His father had crossed out the broom in Rafi’s story.
Rafi stared at the rehearsal page. Under the thick line he could still read his grandmother’s words: The comet sweeps a path for houses we haven’t built.
“It isn’t a broom,” Dorian said.
“I know that.”
“The younger children don’t.”
They were in the colony ship’s viewing room. Tomorrow the passengers would land, after years of living between its narrow walls. That evening the school was giving its final shipboard performance. Rafi, fifteen, had promised to tell the story Grandmother Mae told him when he couldn’t sleep.
His father taught the ship’s science classes. He wanted a clear account of their journey, with no fear or nonsense attached to it. He had already spent a week correcting a rumor that the new planet had teeth.
“Tell them how people first saw the comet from this ship,” he said. “Then explain what it is.”
“That isn’t the story.”
“It’s an interesting story.”
Rafi took his page and went to find Mae.
She was in the sewing room, shortening a pair of trousers for a boy who had grown during the journey. On a ship, clothes traveled from one child to another until there was nothing left to let out.
“He thinks you’re wrong,” Rafi said.
Mae bit off a thread. “About the trousers?”
“The comet.”
“I invented that broom before you were born. He knows it.”
“He says little children won’t.”
“Then tell them.”
Rafi sat on the floor. He had expected her to be hurt. He wanted someone else to be as angry as he was.
“You don’t mind him crossing it out?”
“I mind him crossing it out very much. I also mind being cast as an old woman who thinks space is a kitchen.”
She put the trousers against his leg to check their length. They were much too short.
“I taught your father his numbers,” she said. “Not well enough to make him amusing, but well enough.”
At rehearsal Rafi stood beside the viewing glass. The great bright trail outside seemed to hang over the ship. He began before his father could stop him.
“The comet carries a broom. When we arrive, it will sweep the world clean for our houses.”
Some children smiled. One small girl didn’t.
“Will it sweep the houses away too?” she asked.
“No.”
“What if it comes back?”
Rafi looked toward his father. Dorian wasn’t frowning now. He was watching the little girl.
“It won’t,” Rafi said.
He didn’t know whether a comet might ever come back. He only knew he’d promised something to a child because he’d wanted to win an argument.
He put the page down.
“I said that badly. There isn’t a broom. My grandmother made up a story about the comet. It makes me feel less afraid of arriving somewhere new.”
The girl looked at the window. “So it won’t sweep us?”
“No. That’s just what happens in our story.”
She nodded, though she kept watching the bright trail.
After rehearsal, Dorian came to him.
“You were right to correct it.”
“I know.” Rafi heard the sharpness in his own voice. “You were right first. Is that what you want?”
His father pulled out a chair and sat. For once he looked as tired as Rafi felt.
“I want them to sleep tonight,” he said. “And I want us to arrive without expecting the ground to eat us.”
“Mae wants her story told. I want to tell it.”
They sat while cleaners folded the spare chairs.
Rafi picked up his page. “You could explain first. Then I’ll say what is invented before I begin.”
“Separate parts.”
“Clearly separate. You don’t get to stop mine halfway through.”
His father considered it. “As long as you don’t stop mine.”
They didn’t shake hands. They both hated it when adults made children shake hands after arguments.
Rafi spent the afternoon with paper, string and three younger helpers. They built small houses with crooked doors. The worried girl, Suri, made hers tall enough for a family with six children.
“I only have one brother,” she explained. “The other rooms are for people who might come.”
That evening Dorian gave his short talk. The children listened. One asked about the planet’s teeth. He answered patiently.
Then Rafi stepped forward.
“Now a story Mae invented on this ship,” he said. “It isn’t a map or a warning. It’s a story about being on our way.”
Behind him, the helpers moved a long shining ribbon past their paper houses. The comet’s broom swept nothing away. It brushed a clear place around each little door.
Rafi told of a family who carried their old house in their voices. At each new place they spoke, the rooms grew. He knew where that part came from. Mae had told it at his bedside while the walls hummed around them.
When he finished, Suri raised her hand.
“In my story the broom knocks first,” she said. “It shouldn’t just go into people’s rooms.”
Mae, in the front row, laughed.
“Quite right. Mine needs better manners.”
Other hands rose. The broom became a boat, then a dog with a very long tail. Dorian leaned back and let the stories come.
Tomorrow there would be real ground, real weather and homes they still had to build. Tonight Suri pulled Rafi into the space between the chairs. She wanted a house big enough for everyone in the room.
They raised their joined hands into a roof. Mae ducked beneath it first. Rafi’s father followed, bent nearly double, and bumped his head on an imaginary beam.
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