The Missing Telescope Turned Our Open House Into My Public Exit

I practiced the story of the lost hunter for sixty empty seats before the doors opened. I gave the hunter a slow voice and the stars a long pause. Empty rooms deserved a good show, too.

I was a short Hmong American man of forty-nine, with broad hands, silver at my temples, and round glasses that slid down my nose.

My name was Toua Yang. I ran the planetarium at Cottonwood School in Lincoln, Nebraska. My job title was projectionist, though I also fixed seats, cleaned lenses, and found mittens under the back row.

That Thursday, my test star sat on the dome's narrow seam.

One blue dot. If it stayed whole across that join, the picture lined up. If it split, children saw two moons and teachers sent me notes.

I wrote the result in my brown logbook.

Meredith Sloane watched from the aisle.

Meredith Sloane was a tall white woman of fifty-two, with a blunt blond bob, pale eyes, and a cream jacket that never seemed to wrinkle.

She was our campus administrator. Donors got both her hands and her full smile. Staff got instructions while she looked at her phone.

"Still doing it with a pencil?" she asked.

"The pencil doesn't need a password."

"That's exactly what worries me."

She pointed at the little round camera above my test seat.

"That old thing doesn't record people, does it?"

"It's for alignment."

She had already turned away before I could finish.

It took a full sphere image, ceiling and floor, every ninety seconds during a test loop. Tonight's loop would run between talks and stop at eight. Down in the picture's lower half, our glass service doors faced the loading pad.

The camera had no live screen. A cable fed its pictures to a card in my locked booth cabinet. I checked its files after events.

Years earlier, a district records officer had asked who would maintain the archive. I had signed the form. My name was still beside "designated custodian" on the cabinet card.

People noticed my pencil. They rarely noticed that card.

Felix Okafor arrived carrying paper cups of cider.

"I have a question about the moon," he said.

"You always do."

He was thirty-three, Nigerian American, and our science teacher. His questions could turn a broken stapler into a lesson about springs. He also noticed when somebody else got blamed for his mess and stepped forward before they could speak.

"Would the moon smell different if—"

"Drink your cider, Felix."

He laughed and set a cup beside my log.

The open house began at five thirty. Outside, November wind dragged leaves across the school lot. Inside, children passed a new telescope on a wheeled stand.

Its donor plate read: Gift Of The Havel Family, $18,600.

Meredith posed beside it with the Havels. She asked me to move out of the picture, then asked me to move the light so the plate showed.

At six, I told forty children how sailors found north. Between talks, the blue star returned to its seam.

At seven forty-two, Meredith came into my booth with a security officer.

"Where is the telescope?"

"On the display stand."

"The stand is empty."

I followed her to the lobby. The padded straps lay open on the cart.

"I can help look," I said.

"You had the service key. You were the last person responsible for equipment."

"I never signed for that telescope."

She held up a clipboard, but she kept it too far away for me to read.

"We can discuss your signature with the district."

Felix stepped out of his classroom.

"I saw it after Toua started his last show," he said.

"This is a personnel matter."

"Then stop holding it in the hallway."

Meredith turned to the officer.

"Take his keys. Escort him out."

He was a school guard, not a police officer. His name was Dale, and he looked at the floor as I handed over the ring.

Waiting students stood along the hall with their coats half on. A girl wearing paper Saturn rings lowered her hand when I passed.

"Did Mr. Yang do something?" she asked.

Meredith answered loudly enough for the parents behind her.

"School property has been stolen. We are taking appropriate action."

Dale let me collect my coat and lunch. He watched while I closed the booth. I left every district drive and card inside its locked cabinet.

At the outer door, Felix pressed a receipt into my hand.

"My number," he said. "And the time I saw the scope. Six fifty-eight. I wrote it down."

I stood beside my car until my hands stopped shaking.

Then I remembered the blue dot, returning every ninety seconds. I remembered the little camera watching both halves of the room.

Before I drove home, my phone chimed.

The district had sent my leave notice. Attached was an equipment disposal request for the planetarium camera, signed that afternoon by Meredith Sloane.