Look at the stars//The Lunar Chronicles Oneshots

Of Names and Conversations

A Collection of Short Stories with the Same Beginning

"Cinder!" A boy skipped to the playground. "Let's play pirates! I'll be Captain Carswell! That's... that's... a- ale- something!"

"Alliteration, Carswell," Cinder called out.

"Hey!" he cried indignantly. "You don't call me Carswell! Call me Captain, or Captain Carswell, but not Carswell!"

"Sure... Carswell." Cinder smirked.

"Stop! Or- or, I'll make you walk the plank!"

Cinder swung around the bars. "I don't see a plank. Besides, Crescent calls you Carswell, and you don't mind."

Carswell huffed. "Well, you're not Cress!"

"I know! You like-like her! You let her call you Carswell, and you even gave her a nickname!"

Carswell wrinkled his nose, though Cinder thought his face was a bit pink. "No, I don't!"

"Yes, you do!"

"No, I don't!"

•

"Cinder," sang a musical voice.

A grunt.

"Cinder!" Winter tried again.

A muffled groan.

"Wake up, Cinder! It's the first day of fourth grade!"

No response.

"If you don't get up, I'm going to steal all your cargo jeans."

Cinder bounced out of bed. "No!"

Winter laughed. "That's what gets you out of bed?"

Cinder shrugged. "Dunno. Go away so I can change."

"Into one of your cargo jeans?"

"Go away!"

"Don't make us late!"

•

"Cinder."

She looked up from her blueprint of the inside of a motor. "What."

"Help."

"With what."

"My chart." Iko waved a hand at the paper spread out in front of her.

"It's called a blueprint."

"Yeah, yeah. I need your help."

"No, you don't. We're not doing anything to it, just studying it."

"Oh." Iko's attention was on her phone.

"Why are we studying it, again?"

Cinder rolled her eyes. "Stop texting in class and maybe you'll know."

Iko sighed dramatically. "But who's going to organize all the outings for us? Besides, you could always tell me after class."

"I'm not going anywhere. And we're building a robot in class tomorrow."

"And?"

"So I'm studying blueprints I borrowed from the teacher."

"And what does that have to do with class?"

Cinder looked exasperated. "So we can build it successfully tomorrow!"

"I'm pretty sure, Cinder," Iko replied without looking up from her phone, "that Mrs. Jackson wouldn't ask us to build a motor from scratch."