To her credit, April didn’t freak out. She waited until Gemma was finished, and then she scooted closer on the bench to give Gemma a hug. April gave the best hugs. Even though Gemma was much larger than April was, somehow April made her feel totally enfolded, totally taken care of.

“I’m proud of you, bug,” April said, using an old nickname, which made Gemma laugh and cry harder at the same time.

Gemma pulled away. “Jeez. I’m like a snot factory,” she said.

“I hear there’s big money in snot nowadays.”

Gemma laughed again, choking a bit, wiping her face with a sleeve. “Do you think I’ll ever feel normal again?”

April snorted. “Come on, Gemma. When did we ever feel normal?” She nudged Gemma’s shoulder. “We’re aliens, remember?”

“You’re an alien,” Gemma said. “I’m a clone.”

“The Adventures of Alien and Clone. Sounds like a Marvel movie. I’m in,” April said. And then, in a different voice, “Besides, normal is overrated. Normal is a word invented by boring people to make them feel better about being boring.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Gemma did, in fact, feel a little better. A little lighter. She was still dreading going home to confront her parents, but she knew she couldn’t delay it forever. The sun had risen. The sky was the color of a Creamsicle, and full of whipped-cream clouds. She stood up. “We should probably wake the others.”

“No way. Uh-uh. You skipped over the most important part of the story.” April grabbed Gemma’s wrist and hauled her down onto the bench again. She was grinning, shark-wide, the way she did. “So,” she said, leaning forward on an elbow. “’Fess up. What’s the deal with you and Perv?”

They were on the road by ten. April followed the van in her car, occasionally tooting her horn or pulling up alongside the van to wave or give a thumbs-up. Pete kept up a constant stream of conversation, as usual, but this time he spoke mostly to Lyra and Caelum, trying to explain all about the world they hardly knew.

“Strip malls are like the arteries of America. They keep the whole country alive. Pizzerias, nail salons, shitty hardware stores . . . this is it, you know? The pinnacle of human achievement. If we ever get to Mars, I bet we’ll build a nail salon first thing.”

Mostly, Gemma listened. Mostly, she turned her face to the window and saw her double reflected there, ghostly over the passing landscape: a different Gemma from the one who’d left home less than a week ago—stronger, both more and less sure of herself. She didn’t know what was coming for her, but she knew that she’d be ready. They were safe for now. They were together. She had April and Pete. Lyra had her. Caelum had a name.

And despite what she’d said to April, she felt a little less alien than she had before. A little smarter. A little more amazed, too, by all the mysteries she’d seen, by the complexity of the universe and the people inside of it.

A little more human, even.