Free Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton Page A

again?” I ask.
    â€œYes,” Papa says.
    Mama stays quiet.
    â€œDo we have to make up our minds now?”
    â€œI’ll need to know by the end of July
    at the latest,” Papa says. “And the question is:
    Do we stay or do we go?”

Pie, the Moon, and Stacey
    Today is Flag Day,
    and Mama hung a flag on the front porch.
    It curled in the breeze like a cat’s tail.
    Today is also my birthday.
    We had lemon meringue pie
    instead of cake because that’s my favorite,
    and Neapolitan ice cream,
    because I can never decide which flavor I like best.
    Papa turned on the sprinkler,
    and Stacey and I did ballet leaps and bunny hops
    through the spray.
    Then Mama and Papa gave me a hi-fi record player,
    and Stacey gave me the new Temptations album.
    I asked them if they had planned it that way,
    and everyone laughed and looked away
    so I knew the answer was yes. It made me happy
    that they had talked behind my back
    in a nice way.
    Then Timothy came over with a present.
    He glanced at Papa and handed me a little box
    with COTTLE’S written on the lid.
    Inside was a happy silver moon on a chain.
    Stacey is staying over tonight.
    It’s my first sleepover
    since Shelley and Sharon and I slept on their living room floor
    and watched
The
Flying Nun
and
Bewitched
    the night before Mama and I left Berkeley.
    Stacey and I are sitting at the two window seats
    and talking through the screens. We can hear each other
    inside and out.
    â€œJust think,” she says,
    â€œyou’ve been on this earth thirteen years.”
    I look up at the sky and wish
    new moons had names, like full moons do.
    I will call tonight’s moon New Birthday Moon.
    When I opened the box from Timothy today,
    he said, “Look—I found your moon.”
    I am thirteen today,
    and the moon that disappeared
    from my science project
    and from tonight’s sky
    is here, dangling at my throat.

Magicicadas
    Because of the New Birthday Moon tonight,
    the stars are full twinkling brilliance.
    Later, after the mosquitoes have disappeared,
    Stacey and I will go outside and twirl.
    â€œWhy did they name you Stacey?” I ask through the screen.
    â€œMother said a nurse named Stacey helped her
    after I was born,” she says. “I was a preemie,
    and Mother and Daddy thought I was going to die.”
    â€œBut you didn’t, thank goodness,” I say.
    â€œI’m too tough. When I get old,
    and am about to go, I’ll kick death so hard
    that it will go away.”
    That’s another reason I like Stacey.
    â€œHow did you get your name?” she asks.
    â€œMy dad said that when I was born,
    Mama thought I cried like the cicadas’ song—
    mee-mee
—
    and made her think of home. Japan.”
    â€œWe have cicadas in Georgia.
    I love the sound. It’s a summer sound,”
    she says softly, like she misses them, too.
    Then I say, “I read there are cicadas
    that live in the ground for years.
    They’re called
magicicadas
,
    and when they’re ready, they all burst out at once
    and fly, blocking out the moon.”
    â€œMother saw that once,” she says. “I wish we could see them here.”
    I look into the part of the sky
    where the New Birthday Moon should be,
    and say, “They wait until just the right time.”

Apollo 11
    Timothy comes to our house at nine o’clock this morning
    to watch the launch of Apollo 11,
    which will carry three men to the moon.
    Papa says if we don’t see this historic event,
    we will regret it the rest of our lives
    because he’ll never speak to us again.
    But he doesn’t have to tell me that,
    even if it is a joke.
    Mama brings me a tube of butcher paper,
    which I unroll on the living room floor
    to make a map of this historic event.
    I draw Earth
    and the Saturn V rocket steaming on the launchpad.
    I draw a window near the top,
    and Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins
    waving.
    â€œOne day that will be