Reyes, an astronaut, was spending six months on a space station high above the Earth. The work was important, but it was also the same every day, and she often felt very alone.
One Friday night, her radio picked up a faint signal on an amateur frequency. At first she thought she was imagining it, but then she heard a child's voice reading a picture book aloud. The girl's name was Lila. She was nine years old, and she was a member of the radio club at her school in a small town on Earth.
From then on they talked every Friday. Lila asked what space smelled like, and Reyes told her it smelled of hot metal. Lila asked whether the stars were loud, and Reyes explained that space is silent, but that the stars look loud. On her last Friday in orbit, Reyes read Lila the ending of the book. After she landed, the first place she visited was the radio club.