As Jason drove out into the countryside of Sherman, Ilana noticed that the stars outside twinkled a little brighter. Upon pointing this out, Jason explained that the lights of the city usually drowned them out since they were so much brighter. He went on to explain why they shone, but Ilana had stopped listening by then. She was more interested in the beauty of the night sky than the science behind it. Jason quickly got the message and said no more until they stopped the car on the top of a hill. The dirt path they had taken was the only way to get here by car.
"You're gonna love the rest of my class!" Jason promised Ilana when they joined the small group of people already there; 4 kids and one adult man. Most of the faces were unfamiliar to her except one.
"Oh, hi Maribel!" Ilana cried, giving her friend a hug. "Haven't seen much of you!"
"Hi!" Maribel replied with an equally friendly greeting. "I didn't think you were interested in this stuff. How did you get her to join us?" she asked Jason.
"Oh, she was kicking and screaming, but I just…charmed her here!" Jason joked, and the three laughed. The 3 teenage boys behind Maribel fidgeted nervously when they saw Ilana while the adult man was grilling burgers and some vegetables.
"Hey guys, I brought my girlfriend! Don't you wanna meet her?" Jason asked the boys. Ilana could tell he was having fun with this. She saw one of them suddenly go from shy to relaxed as he approached. This first boy had black hair like Lance's, but it was in a style more conventional to Earth teenagers and much shorter. He had on khaki pants, glasses, and a red t-shirt that had some word scrawled on it Ilana recalled seeing before. The boy took Ilana's hand and shook it almost reluctantly.
"Mark. Nice to meet you. And yes, the t-shirt says Nintendo," Mark said with embarrassment. He then turned to the others and declared, "Ok. I shook the girl's hand. Now you do it. She's harmless." Ilana giggled, and she could see that when she did Mark's frown turned to a smile briefly.
"Like humor, huh? I have more of that stored in my cerebral cortex," Mark said nonchalantly.
"Fail, Mark! She doesn't know what that is!" a boy with curly, blonde hair and sideburns said as he gave Ilana a handshake. He wore jeans and a green t-shirt that said "Whatever Tech".
"Name's Greg, but I'd prefer Gregory," he said with more confidence and friendliness than Mark. "Lots of cool people named Gregory."
"One pope who made a calendar doesn't make it a cool name!" said the last boy, a kid with buzz-cut and no eyebrows. He had on shorts and a gray long-sleeved shirt.
"I'm Devon. The lack of eyebrows and the long-sleeved shirt are the result of some mistakes in chemistry," he explained.
"Well, it's nice to meet you all! I'm Ilana." Gregory whistled in surprise, Mark rubbed his glasses nervously, and Devon grinned. "What?" Ilana asked.
"We've never heard of an 'Ilana' before! Who is this girl, a foreign exchange student?" Mark asked Jason.
"No, then her English wouldn't be so…eloquent. Can't you tell she's a second generation immigrant?" Gregory reprimanded.
"Seriously, Jason, thanks for bringing us a girl!" Devon cried with excitement. Jason scowled at his friends.
"Knock it off, guys! Are girls just completely new things to you?" he asked. They all went silent. Ilana blushed, realizing that all these boys seemed to have this crush on her.
"If you're all done bothering Jason and his girlfriend, it's time to eat!" the adult said. The boys besides Jason got out leather and plastic folding chairs, but of course there they hadn't expected Ilana. Mark, Gregory and Devon were all willing to give up their seats, but since they all offered at once, Ilana took in stride and just
lay across all three like a couch while the three boys sat on the ground.
"I'm Kevin Murphy, but just call me Mr. Murphy, seeing as I'm the teacher," said the adult man to Ilana. He looked to be not much younger than the kids, and had a full beard and dark blonde hair. "You're the first outside of my class to join us, Ilana," he said as the group began to eat their burgers. The other kids were talking amongst themselves, talking about constellations they thought they saw. There were also some grilled peppers, leeks and onions, which Ilana didn't eat very often but found delicious.
"Glad to be here! Except I don't know much about stars. Jason invited me here as a sort of date," she said as she straightened up to sit on just one chair. Lying on three was getting uncomfortable.
"That's all right. I'm sure anybody here could teach you, especially the boys. I've never see them get this excited in class, let me tell you!"
After the food was finished, the group set up their telescopes and began to stargaze. Ilana was left alone with Jason, and the two decided to just lie in the grass together and look at the stars in the opposite direction.
"Okay, see, that one there is Orion, and those are the Gemini. See the twins?" Jason asked Ilana.
"I still can't see them. Which star am I looking at?" she asked.
"For which one, Orion, or Gemini?" Jason asked as he wrapped his left hand around her shoulders and raised his right hand to point at whatever stars were necessary to point out. Ilana shrugged. Jason patiently showed her everything, even though it took her a few times to see where everything was. Then he quizzed her, and after a while she had memorized the locations of a few constellations.
"Now look straight up. See that particularly bright star? That's Polaris. It's easy to remember since it never moves as the earth rotates each night. Well, none of them move, actually, but it looks like they do." Ilana looked up at it with wonder. It wasn't particularly bright or special, but it at least she'd never lose its place.
"I wish I was like that star," she said softly. "Then I would never have had to leave home."
"Oh, you mean your old home? But then you wouldn't have met me!" Jason reminded her. Ilana nodded and suppressed a lump in her throat as she thought of her father and Galaluna.
"If I were on another planet, would I see that?" she asked.
"Depends. What planet would you be on?" Jason asked, not knowing where she was going with this.
"One far away."
"Uh…be more specific." Ilana thought for a moment at that request. Should she be? Should she tell him everything? She opened her mouth to try and say something, but then Mark's face loomed over them.
"Ok, lovey-dovey time is over! We've just seen something crazy that you BOTH need to see! Cuz' you'll probably never see it again!" They stood up and looked at the moon as Mark had ordered. It was full tonight, and there seemed to be a gray dot on it at that began to grow slightly bigger.
"It's strange," Mr. Murphy attempted to explain. "From the telescope, it looks like there's something headed straight for us! But that can't be right. And the odds would be—very slim!"
The object grew bigger until it hid the moon, stunning everyone to silence. Before they could think the object—definitely a meteorite, they could tell—flew just a few hundred feet above their heads and crashed into a field on the other side of the road. The group quickly rushed to the crater.
"Get out the cameras and get ready to upload!" Gregory cried.
"This thing is huge! And it definitely came from the moon, but how? How does a moon chunk just land on Earth like this?" Maribel wondered. Ilana, who was staying close to Jason, whispered to him.
"We need to go," she told him, tugging on his arm, but he didn't budge.
"Are you kidding? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" Jason cried. When he finished speaking, the pit made from the crater began to rumble, and in seconds a giant green hand with a wing attached was seen.
"What is that?!" Devon cried.
"TAKE A PICTURE AND GET OUT OF HERE!" Mark cried, immediately turning to run while pointing his camera behind him in hopes that he could get a good shot of whatever that was. But as the astronomy class plus Ilana drove away, Ilana was thinking not "What?" but "How?"