The Same Stuff as Stars by Katherine Paterson Page A

She’d made a fool of herself. She’d bawled and screeched and howled like a maniac—and it had felt wonderful. She ought to be ashamed. The real Angel Morgan would be mortified. But she wasn’t. Instead, she was, as Verna would say, “going to put it all behind me and get on with the rest of my life,” whatever that might mean.
    The two of them looked up from the table when she appeared at the door, both like little puppies waiting to see if they were going to be kicked or petted.
    â€œAre you eating those dang Sugar Pops again, Bernie?
    I swear, you’re going to keel right over from sugar overdose.”
    â€œSo?” he said, his chin belligerent, his eyes full of relief.
    â€œSo
we gotta get some meat and vegetables into you, don’t we, Grandma?”
    â€œI get my Social Security check this week,” the old woman said meekly. “Can you wait till then for the shopping?”
    â€œI guess I’ll have to,” Angel said primly. They wanted her to be in charge, both of them. That was who she was doomed to be, the responsible one. Deep down that was who she wanted to be, wasn’t it? Not that baby up there on the bed, crying and sucking her thumb.
    She sighed silently. The rest of her life was going to be just like all the days since that thrilling one when the newborn Bernie had been put into her arms. “Take care of your baby brother now, Angel,” Verna had said. Angel hadn’t known then what that meant. Now she did. The thrill was long gone, but the duty had become like the sun in the solar system, the center around which all the other parts of her life revolved. Without it, she would likely fly to pieces.
    She looked at the two faces turned toward her, waiting for her to tell them that everything was going to be all right. Now she had two troubled, troublesome children to look out for. She straightened up. “I guess I’ll get me some breakfast now,” she said.
    â€œHmmph,” said Grandma. “Better call it lunch.”
    Â 
    Sometime while she had slept, the rain that had been coming down all week stopped. The sky was an almost magazine-picture blue. The first thing she was going to do was hang the wet laundry outside. Grandma had an old washing machine in her bathroom but no dryer, and yesterday she’d had to hang her and Bernie’s wet clothes all over the house. She got the big woven basket from the bathroom and gathered underwear and T-shirts from around the edge of the bathtub and off the backs of kitchen chairs.
    â€œC’mon, Bernie,” she said, “we’re going outside.”
    â€œI don’t want to go outside,” Bernie said. “There’s nothing to do outside.”
    â€œI got to hang up the laundry. Besides, growing children need fresh air.”
    â€œMaybe I don’t want to be a growing children,” he said.
    â€œToo bad. We’re going out anyway.” She propped the basket under one arm, grabbed his hand, and dragged him out the door.
    â€œWant to help me hang these clothes up?”
    â€œNo.”
    She took clothespins out of the bag at the end of the clothesline and began to pin up the damp washing.
    â€œThat car is gone again,” Bernie said.
    She glanced over at the trailer. Could it be that the mysterious star man lived over there? That it was his car that appeared and disappeared as though he went to work every day like a regular person? She put the last pin on a pair of Bernie’s underpants. Then, without a word, she started across the yard toward the broken-down trailer. Looking at it from Grandma’s house, it didn’t seem as if anyone could live in such a place, but if the star man was real and not just a dream, there was a chance that he might live in the trailer, wasn’t there?
    She felt daring crossing the weedy field, climbing over the broken-down fence, sneaking to the trailer. It was propped up on cinder blocks and looked unsteady,