New Kid on Mars

“Cal, hurry! You don’t want to be late for your first day of school!” my mom yells. 

“I can’t get my Mars boots on!” I groan. My mom and I just moved to Mars. My mom is a scientist. She’s super excited to be here. Me? Not so much. I miss Earth. 

“Just zip them,” my mom says. 

“I can’t!” I say. 

“We don’t say ‘can’t’ on Mars,” my mom says. She doesn’t get it. Doing anything here feels a million times harder than it did on Earth. 

I yank on the zipper again. It slides up my boot. My Mars boots are on, finally. My mom smiles. 

“See? I knew you could do it,” she says. I frown. I’m still frustrated. I miss wearing flip-flops.

At school, I can’t do anything right. In spelling, I’m supposed to spell the word Glurgz. It’s a weird word they use here. I don’t have a clue what it means, let alone how to spell it. 

In math, the teacher asks us how many days are in a year. I say 365. That’s how many days there are in a year on Earth. But the teacher says that’s wrong. Apparently there are 687 days in a year on Mars. 

As if all that weren’t bad enough, my school supplies keep floating away. There’s not much gravity on Mars. Earth pencils and Earth paper don’t stay put. Just when I think things can’t get any worse, it’s time for PE. 

“Who’s ready for dust boarding?” the PE teacher says. Everyone cheers, except me. 

“What’s dust boarding?” I whisper to the girl next to me.

“It’s awesome. It’s like snowboarding on Earth but more fun. When you go over a jump, you float super high in the air,” she says. 

“Got it,” I say. Dust boarding sounds like one more thing I can’t do. 

“I’m Zoog, by the way. You’re the new kid, right?” the girl says. 

“Yeah, I’m Cal. I just moved here from Earth,” I say. 

“You’re totally dusty!” Zoog says. She walks away and grabs her dust board. 

Looks like I can’t even make a friend on Mars. That was so mean of her to call me dusty! It was harsh. I am pretty dusty, it’s true, but I can’t help it. Everything on Mars is dusty! 

I brush the dust off my Mars suit, feeling really embarrassed. In fact, I’m mortified.

We walk outside to the red mountains behind the school. 

I get on my dust board and start sliding. I go over the jump. I sail through the air. Then I fall flat on my face in a pile of dust. I look up the mountain. 

“Nice wipeout! You’re sooo dusty!” Zoog yells. 

This is too much. Everything on Mars is so hard, and now this girl is bullying me? I fell in the dust! It’s not my fault that I’m dusty. I can’t take it anymore! I sit there and start to cry.

Zoog slides down the mountain and stops beside me. “What’s wrong?” she says. 

“You keep calling me dusty! I know I can’t do anything on Mars. I can’t dust board. I can’t make friends. I know I’m dusty. But you don’t have to rub it in!” 

“Wait, Cal, no! Dusty isn’t a bad thing. Dusty means . . . how would you say it on Earth? Amazing! Cool! Awesome!” 

“Oh,” I sniff. 

“Also, you can dust board. I just saw you do it. And you can make friends, because I want to be your friend. I know it’s really, really hard to move planets. But just because things are hard doesn’t mean you can’t do them. We don’t say ‘can’t’ on Mars.” 

“My mom said that to me this morning. Why does everyone keep saying that?” I say. 

“It’s an expression on Mars. It’s a thing people say. Think about it. They used to say, ‘People can’t live on Mars.’ But here we are. It’s hard, but we’re doing it. So why would we say ‘can’t’ about other things?” 

“Oh, wow. I kinda get it now,” I say. Zoog reaches out her hand and pulls me up from the dust. We climb back up the mountain together. 

I look at the sky. Far away, I see Earth. I think about how far people have come. I think about how far I have come, just today. 

Zoog is right. Just because things are hard doesn’t mean I can’t do them. I’m ready to try going down the mountain again. 

“How are you feeling?” Zoog says.

“I think I feel . . . dusty!” I say. Zoog smiles.

“Let’s dust board!” she yells. I strap on my dust board and we glide down the mountain. 

“Dusty!” we yell together as we go over the jump.