Signal (novel)

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Signal is a 2009 children’s science fiction novel by Cynthia DeFelice. It was chosen as a Junior Library Guild selection in 2009.

Owen is a lonely boy who just moved to upstate New York’s Finger Lakes with his workaholic father after his mother died. He spends his summer exploring with his dog Josie, looking for something to do. One day he finds a piece of cloth with blood and follows bootprints to an abandoned house, where he meets Campion, called Cam, a girl with bright green eyes who says she’s from another planet.

Cam explains that her parents landed on Earth, but she was accidentally left behind. She tells him that a man named Ray and a woman named Bobbie are chasing her because she escaped from a hotel where they kept her. Cam says she likes Tootsie Rolls and that life on Earth isn’t all bad. Owen starts bringing her food and water and hides her from his father and the Dog People—Ernie and Charlene, a warm couple with many adopted dogs.

Cam asks Owen to help her send a “signal” to her home planet by carving marks in a wheat field. They must hide for exactly four days, during a full moon. As they grow closer, Cam asks Owen to come with her to her planet. They camp together, talk about her world, and Cam explains their planet’s war-torn past and how they’ve learned to live peacefully; she even says dogs are loved there and that Josie could come too.

Back home, Owen tries to reach his father and leaves a note promising to come home early. But his father is busy with an important audit. After a night of worry, Owen helps Cam plant the signal in the field using a wooden board. They wait for a spaceship, but Ray appears and attacks them. Cam fights back and knocks Ray unconscious with the board. A police helicopter arrives, and Cam and Owen surrender. Cam reveals she is actually Bobbie’s daughter who ran away and had imagined she was from another planet; Owen’s belief made the idea feel possible.

In the end, Cam moves in with Ernie and Charlene, and Owen begins talking to his dad again. They plan a hike in the Adirondack Mountains. The final line: Owen says, “Cam said life on Earth has its points. And I think she is right.”