made only once a year: a jumble of eggs and green peppers and bacon. Benji was surprised to feel a thin dart of nostalgia pierce his chest.
    â€œSounds good, sir,” he replied.
    â€œAnd tastes even better.” Papaw winked.
    He opened the door and stepped into the night-colored morning.
    There had been a time when Benji loved going to the fairgrounds with Papaw, helping the carnival workers fit their attractions into assigned places, like pieces of a wonderful puzzle. That era had come to a close the year Benji had discovered (with a combination of embarrassment and pride) the first sprigs of dark hair in his armpits. Truth be told, he had stopped loving these mornings when he realized he did not love them so much as the idea of them, the way the imagining and dreaming of them made him feel.
    They felt like church.
    The gentle quality of predawn sound and light helped form that sense of sacred space, though that wasn’t the most important element. Silence was common in the Lightman household, after all. But the particular silence on these mornings had once seemed to take on the shape of a door, a door that was shut and locked between Benji and his grandpa every other day of the year. Keep your eyes open, wide open, Benji, and Papaw will share something precious with you. And so Benji would stay still and expectant, feeling something that was precisely like pain but wasn’t pain expand against his ribs. The un-pain, Benji supposed, was a feeling of connection to Papaw, which was the closest he and Papaw could ever come to simply loving each other. It was a feeling that a candle was about to be lit, and if Benji just