Chapter TwentyThe sky above us is a fluorescent purple—the kind used in psychedelic black light paintings. The clouds are pink and look like blobs of heavenly cotton candy.
When I was a kid, I had the worst case of what Mom later called “whyism”—I asked the question “why” about once every half hour. I recall being specifically curious about four big questions: Why is sitting still so boring? Why is sugar sweet? Why is water wet? And (relevant to the current situation) why is the sky blue?
I later learned why my parents had so much trouble explaining that last question to a five-year-old; the answer is so complex that I only vaguely understand it now, as an adult. The short version is that light coming from the sun has every color in it (colors being light of different wavelengths), but t
