Pulchra es Stellas

“Chloe! Bedtime!” My mom said.

“Yes mom! I’ll be down there in a minute!” I yelled back at her.

I took a few more moments to look through my telescope. It was clearer tonight, though light pollution was still annoying me. I found all the normal constellations, Ursa Major, part of Orion, and Taurus (The Bull). I would have found more, if I didn’t have my stupid bedtime. My mom is strict. Nine o-clock. 

I started to get up from my spot on the fire escape. It was a perfect spot for my telescope, as it was small and easily accessible. 

I always leave my telescope on the fire escape, unless it looks like it’s going to rain. Right now, the sky is clear. I carefully step back into my house.

My older brother gets to stay up later than me. He’s 14, so his bedtime is ten o-clock. Sometimes, he pleads with my mom, asking to stay up later, and maybe gets a few more minutes. I’m a good kid. I obey.

I brushed my teeth and used the bathroom. I got into bed. 

On my ceiling, I had those glow in the dark stars. They didn’t work that well, but it was still cool looking at them. I always fall asleep while counting the glow in the dark stars.

***

I woke up to my brother snoring. His room is right next to mine, and he snores loudly. I changed, and went downstairs to eat breakfast and get ready for school.

I’m in 7th grade, which means I have a lot of homework. I finished it all yesterday, but still have a big test today. I’m not what you call a “star” student, but I do get A’s and B’s. 

I bike to school with Kristen. She is my best friend. It took a lot of pleading with my parents, but eventually they decided I was old enough to make the trip if we stayed together the whole way. Her house is on the corner of our street, so I do get to ride for a couple minutes by myself.

Kristen is nice, but loud. “Good morning Chloe!” She exclaimed, already there at the corner. “How are you doing?”

“Morning to you.” I told her. “And, normal.”

“Haha!” She laughed. “Did you do all your homework?”

“Yup! You?”

“Same. Although I think I forgot to do the math homework.” She said, “Anyways, math is after lunch. I can do it during lunch.”

We got onto our bikes and went towards the school. It’s only a few blocks away. When we got there, we locked our bikes, and went into our separate classrooms. We have different homerooms, but later on share a few classes.

My homeroom teacher was named Ms. Krendel. She was nice when you turned in all your homework, but strict and mean if you were rude or disrespectful.

I love school. It might be weird, but I think school is fun. At least, middle school is way more interesting than elementary school. You get to change classes and get more homework.

I went to a few of my classes, and then it was lunchtime. I saw Kristen quickly pulling out her math homework. She always sat next to me. 

“Hey Chloe!” She said, “Ugh! I hate that Ms. Heiner! She gave me a C for my english homework, and it was my best paper! It took 2 hours!”

“Aww,” I sympathized, “I have her next period.”

“Yup! I guess I have to do my math right now.”

We ate our lunches while Kristen did her math homework. 

5 minutes before the bell rang, she finished.

“Yay!” She exclaimed. “It’s done!”

“Yes!” I agreed. “And just in time too!”

Of course, just then the bell rang. I went to my english class, while Kristen went to her social studies. My paper got an A-, which is pretty good. Our next class was math, which was the first class we actually had together. We turned in our math test, and learned a bit about geometry.

We had electives after that, and at the beginning of the year I chose astronomy and drama. I love looking at the stars, and I love theater. Kristen and I both do drama. Her other elective is soccer. She is a beast at it. She has great control of the ball, and she is really fast.

After our electives, Kristen and I biked home. Her mom made arrangements with my mom for Kristen to sleepover at my house. 

When we got home, we rushed on our homework. I know, that’s not the best thing to do. But we had a plan for tonight. 

We ate dinner. My mom made ravioli with marinara sauce and it was amazing. We had ice cream for dessert. Then, we watched Hamilton on Disney Plus. It was long, but my mom said that we could stay up late. I love Hamilton. It is the best.

Once the movie was over, it was 9:00. My mom said that we could stay up a little bit longer.

We played games. Card games, like Spoons and Kitty in the Corner. I was terrible at them, but it was really fun. We also told each other stories. Random stories. It was funny. Kristen told me about when she was going swimming and her bathing suit bottoms fell off. It was really embarrassing.

Finally, my mom said that we had to go to bed. I pleaded, and she said 10 more minutes.

I took Kristen to the fire escape. Our telescope was there, and it was dark. Kristen loved looking through the telescope. I mean, she didn’t want to take the astronomy elective, but still. She loves it.

Not as much as me.

We took turns looking and pointing out different constellations. It was hard, because like I said earlier, light pollution was really annoying. I live in the city, so all the city lights were on. 

I wrote a speech about light pollution, and shared it to the whole school, but the kids didn’t listen. It had to be the whole world.

I saw a shooting star. I wished on the shooting star.

I wished that people could be cautious about their lights, and not leave them on the whole time. 

Kristen and I went to bed happy. We watched my glow in the dark stars as we fell asleep. 

The stars are beautiful.