1st Five Pages May Workshop - Miles Rev 1

Name: Melissa Miles
Genre: Middle Grade contemporary
Title: Carina of the Southern Sky

If I could remember more about the night Mama got taken away, I wouldn't be so scared all the time. The harder I tried to remember, the more that night played back in my head like a movie—with the important parts blacked out. The one thing I did remember, though, I wished I could forget. I was the one who called 911 that night. Mama was gone because of me. 

I’d shown up in the middle of the night to live with my foster parents, Andy and Jodie, during summer break. At least there wasn’t school to worry about then. I was too numb to worry about anything that first night. The next morning, I remembered that people down here were supposed to eat opossum at every meal, so I checked the food labels for a week in secret. It turned out to be fake, so I’d stopped checking. I had more important things to worry about anyway.

On the night before the new school year started, Jodie tried to “ease my mind about things” by giving me a back to school pep talk. But it wouldn’t help. What I needed was to start middle school at home, with my friends—and Mama. She told me more times than I could count, “Carina, I’ll always have your back.” I’d believed her then. 

“So, your schedule’s all set,” Jodie was saying. I nodded, about to ask if I could go, when a meatball zoomed right past her. Her mouth fell open, and Andy snatched it out of mid-air before it could ping off his forehead. 

We all froze for a minute. “Good catch,” I finally said. 

“Ninja reflexes,” Andy said, grinning. Then he caught Jodie’s look and said to no one in particular, “No throwing food. You all know the rules.”

Jodie looked at me, then scanned the messy kitchen—which was getting messier by the minute, and cleared her throat. “Carina, could you excuse me just a minute?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, grateful for the break. I didn’t want to talk about school. I wanted be alone—or as close as possible in a house full of kids.

Jodie turned from me and threw down the “I mean business” look on her sons, Greg and Thomas. “Unless meatballs have sprouted wings without me noticing, one of you better explain how one barely missed me just now.” I saw them shrug, but didn’t want to stick around for the lecture. Gracie and Quez, the youngest foster kids in our house had thrown everything off their highchair trays and had taken to pounding their round little fists like drummers. The room pressed heavy on me. The noise, the lights, the people—it was all too much. I wanted to be alone.

“Excuse me,” I said, pushing back my chair. 

“Carina,” Jodie called to my back. I didn’t answer. The screen door slammed behind me. I heard Andy’s voice say, “Give her a minute.”

Without looking back, I walked far enough to clear the landscaping shrubs and concrete walk. I dropped onto the lawn, and searched above me. Millions of stars twinkled through drifting clouds. “Hey up there,” I said to the clouds. “I’m drifting too.” 

I blinked back tears remembering all the nights Mama and I had sprawled out in our yard back home and pointed into the dark night, trying to be the first one to holler, "There she is! Carina of the Southern sky!" 

At the thought of Mama, all the annoying babyish things she used to say to me played back in my head. Don't ever ask a woman if she's expecting a baby. Don't lick your fingers when you're eating. For heaven's sake, Carina, don't tell your teacher that you don't have a father. Of course you have a father—he's just not around anymore. Even though I'd been real irritated back when she’d said those things, it didn't make the missing her go away now. Nothing did.

The door creaked open on the porch behind me. "Carina, come on in now. It's getting late. Tomorrow's a big day." 

I didn't move. I wanted something familiar—something to make Mama feel closer. 

"Carina, honey. Did you hear me?" 

I knew I couldn't ignore Jodie forever. I took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "Can I have just a few more minutes?" I squeezed as much polite as I possibly could into my voice. 

"What're you doing out there anyway?" 

I rolled over onto my belly to see Jodie squinting at me in the semi-darkness of the porch light. Her face was dotted with freckles when you looked at her up close, but from here it looked like solid white marble—she almost glowed in the dark. 

"I'm looking for my star, that's all. The one I was named for." There wasn’t any reason to tell her that it wasn’t actually possible to see Carina from the Northern Hemisphere. What’re the chances she’d know that, anyway? I’d believed it until a humiliating incident in science last year proved I’d fallen for a big fat lie my whole life. 

Jodie tilted her head to the side. "I guess it's alright. But just for a few more minutes. There's no need in you being tired out for your first day of school tomorrow."

Not trusting my voice to come out steady, I waved to let her know I’d heard. 


I flattened back out on the grass and tried to find where I'd left off. Even with the clouds wandering past, the sky was scattered with more specks of light down in South Georgia than I'd ever seen in Atlanta. I forced myself to tune out everything else—the chirp of crickets, the dampness of the ground under my back, and even my fear of snakes. The Spanish Moss dripping off the low branches looked like ghosts in the dark, but I looked beyond them, refusing to be afraid. 

I finally found “Carina”—shimmering like she was wiggling on purpose to grab my attention. I wondered if Mama could see the sky too. Maybe we were looking at the same sky like we used to. Mama suddenly felt closer to me than she really was. 

When I walked into the large open kitchen, Jodie winked at me. "Find what you were looking for?" She was wiping down the long wooden table that held all of us for meal times. 

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. 

Jodie walked over and gave me a pat on the arm, like she does when she doesn't know what else to do. "Maybe you could show me your star sometime. I'd like to see it."

Before I could answer, she dropped her rag and lunged at Gracie. “Good heavens, don’t eat that!” Gracie had pulled herself up on a chair and had completely chewed the corner off one of Greg’s favorite superhero trading cards. Jodie examined the mangled card with a frown, before wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. 

"Okay, I'll show you," I said, as soon as Jodie had put the card down on the counter, out of Gracie’s reach. 

Jodie's eyes found mine. They were kind of unfocused at first. Sometimes she got so distracted with all the kids in the house, she'd lose track of who she was talking to and what she'd been talking about. But she must have remembered, because she said, "That'll be real nice. What I know about stars would fit in a thimble."