Luciana

by Erin Teagan

  FOR JAEDA

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1: THROUGH THESE DOORS …

  CHAPTER 2: ROOMMATES

  CHAPTER 3: MISSION CONTROL CENTER

  CHAPTER 4: SPACE WALK

  CHAPTER 5: RED ROVERS

  CHAPTER 6: SPONSORS

  CHAPTER 7: CAPSULE CREW

  CHAPTER 8: JUNK PARTS

  CHAPTER 9: MISSING MODULE

  CHAPTER 10: THE PLAN

  CHAPTER 11: LIGHTS-OUT BREAK-OUT

  CHAPTER 12: EMERGENCY MEETING

  CHAPTER 13: SAMUEL & BIRDY

  CHAPTER 14: RAINBOW ROVER

  CHAPTER 15: THE COMPETITION

  CHAPTER 16: GRADUATION

  CHAPTER 17: REACHING FOR THE STARS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND SPECIAL THANKS

  LEARN MORE ABOUT LUCIANA

  PREVIEW OF LUCIANA: BRAVING THE DEEP

  REQUEST A CATALOGUE

  COPYRIGHT

  The first thing I saw was the rocket. From a mile away, it appeared to be pointed straight up into the sky. Dad stopped at the traffic light and slurped his coffee. I bumped my head on the window when we started moving again.

  Mom laughed and said, “We’ll see it in person in just a minute.” She looked at the GPS. “Or forty-five seconds, according to this.”

  “There’s another one!” I shouted. And as we got closer, I saw that there were actually six more rockets, clustered together and standing at attention.

  We turned into the parking lot and Mom took out her phone to get a picture of the giant space shuttle that sat just beyond the trees.

  “It’s the Pathfinder,” I said. Seeing it gave me goose bumps because all of this was starting to feel real. Going to Space Camp for six days was a dream of mine since as far back as I could remember. “With an external tank, engine nozzles, and two solid rocket boosters,” I added, in case they didn’t know. My dad was a teacher and my mom was a nurse. They knew a lot about a lot of things, but I was the family expert on space since I was going to be an astronaut.

  Someone honked behind us and Dad rolled the car into a parking spot.

  Mom unbuckled her seat belt. “What do you think? Are you ready?”

  I had read every book on space robots I could find, practiced eating freeze-dried food (even the meatloaf kind), and rode the carnival roller coaster six times in a row to make sure I wouldn’t throw up on the space simulators. I was more than ready. I was going to be so good at Space Camp, they might even ask me to be the first girl on Mars.

  “Luciana,” Mom said, poking me in the shoulder. “Let’s go check in.”

  Dad opened the trunk and took out my rolling suitcase that I’d accidentally filled with all of my space books and drawing pads and colored pencils. Mom pulled out my duffel bag of clothes and my pillow with the solar-system pillowcase.

  Even though we were hundreds of miles from Virginia, my stuff still smelled like our house: avocados and coffee and lemon-lime hand soap.

  “Wait,” I said, pulling everything out of their arms. “I’ve got this.” Astronauts didn’t need their parents to carry their stuff, right? Well then, neither did I.

  We walked through the red Space Camp gates and then slowly through the shuttle park, and then even more slowly through the rocket park where the Saturn V engines towered over us. There was a mass of kids and parents and rolling bags in front of us. I almost dropped my pillow as we walked up to the building to register because there was a sign that said, “Through these doors enter future astronauts, scientists, and engineers.” Mom squeezed my shoulder and nudged me ahead.

  And then I stopped up the line for a bit because I was too wide to get through the doors with all of my bags and pillows. Dad took my rolling bag—but only because I let him—and then we were inside.

  “Name, dear?” asked a lady with a headset.

  “Luciana Vega,” Mom said, and I gave her a look because astronauts speak for themselves.

  “And your age, Luciana?”

  “Eleven,” I said quickly. “You can call me Luci.”

  “Okay, Luci. You are on Team Odyssey, which is at table seven. You can head over there now,” the lady said, moving on to the kid behind me.

  I checked out the rest of the campers, some of them taller than me, some of them smaller, almost all of them wearing some kind of space or science clothing. I looked down at my dress that was the colors of the nighttime sky—blue, red, purple, orange. A girl passed me wearing a shooting star headband and another kid squeaked by with rain boots that looked just like an astronaut’s moon boots. I could already tell this was my kind of place.

  “I wish there had been a camp like this for me when I was growing up,” Dad said, taking it all in.

  “For math teachers?” Mom said with a laugh.

  “Hey, math teachers have dreams too, you know.”

  We started toward table seven, navigating around display cases full of astronaut gear, flight suits, and helmets. We walked past model rockets and robots and a wall lined with framed pictures of important Space Camp graduates.

  “Bet you’ll be up there one day,” Dad said to me.

  “Sure will,” Mom agreed.

  Except the fancy nameplate on my picture would say, “Luciana Vega, First Girl on Mars.”

  “Come on, come on,” Mom said, urging me past the pictures. “You’ll have plenty of time to look at them this week.”

  When we reached table seven, two people jumped up to shake my hand.

  “Good morning, trainee!” they said. “We are your crew trainers. I’m Mallory,” the girl said, pointing to herself, “and this is Alex.”

  Alex waved.

  “I’m Luciana,” I said.

  Mallory clapped her hands. “The essay winner! Right?”

  I nodded, my face feeling like it was on fire. I had entered the essay contest for a Space Camp scholarship three years in a row, and this time I had won. Last year, as a consolation, they’d sent me an official Space Camp pen with a light-up solar system, which made me feel like I was on the right track. And that was pretty great.

  When I’d found out I was the essay winner, Mom had made her famous merengue lucuma cake, a traditional dessert in Chile, and added chocolate chips in the shape of a comet on the top. My favorite.

  I shifted the gigantic pillow in my hand to retrieve the folder and name badge Mallory was holding out. “I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.”

  “Well, your essay on planetary geology was amazing,” Alex said, as Mallory nodded in agreement next to him. “You know a lot about space rocks, huh?”

  Dad patted me on the back.

  “I pretty much know everything about space rocks,” I said.

  “Is that a purple streak in your hair?” Mallory said. “I love it.”

  I exchanged looks with Mom, grinning. For the most part my parents didn’t mind my colorful ideas, except they probably would have preferred they not be so permanent. A fact I did not realize until after my best friend, Raelyn, and I had already applied the dye to our hair. It was my idea. Kind of a friendship thing with Raelyn back home. She had one to match. A stripe of friendship while we were apart.

  Alex laughed. “Well, we need creative future astronauts just like you at Space Camp.”

  Mallory handed me a backpack. “For all of your Space Camp gear. The girls’ bunk is Habitat 4b on the fourth floor. Why don’t you head up and get settled and I’ll check in once everyone else arrives. Okay?” I fanned my face with the folder, which, after a quick glance, I saw was stuffed with information and maps and schedules.

  Mom had to take my pillow so I could get up the stairs without causing another backup. When we reached my floor, I felt like I was in some kind of m
ovie, floating in a space station far above Earth. The walls were metal and curved. We stopped in front of Habitat 4b, and I brushed my hand along the wall. The shiny silver was cold to the touch. I took out my name badge, waved it in front of the lock, and we went inside.

  The inside of the sleep station was white, just like I’d imagine a space habitat to be, including the bunk beds, a long desktop, and a small bank of lockers. Mom checked her watch for the time and gave Dad a look. They had to leave for the airport soon. I took a breath. Even though Space Camp was my kind of place, I wished my parents didn’t have to rush off so fast.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” Mom asked.

  “Are you kidding? I’m at Space Camp!” I said, bouncing onto a bed. But my body throbbed with nerves. What if I had a catastrophic crisis or an ear infection or something? Mom and Dad would be a few states away.

  Mom sat next to me. “If we hear anything about Isadora, we’ll call you right away, okay?”

  My stomach fluttered. Baby Isadora. I was already calling her hermanita in my head. Little sister.

  “Promise?” I said.

  Dad kissed me on the forehead. “Promise. They should have received our paperwork by now. We expect to hear something any day.”

  Baby Isadora was at an orphanage in Chile that Mom and Dad had visited a few months ago. Sometimes they went back to Chile, where they grew up, to help in the hospitals and orphanages and to visit Abuelita, my grandma, and the rest of our family. Mom and Dad fell in love with Isadora, a baby who clutched a stuffed penguin. After they got home and we talked about it, we decided to adopt her. The orphanage just had to accept us first.

  “Okay,” I said. “I hope it doesn’t take too long.”

  It was pretty much what I had wanted my whole life. A baby sister.

  “Well,” Mom said, snapping me out of my thoughts, digging in her purse. “I thought you might need this.” She pulled out a necklace. It was my star. Polished and shining. My parents had bought it for me on my first birthday and I only wore it for special occasions.

  Mom kissed me on top of the head. “Your first sleepaway camp is the most special kind of occasion.”

  “We’re proud of you, Luciana,” Dad added.

  And then after a long hug and a thousand more kisses, they were gone.

  At first all I could do was sit on my bunk bed, holding my star necklace. What if I wasn’t ready for Space Camp? I mean, I was only eleven. Maybe I needed my parents to carry my pillows and space books sometimes. And maybe I wasn’t ready to sleep in a bunk called a habitat with four strangers. What if I couldn’t find the bathroom? What if—

  I shook my head. I was Luci Vega. Raelyn would tell me to stop being ridiculous. She’d tell me that if I wanted to be the first girl on Mars, I’d deal with way worse stuff than saying good-bye to my parents for a few days. She’d tell me this was the place to show everyone that I had what it took to be an astronaut.

  Something on the wall caught my eye. A framed picture of Sally Ride hung above the desks. The first American woman in space. When NASA still had the space shuttle program, she controlled a giant robotic arm hundreds of miles above Earth, and here I was, worried about missing my parents. I hopped off my bed, stood up, and marched over to my bag, unpacking my drawing pads and pencils and then every science book I brought: Science, the Stars, and You; Rocket Science 101; Robotics Is for Girls!; and my favorite, You Can Be an Astronaut Too!

  I opened my duffel bag and dumped my T-shirts, my favorite pajamas from the planetarium, and my emoji toothbrush that was the same as Raelyn’s into a locker, shutting it tight. And then I grabbed my sketch pad and favorite purple and red and green pencils, which were only just nubs at this point, and climbed back onto my bunk bed to draw while I waited for the rest of my bunkmates.

  And then I remembered: There on my bed was the backpack from check-in. I pulled the drawstrings open and when I looked inside, my heart thumped doubletime. Because right there, folded up nice and neat, was an official Space Camp flight suit. I pulled it out and pressed it against my body. Walking over to the mirror, I almost teared up because: Was it just me or did I look a little bit like Sally Ride?

  There was a commotion in the hall and I barely had the chance to pretend I wasn’t admiring myself when the habitat door burst open.

  “I call top bunk!” a little girl shouted, hurling herself at the closest bunk-bed ladder.

  And then it felt like fifty more people poured into the room, little kids and bigger kids, girls and boys, moms and dads, and maybe even a grandma or two. And was that a dog?

  “Someone shut that door so Pepper doesn’t get out!” a lady shouted. A little dog popped up out of a purse and hurled itself onto the tile floor, tip-tapping all around.

  He sniffed my fuzzy star slippers and when I reached down to pet him, he licked my hand. This guy was probably half the size of Rae’s bunny back home, although his ears were probably twice the size of his tiny body.

  When I looked up again, the dog had trotted away, but there was a girl standing kind of frozen in the middle of the room. I waved and smiled. There were also two little girls hanging over the safety bars on the top bunks, a couple of boys playing hide-and-seek in the lockers, and a mixture of adults and kids wrestling and bumping into the desks.

  I put my drawing pad down and got off my bed just as another girl was heaving a pillow and blanket onto the bed above mine.

  “I’m Luciana,” I said, helping her push her blanket all the way onto her bed. “You can call me Luci.”

  “I’m Ella. That’s my sister, Meg,” she said pointing to the now slightly unfrozen girl I had spotted in the middle of the room.

  Meg and Ella looked like sisters with freckled noses and the same dark hair. Except Meg’s was pulled into a bouncy ponytail and Ella’s was pin-straight and down her back.

  Meg clutched a lady around her waist, probably her mom. I waved again, but Meg’s face remained serious.

  “She’s only nine. This is her first sleepaway camp, and that’s my cousin Charlotte,” Ella said, pointing to another girl trying to pry Meg away from her mom.

  “Wow,” I said, thinking about how nervous I’d felt saying good-bye to my parents, and I was a whole two years older than Meg. “That’s very brave.”

  “Come on, Meg,” Charlotte said. “It’s going to be so fun. Like we’re real astronauts, okay? Did you bring your flashlights?”

  Meg nodded.

  “And like a thousand glow sticks,” Ella said, walking over to them. “Hope you don’t need a totally dark room to sleep,” she said, turning back to me.

  I shrugged and inspected a suspicious puddle by my desk. “I’m okay with a thousand glow sticks.”

  “Bring it in!” one of the dads yelled, and everyone huddled in the center of the room for a group hug. One of the moms pulled me in and I was shoulder to shoulder with a group of strangers and there was lots of kissing on foreheads and squeezing one another hard and reminding everyone that family was everything.

  And then the huddle was over and moms and dads peeled kids out of top bunks and out of desk chairs and swabbed up puddles and collected shoes and bubble gum wrappers. There were more hugs and even some sniffles and then all at once, they were gone and the room was silent, except for the buzzing in my ears.

  Ella, Charlotte, and Meg looked at me. “Sorry about that,” Charlotte said.

  “Are you all from the same family?” I asked. Secretly I wished my parents could adopt fifty Isadoras so we’d be one giant family like that. Most of my family was back in Chile and I hardly ever got to see them.

  Meg nodded. “All the cousins are on spring break.” She looked at the door, still a little sniffly, and Ella gave her a hug.

  “My brother is twelve. He’s doing the Aviation Challenge camp,” Charlotte explained. “And my older sister is sixteen and she came to Space Camp when she was eleven like me and maybe even stayed in this same bunk.” She took a big breath, pushing a sparkly headband back through her curly
hair. Even though her hair was much lighter than her cousins’, she had their greenish-hazel eyes.

  “Everyone else is too little so they’re going to the beach with the aunts and uncles. How many kids in your family?” Ella asked me.

  “Just me.” I sighed. I mean, it was nice that everyone had their own spot on the couch and seat at the table. And never once had I found a plastic spider under my pillow, which from what I’d heard, happened a lot around little brothers. But sometimes it was too echoeyquiet in my house, especially when Mom had an emergency and had to work late. Which happened a lot.

  “Wow, I can’t even imagine that,” Charlotte said. “My mom makes me share socks with my brother and sometimes ice-cream sandwiches at the pool and—”

  “Do you have purple hair?” Meg said, reaching out to touch my purple streak.

  “My best friend and I did it together,” I said, nodding.

  Meg grinned. “That is so cool—”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Ella said, swatting her hand away.

  Another girl appeared in the doorway. She let her heavy bag slide off her shoulder and thump to the floor.

  “Hallo!” she said in a thick accent. “I’m Johanna. From Germany.” She had wavy bright blonde hair that barely touched her shoulders, pulled back with a bobby pin. She dragged her duffel bag across the floor.

  “Goodness!” Charlotte said. “What do you have in there?”

  “Books,” Johanna said. “Lots of books.”

  I straightened. “Really? I brought my books too.”

  “Are they about mechanical engineering and electrical circuits?”

  “Not specifically,” I said, laughing, “but that sounds interesting.”

  Meg flung herself onto her bed and dumped out an assortment of flashlights and glow sticks and a stuffed animal dog that looked a lot like Pepper.

  Charlotte took her flight suit from her bag. “Guys, look.” She put it on her bed and then I remembered what I had in my bag.

  “Does anyone want to put their name on their suit?” I asked, pulling out a bunch of glitter stickers. “I brought enough for everyone.”

  Meg sprang herself off her bed, rushing over. “Me! Me!”