The Schools Asked Me to Explain Their Missing Field Trips

Yara booked a school library for the meeting. She put water on a table and left the student chairs stacked against the wall.

“Adult chairs,” she told the custodian. “They're already upset.”

Six people came in person. Others joined by phone from offices where bells kept ringing. They represented all twenty-four booked school days across Rhode Island.

I stood beside a globe with a dent near Australia.

“I have the equipment back in my care,” I said. “The ownership case is still open. I don't have your deposits.”

A principal from Warwick folded his arms.

“Your company took $600 from us.”

“Beacon Sky did. I own half of it, so I understand why you called me.”

“Then give it back.”

“I'm working through the court to get all the deposits returned. I can't take money from the frozen account on my own.”

He looked at the clock.

“That's a long answer to a small check.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

I had practiced a speech about ownership. Standing there, I saw how little it helped a teacher who had promised the stars to ninety children.

I put the speech away.

“Please tell me what you need,” I said.

A teacher in Tiverton needed dates before state testing. A school in Cranston needed a smaller group for children who struggled with noise. Someone in Pawtucket asked whether the dome had an accessible entrance.

“A wide lift-up flap,” I said. “No crawling required. And I can run the blower before students enter so the sound isn't a surprise.”

The room settled a little.

Yara drew four columns on the board: school, old date, deposit, possible new date.

“Send copies of your signed orders and payment records,” she said. “No student names. We need to match checks to promises.”

“Are you his sales agent now?” the Warwick principal asked.

“I'm the person whose students asked whether the sky got canceled.”

He lowered his eyes.

We worked for an hour. All twenty-four schools had paid $600 deposits on $1,200 visits. The total was $14,400. Gideon had sent invoices showing a substitute operator, but no substitute had signed a contract with him.

One school had called the listed contact number. It was the warehouse phone.

“He sold us an empty date,” the teacher said.

I left a separate sheet with possible North Pin dates and a price of $1,200 for each full school day. Nothing required an immediate signature.

“Any new visit will have its own order,” I said. “Please wait until your refund is settled. I won't ask you to pay twice while we sort this out.”

Afterward, Yara helped stack chairs.

“You could have blamed him harder,” she said.

“They needed dates.”

“They needed the truth, too. We can give them both.”

That afternoon, she sent a simple form for each school to confirm its deposit and request cancellation of the old booking. The district offices handled their own approvals. Ruth collected copies for the case.

I went to Portsmouth and tested the dome.

Its blue cloth rose slowly, then rounded into the shape I knew better than my own living room. I crawled through the service flap and sat inside alone.

Without stars, the ceiling was only cloth.

I had bought that dome after years of borrowing rooms and hanging sheets. I had put my whole first season's profit into it. When Beacon Sky began, Gideon had brought a laptop and a phone list. I had brought the sky.

I checked the pressure gauge and wrote the reading on my service sheet. Then I checked the exit flap. Students would trust this room because their teachers trusted me. Whatever happened in court, I still had to earn that trust each time I opened the door.

Somehow, I had let him make me feel lucky to stand beneath it.

My phone buzzed before I switched on the projector.

Gideon had written to every school contact.

Mr. Zieliński has removed essential company assets. Any direct booking may interfere with existing agreements.

Yara called a minute later.

“Send that to Ruth,” she said.

“Already did.”

“Good. Now turn on your machine. I can hear you sitting in the dark.”

I laughed because she was right.

The stars appeared, each point clean except the little gap in Orion. I made a note to fix it before our next show.

At home that evening, I opened an old email Yara had forwarded with the deposit forms. It was from Gideon, written two years earlier during a school insurance review.

He had attached our full equipment schedule.

In his own message, he had written, North Pin retains title; Beacon Sky only handles bookings.

Below that message sat a second attachment. Its filename matched the asset list he had brought to court.