Journey’s End

By Mike Smithwick

February 28, 2208

Dear Diary, I am sorry for taking so long to write since last time, but a lot has happened, and even little girls have a lot to do. It’s almost two weeks since we left earth. Our ship is called The Seraphim. It is huge! Really big! There must be zillions of people here but Papa says only a couple of million. He says that we’re in one of the smaller ships.

Granny was allowed to send us a message yesterday. She and Grampy are okay and miss Benny and me. Papa is still mad that they don’t let old people come. But Granny said that even if they could come she and Grampy would stay so some younger families could go instead. It’s been months since we saw them back on earth since we had to move to the ship in November. I’ll miss them and the farm. I’ll miss old Clara, even if she couldn’t give any more milk. Grampy told us that the harvest this year will be really bad. The sun is doing funny things, one year Papa said it was not bright enough so the earth was cold. Then it will get too bright, so the earth will be hot. Grampy says it is hard to plant anything anymore because of that. So that is why we had to go.

Benny and I start school in a few days. Yuck! He likes it, but I want to explore. Mommy and Papa took us to a window on Saturday so we could see the stars for real instead of on the computer screen. I could see half the earth and I think the moon. But the stars were hard to see until Papa got some nice man to turn the lights off in the viewing room. Then I could see all of the stars. And it was soooo pretty! And the earth there in the middle of them. It looked smaller than on the computer though. Really small. I waved to granny and Grampy. I think they waved back.

I miss them.

I made a friend, Shanti. She lives nearby. She says she is from India and is really pretty. She’s really old, almost 20! She was crying when I found her. She misses her granny too in India. She wants to go home, but I had to tell her what Papa told Benny and me. That t