Susan Pfeffer: Life As We Knew It

Sometimes when Mom is getting ready to write a book she says she doesn’t know where to start, that the ending is so clear to her that the beginning doesn’t seem important anymore. I feel that way now only I don’t know what the ending is, not even what the ending is tonight. We’ve been trying to get Dad on his land line and cell phone for hours and all we get are the kind of rapid-paced busy signals that mean the circuits are tied up. I don’t know how much longer Mom’ll keep trying or whether we’ll talk to him before I fall asleep. If I fall asleep.

This morning seems like a million years ago. I remember seeing the moon in the sunrise sky. It was a half moon, but it was clearly visible and I looked at it and thought about how tonight the meteor was going to hit it and how exciting that would be.

But it wasn’t like we talked about it on the bus going to school. Sammi was complaining about the dress code for the prom, nothing strapless, nothing too short, and how she wanted a dress she could wear when she went clubbing.

Megan got on the bus with some of her church friends and they sat together. Maybe they talked about the meteor, but I think they just prayed. They do that on the bus sometimes or read Bible verses.

The whole school day was just normal.

I remember being bored in French class.

I stayed for swim practice after school, and then Mom picked me up. She said she’d invited Mrs. Nesbitt to watch the meteor along with us but Mrs. Nesbitt had said she’d be more comfortable watching at home. So it was just going to be Jonny and Mom and me for the big event. That’s what she called it: the big event.

She also told me to finish my homework early so we could make a party of it after supper. So that’s what I did. I finished two of my moon assignments and did my math homework and then we ate supper and watched CNN until around 8:30.

All CNN talked about was the moon. They had a bunch of astronomers on and you could see how excited they were.

“Maybe after I’m through playing second for the Yankees, I’ll be an astronomer,” Jonny said.

I’d been thinking the exact same thing (well, not about playing second for the Yankees). The astronomers looked like they loved what they were doing. You could see how excited they were that this asteroid was going to make a direct hit on the moon. They had charts and computer projections and graphics, but basically they looked like big kids at Christmas.

Mom had gotten out Matt’s telescope and she’d found the really good pair of binoculars that had somehow hidden themselves last summer. She’d even baked chocolate chip cookies for the event, so we carried a plate out and napkins. We decided to watch from the road, since we figured we’d have a better view from up front. Mom and I brought out lawn chairs, but Jonny decided to use the telescope. We didn’t know exactly how long the hit was going to take or if there’d be something exciting to see afterward.

It seemed like everyone on the road was out tonight. Some of the people were on their decks having late barbecues, but most everyone else was in front of their houses, like we were. The only one I didn’t see was Mr. Hopkins, but I could tell from the glow in his living room that he was watching on TV.

It was like a big block party. The houses are so widespread on our road, you couldn’t really hear anything, just a general happy buzz.

When it got closer to 9:30, things got really quiet. You could sense how we were all craning our necks, looking toward the sky. Jonny was at the telescope, and he was the first one who shouted that the asteroid was coming. He could see it in the night sky, and then we all could, the biggest shooting star you could imagine. It was a lot smaller than the moon, but bigger than anything else I’d ever seen in the sky. It looked like it was blazing and we all cheered when we saw it.

For a moment I thought about all the people throughout history who saw Halley’s Comet and didn’t know what it was, just that it was there and frightening and awe inspiring. For the briefest flick of a second, I could have been a 16-year-old in the Middle Ages looking up at the sky, marveling at its mysteries, or an Aztec or an Apache. For that tiny instant, I was every 16-year-old in history, not knowing what the skies foretold about my future.

And then it hit. Even though we knew it was going to, we were still shocked when the asteroid actually made contact with the moon. With our moon. At that second, I think we all realized that it was Our Moon and if it was attacked, then we were attacked.

Or maybe nobody thought that. I know most of the people on the road cheered, but then we all stopped cheering and a woman a few houses down screamed and then a man screamed, “Oh my God!” and people were yelling “What? What?” like one of us knew the answer.

I know all those astronomers I’d watched an hour earlier on CNN can explain just what happened and how and why and they’ll be explaining on CNN tonight and tomorrow and I guess until the next big story happens. I know I can’t explain, because I don’t really know what happened and I sure don’t know why.

But the moon wasn’t a half moon anymore. It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger, large like a moon rising on the horizon, only it wasn’t rising. It was smack in the middle of the sky, way too big, way too visible. You could see details on the craters even without the binoculars that before I’d seen with Matt’s telescope.

It wasn’t like a big chunk of it flew off into space. It wasn’t like we could hear the sound of the impact, or even that the asteroid hit the moon dead center. It was like if you’re playing marbles and one marble hits another on its side and pushes it diagonally.

It was still our moon and it was still just a big dead rock in the sky, but it wasn’t benign anymore. It was terrifying, and you could feel the panic swell all around us. Some people raced to their cars and started speeding away. Others began praying or weeping. One household began singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

“I’m going to call Matt,” Mom said, like that was the most natural thing in the world to do. “Come on in, kids. We’ll see what CNN has to say about all this.”

“Mom, is the world coming to an end?” Jonny asked, picking up the plate of cookies and ramming one into his mouth.

“No, it isn’t,” Mom said, folding her lawn chair and carrying it to the front of the house. “And yes, you do have to go to school tomorrow.”

We laughed at that. I’d been wondering the same thing.

Jonny put the cookies away and I turned the TV back on. Only there was no CNN.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Mom said. “Maybe the world really is coming to an end.”

“Should I try Fox News?” I asked.

Mom shuddered. “We’re not that desperate,” she said. “Try one of the networks. They’ll have their own set of astronomers.”

Most of the networks were off, but our local channel seemed to be carrying NBC out of Philly. Even that was weird, because we get New York City feeds.

Mom kept trying to get Matt’s cell phone, but without any luck. The Philly news broadcasters didn’t seem to know much more than we did, although they were reporting some looting and general panic in the streets.

“Go check how things are outside,” Mom told me, so I went back out. I could see the glow from Mrs. Nesbitt’s TV set. There was still some praying going on in someone’s backyard, but at least the screaming had stopped.

I forced myself to look at the moon. I think I was afraid I’d see it had grown even bigger, that it really was lumbering its way to earth to crush us all to death, but it didn’t seem to have gotten any larger. It was still off, though, still tilted in a funny way, and still too large for the night sky. And it was still three quarters. “My cell phone is out!” someone screamed a few doors down, and she sounded the way we’d felt when we saw CNN was gone. Civilization had ended.