DAVID

I look up at the night sky. There are no clouds tonight and the street lights don't shine into the back part of my house, so we have a clear view of the stars. I adjust my telescope stand, balancing it securely on the roof, while Gordy and Jay set up to watch the meteor shower. The roof just outside my window and above the kitchen is flat and doesn't slant down like the roof higher up. It's my favourite place to be. Mom hates it when we come out here, especially since Gordy is a bit on the heavier side and she thinks the roof will cave in.

I look into the telescope to see if I can get a focus. The stars make me think of Kati and her beautiful green eyes reflecting the light of the TV screen when we were watching Solar Trek together. I can't figure her out. Sometimes she smiles at me and my heart races, then two seconds later she looks pissed off at me. I guess girls are supposed to be impossible to figure out. Sitting in the living room with her mom and dad was so awkward. Her mom's nice but her dad was even more terrifying than mine. I tried talking to her during the commercial breaks but I don't think I was making any sense. If I wasn't so in love with her then maybe I could be a friend to her.

"David!" Gordy yells loudly beside me.

"What?" I lift my shoulder up to cover my ear. "Don't yell in my ear."

"What are you thinking about?"

"Life on other planets," I lie. I haven't told the guys yet that I was at Kati's house earlier, before they came over. I don't feel like bragging about it, although it's a pretty big deal.

"Like Klingons?" Jay says from somewhere in the dark. He's restricted to a corner of the roof now, after tripping over the telescope, twice.

"No Jay, he means real life on other planets," Gordy says.

"Yeah, I know, Klingons are from another planet. Where do you think they're from, Earth?"

I sigh. "Don't you think it's egotistical for us to think we are the only living beings in all of space and time?" I say, interrupting their argument.

Gordy shoves me aside to look into the telescope. "How do we know they could ever reach us even if they were out there?" he says, adjusting the focus. "Do you know how impossible that is? Even traveling at the speed of light it would take us hundreds of years to get to the next inhabitable planet."

"Not if we travel at warp speed," Jay says.

Gordy is about to respond but I grab his arm and give him a don't-bother look.

"Anyway," Gordy continues. "Even if there was a way to travel warp speed and we found life out there, I doubt there would be any even close to our level of intelligence. I still think we're the smartest species to ever exist in all of space and time."

"Now that's egotistical!" I say.

Suddenly a streak of light shoots across the sky with a loud shriek. Gordy jumps back, covering his ears with both of his hands and bumping into me. I fall forward, almost sliding off the roof. The sky becomes as bright as day for a split second, then the brightness dims and a tail of heads right for us. We duck down. I cover my head with my arms and Jay squeals like a girl.

A deafening silence follows. The shriek from the falling star still resonates in my ears and the light has me seeing spots. I look up to see the meteorite disintegrate to nothing, just before hitting the ground, a few houses down the block. I get up slowly, then Gordy does too, then Jay.

"What was that?" Gordy huffs, running his hands through his hair.

"A spaceship!" Jay yells.

"No it wasn't Jay, unless it was a spaceship of hamster men," Gordy says.

"Hamster men? What are they?"

"Will you guys shut up?" I growl, my heart still pounding.

"It was too small to be a spaceship," Gordy whispers to Jay between clenched teeth.

I look to the spot where the meteorite landed, at the end of the street, right in Shawna's back yard of all places. "It was a meteorite."

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Gordy hurries through the window that leads into my bedroom.

"Wait for me!" Jay follows after him.

I follow them too. Hopefully Shawna isn't home tonight.