“Boys, not in my class!” says Miss Riley. The class settles down.

“Thank you, Quentin,” continues Miss Riley. “Now Quentin’s right, y’all. Sputnik is a milestone in history. Things’ll never be the same again.” She stops in front of Homer, who is daydreaming.

“What do you think about that, Homer?” she asks.

“Well, yes, ma’am!” says Homer, snapping out of his daydream.

“Cat got your tongue?” laughs Miss Riley. “We were talkin’ about bein’ in orbit…hundreds of miles away from the Earth. You know anything about that?”

“No, ma’am,” says Homer. He smiles at her sheepishly.

“I got my eye on you, boy,” says Miss Riley. “Now who can tell me why Sputnik is so important?”

A girl in Homer’s class, Valentine, looks at Homer quietly.

That night, the townspeople of Coalwood search the skies for Sputnik.

“We ought to just shoot the damn thing down,” says one man. “It’s got one of them little spy cameras in it. It takes pictures of every one of our missile bases.”

“This country’d better get on the ball before it’s too late,” says a woman.

“All I know is this Sputnik had better show up soon,” says Homer’s mom. “I’m gettin’ a crick in my neck.”

Meanwhile, Roy Lee is explaining to Homer what to do on a date.

“All right. What you need to do is take her to the movies,” says Roy Lee. “Somethin’ scary, like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. Then you take your arm and put it up round the back of – “

In This Episode

• Jake Gyllenhaal as Homer Hickam
• Laura Dern as Miss Riley
• William Lee Scott as Roy Lee
• Natalie Canerday as Elsie Hickam
• Kaili Hollister as Valentine Carmina