The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty

that when Mr. Mitchell comes, we can ask him to take us someplace to eat, as long as his wife isn’t with him. If his wife is with him, she says, we won’t say anything at all.
    “Why not?”
    “Because I said so.” She points up at the sky. “Look, see that up there? That’s the Big Dipper.”
    She’s telling me this like she’s teaching me something new, but of course I know the Big Dipper. It’s the easiest one. I also know the Little Dipper, Cassiopeia, and Orion’s Belt. Ms. Fairchild said the stars in the constellations are not really close together; it only looks that way because they are so far away from us. They only make shapes if you are looking at them from Earth. If you were looking at the Big Dipper from another solar system, she said, it would look like something else, or maybe like nothing at all.
    I can hear cicadas from the field across the road, the sound a plastic straw makes when you bend it, back and forth, back and forth. Moths circle the porch light over our heads, and I watch them, my head resting in my mother’s lap. They are like the birds, fluttering and flapping on top of one another, trying to get inside. The bottom of the bulb is dark with the silhouettes of moths already dead, their wings still against the glass.

    I wake to headlights shining on my face, the sound of Mr. Mitchell’s truck. He kills the engine and steps out, squinting to see us on the porch.
    “Oh Merle,” my mother says. “Thank you so much. I’m sorry we had to call you out here. Come on, Evelyn. It’s time to go.”
    “Don’t be sorry!” he yells. Even when Mr. Mitchell yells, it’s in a nice way, the way Santa Claus yells “Ho Ho Ho” outside of Wal-Mart at Christmas. “What the hell are you-all doing sitting outside is what I’d like to know. Didn’t they let you wait inside?”
    My mother puts a finger to her lips. “Shh. It’s just an older woman. She was scared, I think.”
    He picks me up and carries me down the steps of the porch, my mother walking behind us. “Come on, squirrel,” he says. “We’ll get you home.”
    I squint into the headlights and see the outline of someone sitting in the passenger seat. It’s a woman, Mr. Mitchell’s wife. She gets out of the truck to let us in, and I see she is short, halfway between my mother and me, with broad shoulders. Her hair is cut close around her head, like a little hat, and she looks at us with small, staring eyes.
    “Hello,” my mother says. “Thank you so much for coming all the way out here. This is my daughter, Evelyn.”
    Mrs. Mitchell smiles quickly at me, but her small eyes stay on my mother, even as she leans down to pop the front seat of the truck forward for us. I get in behind the driver’s seat next to a bag of dog food. My mother sits behind Mrs. Mitchell, her legs folded, her chin resting on her knees.
    Mr. Mitchell jogs around the front of the truck and slides in, whistling. “So, Tina, what do you think happened?” He looks over his shoulder while he backs out of the driveway, and when he catches my eye, he winks.
    “The clutch gave out. I can’t get it into first. I knew it was going to happen, but I thought I could make it to Wichita and back.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me you needed a car? I would have loaned you the truck.”
    Mrs. Mitchell makes a quick, hissing sound with her tongue, like water sprinkled on a hot pan. We drive on in silence, until the back of the Volkswagen appears in the headlights.
    “Do you want me to take a look at it?” Mr. Mitchell asks, pulling up behind it. “I could try to fiddle with the clutch a bit.”
    Mrs. Mitchell turns on the overhead light and holds her watch up underneath it.
    “Oh, that’s okay, Merle,” my mother says. “I feel bad enough, dragging you both out here.”
    Mr. Mitchell says, “Don’t be ridiculous,” but Mrs. Mitchell says nothing. From where I sit, I can see only one side of her face, gray and unmoving. She is looking straight ahead, squinting