"Cheerios and bacon."

She thought about that. "Yeah, you’re right."

"And Big Macs."

She gave me a look like I was a moron. "Of course, dummy, but the monks will bring them just before we leave."

"We’re going on a trip?"

"We’re on a trip now. We’re going to arrive."

Early the next morning, Dr. Hariki showed up on our doorstep. He works with my dad at the university. My dad teaches physics; he uses lasers and everything. Dr. Hariki is in charge of the big telescope on top of the physics building, and he takes pictures of stars.

"What’s up?" Dad asked.

"You tell me," Dr. Hariki said, spreading a bunch of photographs on the coffee table.

Dad picked up a picture and looked at it. Turned it over to check out the date and time written on the back. Sorted through the stack of photos till he found whatever he was looking for and compared it to the first. Held the two together side by side. Held one above the other. Put them side by side again. Closed his right eye, then quick closed his left and opened his right. Did that a couple of times. Picked up another pair of photos and did the same.

Muffin came into the room with a glass of orange juice in her hand. "Looks more like a dipper now, doesn’t it?" she said without looking at the pictures.

Dad and Dr. Hariki stared at her with their mouths wide open. Muffin said, "The dipper was too spread out before. Don’t you think it looks better now?"

"Muffin," Dad said, "we’re talking about stars... full-size suns. They don’t just move to make nicer patterns."

"No, but if they’re going to stop moving, you might as well make sure they look like a dipper in the end. Anything else is just sloppy. I mean, really."

She walked off into the TV room and a moment later, we heard the Sesame Street  theme song.

After a long silence, Dr. Hariki picked up one of the photos and asked, all quiet, "Something to do with entropy?"