The Smallest Astronaut

Juno had been waiting for this day since she was three years old.

That was the year she saw the moon through her dad's binoculars and said, "I want to go there and check on it." Her dad had laughed, but Juno hadn't been joking. Not even a little bit.

Now she was seven, and she was standing inside the real, actual, not-pretend Space Center with her real, actual astronaut boots on — which were just white sneakers, but she had drawn stars on them with silver marker, so they counted.

"Welcome, Junior Space Cadets!" called Commander Ava from the front of the room. Commander Ava was tall and had short gray hair and a voice like a trumpet. "Today, you will train like real astronauts. And at the end of the day, one of you — just one — will get to ride the Zero-G Plane."

Juno's heart jumped so hard she thought it might float away without her.

The Zero-G Plane was a special airplane that flew in big roller-coaster arcs through the sky, and at the very top of each arc, for about twenty-five seconds, you floated. Actually floated. Like you were in space.

Juno needed to be on that plane.

She looked around the room. There were eleven other kids. Some were taller. Some were older. A boy in the front row had a t-shirt that said "FUTURE MARS COLONIST" and was already raising his hand even though nobody had asked a question.

Juno swallowed hard. She was the smallest person in the room. By a lot.

"Our first challenge," Commander Ava announced, "is the Suit-Up Drill. A real astronaut must put on their flight suit in under two minutes. Ready? GO!"

Everyone scrambled. The flight suits were laid out on long tables, and Juno grabbed hers, but it was enormous — the arms flopped past her hands and the legs pooled around her feet like a fabric puddle.

She tried to zip it up, but the zipper was way up by her chin and the suit kept sliding off her shoulders. She yanked it up. It slid down. She yanked it up again. It slid down again. The boy in the Mars shirt finished first and pumped his fist.

Juno finished last. Dead last. She stood there in her saggy, baggy suit, and her cheeks burned hot.

"That's okay, cadet," Commander Ava said. But Juno didn't feel okay.

The second challenge was the Balance Walk — a long, narrow beam you had to cross while wearing a heavy backpack, just like astronauts doing spacewalks with heavy equipment. Juno watched kid after kid wobble across. Some made it. Some stepped off.

When it was Juno's turn, the backpack was so heavy it pushed her forward, and she stumbled on the third step. Her arms windmilled. One foot slipped off the beam. She caught herself — barely — and tiptoed the rest of the way across with her whole body shaking.

She made it. But just barely. And nobody clapped.

By lunchtime, Juno had also come in last on the Memory Test — she forgot the order of two switches. She came in almost last on the Communication Drill — her voice was so quiet the microphone barely picked it up. And she came in exactly in the middle on the Teamwork Puzzle, which didn't feel like enough.

She sat on a bench outside and ate her sandwich very slowly.

"I'm not going to get picked," she whispered to her sandwich.

Her sandwich didn't answer, because it was a sandwich.

But then she heard footsteps, and Commander Ava sat down next to her.

"Rough morning?" Commander Ava asked.

Juno nodded. "I'm too small. And too slow. And too quiet."

Commander Ava didn't say anything right away. She just looked up at the sky for a long moment, like she was reading something written in the clouds.

"You know," she said, "when I applied to be an astronaut, I got rejected. Three times."

Juno looked up. "Three times?"

"Three. They told me all sorts of reasons. Too old. Wrong background. Not the right fit." Commander Ava stretched her long legs out. "I applied a fourth time anyway. Do you know why?"

Juno shook her head.

"Because I wasn't trying to beat anyone else. I was doing it because every single time I looked up at the sky, something in my chest said go." She glanced at Juno. "Does your chest ever say that?"

"All the time," Juno said. "Every single night when I see the moon."

Commander Ava smiled. "Then we've got one more challenge this afternoon. Let's see what happens."

The last challenge was the Mission Simulation. Each kid sat in a little capsule with a screen, a joystick, and a dozen buttons. The screen showed a tiny spaceship approaching a spinning space station, and you had to dock the ship — connect it to the station — gently and perfectly while the station tumbled and rotated.

"This is the hardest test," Commander Ava told them. "Real astronauts practice this hundreds of times."

Juno climbed into her capsule. Her feet didn't reach the floor, so she sat on her knees. The screen glowed blue. The little spaceship drifted in the darkness, and the space station spun slowly ahead of it.

She put her hands on the controls.

And something strange happened.

Everything went quiet. Not quiet like the room was silent — other kids were groaning and muttering and tapping buttons all around her. But quiet inside Juno's head. Like all the worry about being too small and too slow and too quiet just... floated away.

She watched the station spin. She didn't rush. She tapped the joystick gently — just a tiny, tiny nudge to the left. Then she waited. The spaceship drifted closer. She gave it another nudge. Then another. Patient and steady, like she was sneaking up on a sleeping cat.

The station rotated. Juno watched its docking port come around... come around... come around... and at exactly the right moment, with the softest touch on the thruster button, she slid her spaceship forward and —

Click.

The screen flashed green. DOCKING COMPLETE.

Juno blinked. She looked around. Other kids were still trying. Some were jabbing their joysticks, frustrated. The boy in the Mars shirt bumped his ship into the station too hard, and his screen flashed red.

Commander Ava walked up behind Juno and looked at her screen. Then she looked at Juno. Then she looked at the screen again.

"Time?" Commander Ava called out to her assistant.

"One minute, forty-four seconds. That's... the fastest today. By a lot."

Commander Ava's eyes crinkled. "Cadet Juno. How did you do that?"

Juno thought about it. "I just... watched. And waited. And didn't push too hard."

At four o'clock, Juno stood in the belly of the Zero-G Plane, wearing a flight suit that had been pinned and rolled and tucked until it actually fit her. Her heart was a drum. Her hands were trembling.

The plane's engines roared, and it climbed, and climbed, and climbed —

And then the pilot pushed over the top of the arc.

And Juno floated.

Her feet left the floor. Her arms drifted up. Her ponytail rose around her head like a dark halo. She was weightless. She was flying without wings. She was swimming in nothing at all.

She laughed — a big, bright, bubbling laugh — and tears floated off her cheeks in tiny sparkling spheres.

For twenty-five seconds, Juno was exactly where she had always wanted to be.

And she was not too small. She was not too slow. She was not too quiet.

She was just right.

When the plane landed, Juno walked back across the runway to where her dad was waiting. He knelt down and opened his arms.

"How was it?" he asked.

Juno looked up at the sky, where the moon was already appearing, pale and patient in the afternoon blue.

"Dad," she said, "I'm going to check on it someday. I really am."

And this time, her dad didn't laugh.

He just nodded and said, "I know."