Published November 9, 2016.
Revised and expanded November 15, 2016.
"2 Stars"
Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young. Instead set an example for believers in spirit, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity. ~ 1st Timothy 4:12
The Holts named their daughter after Katherine Johnson, the African-American NASA physicist and mathematician. They called her Katie for short, but after she learned to walk, Matt gave her a new nickname, "Pidge". He thought she looked like a pigeon, sticking out her neck to look wherever her curiosity led her, running in a way that was both agile and skittish when he chased her.
The two siblings pretended to be aliens and astronauts, combining the rules of Tag and Hide-and-Seek. Most of the time Matt played the evil extraterrestrial while Katie was the frenzied Earth scientist. Not that she knew what these words meant; all she knew was that her brother would tickle her if she didn't hide or outrun him. Their role-playing became more real to them when their father brought home prototype telescopes and freeze-dried astronaut food from work. They camped out in a tent shaped like a rocket to watch eclipses, meteor showers, and other rare phenomena.
As she grew, Matt insisted on being Katie's first and primary science teacher. This was partly to help her understand the rest of her family, partly because he wanted her to see what was so great about it, and partly to boost his own self-importance. Katie was the first and only person who looked up to Matt as a leader, a teacher, a role model.
When she was born, he made a scaled model of the solar system and hung it over her crib so she could learn the planets' appearances and orbits.
When she was learning how to talk, he showed her toy models of different spacecraft and taught her the names of each one.
When she moved into her own bedroom, Sam let Matt sit on his shoulders to glue glow-in-the-dark stars to her ceiling, arranging them in the exact shapes and arrangements of the constellations.
When Katie was learning to read, Matt gave her his old science books and illustrated biographies of famous scientists and astronauts.
He let her watch as he conducted his own experiments, some of them behind their parents' backs. He trusted her not to tell their mother. (The only time she broke this trust was when he did something truly dangerous.)
Matt only slowed down this enthusiastic education when, after years of steady acceleration, she seemed nearly caught up to his level of intellect. For the first time it seemed to dawn on Matt that, despite being younger than him, she might be just as smart, or even smarter. It had never occurred to him that his sister might be better than him at anything. It didn't seem right.
He worked hard to find words and topics that Katie would not understand; but she responded by downloading a digital dictionary and encyclopedia to match and even get ahead of his efforts. Their accidental incorrect application of words in their attempts to outshine each other's vocabulary much caused confusion, amusement, and frustration in their family.
Matt stopped inviting Katie to watch his experiments. Katie pretended not to notice, and started her own program of self-education. She read Matt's old textbooks and took online courses. She picked people's trash to find gadgets and build her own equipment. She took machines apart and put them back together.
When Sam was home between missions, Katie turned to him for advice and instruction, but never discussed her work in Matt's presence. Matt then competed for their father's attention as well, believed he needed it more than Katie, since he was closer to beginning his own training and career.
"Dad? Will you still be going on missions by the time I start doing that?" Matt was trying to plan out the next several years of his life, calculating how quickly he could go through the Galaxy Garrison rigorous program.
"Sure I will!"
"What about me?" Katie piped up. She liked the idea of exploring space with her father.
Sam thought for a moment, counting the years of training she would need and adding that to his age. "Well, I might be getting ready to retire by then. But I'm sure your brother will be glad to have you with him."
Matt raised his eyebrows, slightly taken aback by the idea of his kid sister tagging along on his mission. That was the scenario they had play-acted when they were younger, but now he thought that if he was lucky enough to have a crew of his own, he would want to make it his own chance to shine.
After a moment Matt smiled. "Sure. You can be our communications officer."
"What? I want to be a pilot!"
"She's smart enough to be the engineer," Colleen pointed out. "Why relegate her to communications?"
"She'll be our homing pigeon and carry messages for us. Get it, Pidge?"
Katie punched his arm, and smirked when he winced, ignoring Colleen's scolding. "Maybe I'll just form my own crew."
"Heh. You want to start a space race?"
"I'm game if you are."
"Hey, kiddos, in all seriousness," Sam intervened, "competition's a fine motivator, but don't get so caught up in it that you slow each other down. People are better off working with each other than trying to outdo each other. That goes for countries, crewmembers, even family members."
His words had a sobering effect on his children.
A few nights later, Matt stopped by Katie's room and casually asked if he could see what she was working on. Katie was cautious, not wanting him to criticize hard work or copy her intellectual property.
Matt won her confidence back by first showing her his own research project, consolidating archaeological evidence of alien life. "I have to be really thorough, because too many can be considered conspiracy theories, and my teachers won't give me credit for those." Then he shared with her a secret that he had not told anyone: "If there's life outside our planet, I want to be the first to discover it." He knew that she understood how seriously he took this goal, which other people were liable to laugh.
"I bet you will be," Katie said, with complete sincerity. Then, without waiting for him to ask, she led him into her room and showed him what she had been storing in her closet: an assortment of small, robotic machines, some built from store-bought kits, and others built from materials she had found on her own.
"Wow." Matt looked at her with a new respect. "That's really something, Pidge."
"Something …"
"Cool. Impressive. Probably better than I could have done at your age."
Hearing this, Katie realized she had forgotten how good her brother's approval made her feel.
Starting that night, Matt gradually began to accept Katie as something of an equal.
Music: "2 Stars" from Camp Rock, because it kind of describes the distance that forms between Matt and Katie, and between the whole family at times.
If you don't know who Katherine Johnson is, read Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, or see the movie adaptation.
