Shake Down the Stars by Renee Swindle

hemorrhaging, or at the very least a scratch.
    â€œAre
you
okay?” he asks.
    â€œI think so.” I look down at my dress and see a rip, five or six inches long, running down the side of the seam. “Shit. Look at this.”
    I show him the tear, and he clicks his tongue. “We should just go back. All of this is a bad sign.”
    â€œNo, let’s keep going. It’ll be worth it. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve looked at the stars through a good telescope. Telescopes are incredible. They’re building a five-million-dollar telescope in Chile right now that will allow us to see back in time, farther than man has ever seen.”
    â€œHuh?”
    I find my shoes and start putting them on. “Light! Light takes a long time to travel, and the telescope they’re making will have the ability to uncover up to a million galaxies seen as they were ten billion years ago. We’ll be looking back at galaxies in the past.”
    â€œGalaxies in the past, huh? What do you say? Okay, let’s leave.”
    I roll my eyes. “But I want you to see Saturn. Come on, please? You’ll like it; and besides, we’re already on the other side of that fucking fence, and I’ll be damned if I’m climbing back over again.”
    He shakes his head with a sigh. “Saturn,” he says, taking his flashlight from his back pocket. “Time travel. Great. Lead the way, Spock.”
    We follow the path past the science building to the space center. It takes three flights of stairs to reach the platform where the telescopes are set up. By the time we reach the third, we’re both out of breath.
    â€œThis had better be good,” Selwyn says, climbing the last step. Winded, he bends over and waits to catch his breath.
    The two telescopes are housed in front of the main building. They’re slightly more powerful than a basic Dobsonian-mounted Newtonian reflector and perfect for a first-time stargazer.
    I lead Selwyn to the middle telescope and adjust the viewfinder. I then take a moment to find Saturn with its golden rings. I see we’re in luck, too, because its satellite Titan is just rounding the corner.
    â€œOkay,” I say. “Take a look.”
    Selwyn hunches down and stares through the viewfinder.
    The first time I saw Saturn was with Mr. Hoffman in his backyard. I’d read about planets in school, seen mock-ups in movies, but to see a planet up close, right there in front of my own eyes, thousands and thousands of miles away but seemingly close enough that I could reach out and touch it, well, it was just like Mr. Hoffman told me it would be . . .
mind-blowing.
I felt infinitely small and insignificant; yet I also knew our own planet was floating around in all that great expanse, and I was part of its movement, part of a galaxy, and hence part of that infinite vastness and expanse, and that made my ten-year-old self feel magnificent. From then on, I became fascinated with the night sky. Mr. Hoffman called me a natural-born stargazer.
    All too soon I hear a low “Kilowatt.”
Selwyn is quiet again until another murmur. “My God . . . Kilowatt.”
    â€œYeah.” I grin. “I know.”
    â€œIt’s beautiful. . . . I never . . . Oh my gosh.”
    â€œYeah. I know.”
    â€œGod, look at those rings. This is incredible.”
    â€œIf you were to stretch Saturn’s rings out, the distance would reach as far as Earth to the moon.”
    â€œGet outta here.”
    The stargazer in me grows more excited. “I have to show you Mars next. And you have to see the crevices on the moon. I swear you’ll feel like you’re standing right in front of it.”
    He turns and smiles up at me. “This is really somethin’, Kilowatt.”
    I return his smile. “Let me show you Mars.”
    I’m about to reach for the telescope when I hear, “Freeze or I’ll