Orbiting Jupiter

by Gary D. Schmidt

You can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him.

“How do you know?” said my father. “I always know where Jupiter is,”

Madeleine threw snowballs at him and hit him sometimes. He threw snowballs too, but he never hit her. Not once. He couldn’t even imagine hitting Madeleine with a snowball. Because he loved her. He loved her. He had never known love before. He had never known how much it could fill him.

there’s something about coming into a barn full of warm cows, their sweet breath, the scent of the dry hay, and the sounds of their shuffling and snuffling.

How holding her hand warmed everything in him. How he sometimes still felt her hand.

“If there were angels, then bad things wouldn’t happen.” “Maybe angels aren’t always meant to stop bad things.” “So what good are they?” “To be with us when bad things happen.”

We didn’t talk about his father coming, but it was like that feeling you have in dreams, when something is on its way and there’s nothing you can do about it except to hope you wake up before it comes.

Sometimes it’s like that. You know something good is coming, and even though it’s not even close yet, still, just knowing it’s coming is enough to make you snort and nicker. Sort of.

The sound of the wind was awful, like it was crying and lost and scared and not sure what to do except to wail.

You know how teachers are. If they get you to take out a book they love too, they’re yours for life.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

And that’s when I started crying. Crying like a kindergarten kid in front of everyone. Crying because Joseph wasn’t just my friend. I had his back. And he had mine. That’s what greater love is.

“Jackie.” She yawned. “Jackie.” “Jupiter,” I whispered back. “Jupiter. I promise I’ll always know where you are.”