New Kid

       My mother and I pack our few possessions into boxes we have found behind the grocery store, then drive to the house we've rented in the poorest part of town. I stack the boxes on the kitchen floor, then go in search of the sweet fragrance that hangs like mist in the still summer air. Stepping into the backyard, I see that honeysuckle vines wrap a chicken-wire fence in a thick carpet of green leaves and yellow flowers. I stare at the honeysuckle and smile into the sunlight.

       Across the fence an old woman is working in her vegetable garden, watching me in the way that old people sometimes do. After a few moments, she straightens her back and says, "Climb over. I've got something to show you." I hop the fence where the honeysuckle is thinnest and follow her into a tiny garage where she points to a cardboard box. "My son loved those books, but he's gone to college now. He said to give them to an eleven-year-old boy. Are you eleven?" I nod that I surely am.

       The box contains all the adventures of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, and inside each cover is a name written in blue ink: "Sammy Haggard." It's a signature that will forever be etched in my memory because Sammy Haggard made it possible for me to spend an entire summer traveling the solar system in a spaceship called Polaris, with a new friend named Tom Corbett.

       When you're the new kid and you don't know anyone and your parents are getting a divorce, Jupiter is a pretty great place to be.

       Thank you, Sammy Haggard. I'll always remember your name.