I know it is going to be a good school year because Jupiter is moving into my constellation.
Okay, I know you’re thinking that this sounds stupid, but why is it any stupider than things like four-leaf clovers and lucky pens or “breakfast every day makes you better at tests”? Maybe there’s some scientific truth to that last one, but I think mostly the truth is that you believe it. Really, you’re good at tests if you’re good at tests, or a certain kind of test, and I hate people thinking that just having a bowl of cereal is suddenly going to make you awesome at multiple-choice questions. Multiple-choice questions are the worst. As if the world is ever that black and white.
Mom says it’s fine that I’m not good at multiple-choice tests. And Mother says she’s okay with it too, but she wants to make sure I’m trying. Mother’s a lawyer, which means she had to pass a bar exam, so she is really good at multiple- choice tests. It’s a good thing we have Mom to balance things out. Mom teaches yoga and does astrology readings. She’s the one who taught me how to read the stars, and how to pay attention to the cycles of the moon and the path of the sun.
And she’s why I know it is going to be a good school year because Jupiter is moving into my constellation.
I tell her that as she’s driving me to school, which she’s doing only because it’s the first day. We are doing three-part yoga breaths as we drive, because Mom thinks that you shouldn’t start the day with stale oxygen in your lungs.
“And positive thinking, Merrow,” she is saying as I exhale all the air out of my lungs and contract my rib cage. “That’s always the key, right?”
“Jupiter’s in my constellation this year,” I remind her. “Good things,” she agrees. “Expansion. Scope. Open horizons.”
“It’s going to be a good year,” I decide.
“And that’s the first key to it being a good year!” she crows. “Namaste, kiddo,” she says, and she leans over and kisses my head. “Mother’ll be here to get you at the end of the day.”
“If she’s too busy, I can take the bus,” I say, gathering up my bag.
“Not on your first day!” She sounds horrified that I would ever have suggested that.
I shake my head fondly and get out of the car and take a second to look up toward the high school. It’s old and kind of shabby-looking, although the graffiti has been freshly eliminated from the bricks in honor of the brand-new school year. When it was built, I’m sure it was super grand, with its Ionic columns and all that, and that’s probably why it’s still standing, because, as Mother says, stuff was built to last back then.
Providence is the kind of city that’s got a ton of private schools that you could go to, but Mother and Mom decided to keep me in public school. The public school isn’t the best in the world, but it’s not the worst, and I’m used to everyone. I wouldn’t say I’m one of those people with tons of friends, but I’m also not one of those people who hates everyone. Mom says it’s a combination of my sun sign (Cancer) and the planets in my twelfth house. I’m just a loner, she says. She always says it proudly because loners, she says, learn to be independent, and independence is always good.
Anyway, I don’t feel any great dread over the start of another school year, and in fact, I feel more excitement than I have in the past, because this year Jupiter is in my constellation, and I think it’s going to be a great year.
***
They do homeroom at my school alphabetically, which means it’s boring and predictable and there’s never any chance of a shake-up—of you getting to sit next to someone different from the person you’ve been sitting next to for the past twelve years of your life, since kindergarten. My last name is Rodriguez-Chance, because my mothers didn’t believe in only one of their names carrying on. The school has always treated it as an R name. One year I tried to convince them that Rodriguez was my middle name and I should be in the A-through-F homeroom, just so that I could start my day off with a different group of people. I almost succeeded too. Because they were both my last name, my mothers supported the idea that I should get to be a Chance one year, to make up for all the Rodriguezes I’d already gotten to be, but the school didn’t see it that way.
