Free American Girl On Saturn by Nikki Godwin Page A

face, and I know I’m smiling like a total fangirl at my bravery.
    “Next time we do this, you bring your Sharpies. I’ll bring my guitar,” he says.

CHAPTER 8
    “Chloooooeeeeeee.” Emery hisses my name from my bedside. “Chloooooooeeeeeeee.”
    I feel around for my cell phone and glance at the time. It ’s too early in the morning for Emery to be in my room whispering my name at great lengths.
    “ What?” I mutter into my pillow.
    “ Tate’s head is on your door,” she says.
    Her words are as clear as the windows after Godfrey has Windex’ed them.
    I push off of the bed just enough to see her face. She ’s serious, but there’s no way Tate’s head is on my door. Did Emery get all hyena happy in the night and decapitate him or something?
    “ What are you talking about?” I ask her.
    My attempt to glance at the door is useless. She closed it behind her on the way in. Oh God. What if she has gone crazy and decapitated Tate and plans to hang my head on the door next to his? What if we ’re her trophies from the summer of lockdown?
    Emery isn ’t a guillotine or a game hunter. That late night firefly-catching session must’ve really jacked up my brain. I need more sleep. But I’m awake now. My mind explodes with fireflies and Saturn droplets and the fact that Milo said there’d be a next time.
    “ Tate’s head is on your door,” she repeats. “Aralie put it up there.”
    I throw the covers back. Aralie could definitely be a guillotine. She might could even pass for a human game hunter. But then Jules ’s head would be on my door instead. I know that much.
    At the risk of being seen with bed hair and smudged, leftover makeup, I venture across the bedroom and pull my door open. Emery wasn ’t lying. A magazine cut out of Tate’s head is taped onto my door.
    “ I was going to get him down for you,” Emery says. She walks over to me. “But I can’t reach him. I think you should stick it back on Aralie’s door. She’s crazy.”
    The tape is still fresh on the back of the photo and peels easily off of my door. I take the few steps down the hallway to Aralie ’s door and gently press Tate’s head to the surface so I don’t alert her. She probably just did it to entertain Emery anyway, so I’ll play along. Emery slaps me a high-five upon seeing my handiwork and rushes down the stairs in a mess of giggles.
    I disappear back into my bedroom to brush my hair and freshen up my makeup. There ’s no way I’m going downstairs looking like death-warmed-over. Any other summer day? Sure, who cares. When Spaceships Around Saturn is crashing at your house? Never.
     
    Emery harasses Benji with another Q&A over breakfast. Yes, he likes the friendship bracelet. No, no one else has ever referred to him as ‘Benji Bikini’ to his knowledge. Yes, chocolate milk is better than regular milk. No, he doesn’t like bananas. Where does she even come up with this stuff?
    “ I saw something about you on the Twitter,” she says.
    It always cracks me up how she calls it ‘the’ Twitter. She also watches ‘the’ YouTube. As annoying and loud-mouthed and wild as she can be, it’s moments like this that make me appreciate her five-year-old mind.
    Benji takes another gulp of milk.
    “Please don’t talk about Twitter,” he says. “I’m going on three days without it, and I feel it.”
    Emery ignores him and continues. “She said you have twenty-seven tattoos. Do you?”
    Benji buries his face into his hands.
    “I have a lot,” he says into his own skin.
    “ Twenty-seven?!” Emery’s eyes bulge like a scared frog slipping off of a lily pad.
    “ Yes!” Benji throws his arms into the air. “Yes, I have twenty-seven tattoos, and I plan on getting twenty-seven more.”
    Note for girls on Twitter: @ Benji_Baccarini does not like to talk about his tattoos at breakfast.
    I grab a muffin from the plate on the table, wave to Mom in the kitchen, and disappear out onto the back patio. The Saturn boys will have to