Branca

Chapter 3

The smallest bedroom of the house is Branca's. From her window she can see the backyards of the other houses with their orange rooftops and white walls. Her three cats come and go as they please and Branca is lucky to see one of them before she leaves for the long journey to Jupiter. The doorbell rings and someone answers it.

"Who is it?" asks Branca.

"It's André." Answers her young sister.

She closes her duffel bag packed with all her most important belongings and leaves her bedroom to the entrance.

"Hey, need help?" asks her cousin André.

"Yeah, can you take this down to the car? I'm just going to say goodbye to everybody." Her cousin takes the duffel bag and leaves.

Branca goes into her mother's bedroom and says:

"Mom, I'm leaving."

"Alright, take care of your cousins. It's their first time off planet."

"I know. I will. I just wished everybody would stop worrying about it so much."

"You can't stop people from worrying."

"Yeah, I know."

"Did you say goodbye to your sister yet?"

"Not yet." She kisses her mother goodbye and leaves her bedroom. "Ana, I'm leaving." She says out loud. From another bedroom comes a teenager of about her height with long curly hair.

"Goodbye then." she kisses her sister goodbye on both cheeks.

Branca knocks on the last bedroom door, her brother's bedroom, and enters without waiting for an answer.

"Alexandre I'm leaving."

"Ok, goodbye."

"Take care of mom for me, alright?" She doesn't kiss him goodbye, talking is enough for him. Her brother is mentally disabled in spite of being older than she is, truthly, he's actually nine years old.

Before leaving she takes a look in the mirror putting her wild curly hair in a large ponytail. She puts her black beret on and leaves the house. André is already siting in the driver's seat, next to him is Gonçalo looking sleepy.

"Good morning."

"Hmm." Moans Gonçalo.

"I said good morning, Gonçalo."

"Good morning." He answers with a gloomy expression.

"You look sleepy, what did you do all night?"

"I spent the night with my girlfriend."

"Oh, I see."

"Yeah, all night with her. One moment he's there having dinner the next he's gone. Didn't even bother to tell anyone where he was going. We found out where he was this morning when his girlfriend's car stopped in the front gate. I don't think he even packed everything."

"You did pack, right?" she asks.

"Of course I did. His talking bullshit. Don't listen to him."

Branca laughed. Out of the three Gonçalo is the only one with a girlfriend. Both Branca and André keep to themselves and there isn't much room for romance in their lives.

They drive out of the city into the highway and André turns the radio on.

"I've been trying to research what is known about Jupiter but all that's come up are scientific researches, nothing about people living there. Not even theories. Just a bunch of gibberish about its mass and gravity. If I know anything about gravity and I don't, aren't we going to, like, die or something?" Asks Gonçalo.