by Erin Teagan
“Shhh!” one of the boys said.
She popped a gumball in her mouth.
“Sit down!” a kid behind me said, but really, there was no place left for me and nobody made room. And honestly, I deserved it. So instead of wedging myself into the little spot between the cousins and Johanna, I decided to figure out about these sponsors.
Mallory and Alex sat in the back of the room by a display case lit in soft lights. I walked over to investigate, stepping over kids in flight suits from other Space Camp teams. Not all of them were doing robotics, but I tried figuring out which teams made up the remaining four teams competing on Thursday. Did anyone else have a sponsor yet?
My worries were momentarily pushed aside as my eyes fell on the display case filled with space rocks. Big and little meteorites that fell from the sky. Some of them were rough and pocked while others were smooth and shiny like pieces of marble.
“I thought you would like those,” Mallory said. “You wrote about pallasites in your essay, but have you ever seen them in real life?”
I peered into the case. “No. Never,” I breathed, because they were so weird and beautiful, like rocks with tiny stained glass windows everywhere.
She flipped a light on to illuminate the next display case, waving me closer. “What about an impactite?”
When a giant meteorite crashed into earth, the rocks on the ground could be liquefied upon impact. And that was exactly what the impactite in the display case looked like. Golden yellow, like honey. I couldn’t believe it was ever a regular rock on the ground.
“It’s from Arizona,” Mallory said. “From a crater where a meteorite hit more than fifty thousand years ago.”
And this was why I wanted to be an astronaut. Because everything about space and science was so cool. Liquefied rocks? Meteorites falling from space and making gigantic craters in the earth?
“All of these were collected by regular people. Anyone can be a scientist, you know.” Mallory flicked the light back off, too bright in the darkened room.
I could have looked at space rocks for the rest of the night, but I had something else on my mind.
“So,” I started, lowering my voice when the movie got quiet. “Some of the robotics teams are getting sponsors so they can buy cool parts for their rovers.”
Mallory patted my shoulder. “I can’t sponsor someone from my own team.”
“But how do you find a sponsor?” My face burned because I should have read the orientation material and now it was obvious to everyone that I hadn’t.
“Just ask someone,” Mallory said, sitting back down in her chair. “Tell them about your project and if they like your idea, they might give you some bolts to get you started.”
“Who should I ask?”
“Anyone who works here. The lady at the gift shop, the custodian in the dining hall, the chef. Find someone who’s been here awhile, though. The longer they’ve worked at Space Camp, the more bolts they have to offer.”
Alex leaned in. “But don’t wait around. Sponsors go fast. However, earning the gyro sensor doesn’t mean a sure win.”
“But with the gyro sensor you can make your robot with only one or two wheels. Do you know how many parts you’d save like that? Gears and beams and not to mention a frame for—”
“We get it.” Alex cut me off. “We’re just saying, you can still win without a gyro sensor. The best scientists think with both sides of their brain. Getting creative is your specialty, right?”
I sighed, sitting in the chair next to Mallory. “That’s my problem. I got a little too creative in the lab today and cost my team a bunch of bolts.”
The movie screen showed a rocket blasting into space, making the entire room shake. Orion woke up. “BARK. BARK.”
Mallory picked him up, petting his back like he was a real puppy. “Touch sensor,” she said. “See? Three pats and he settles down.” Orion got quiet again, closing his eyes and snoozing in her lap. “Anyway, do you think being too creative is the problem?”
I sighed. It was probably the fact that I ran with an idea without thinking it through. Or because I didn’t talk to my team. Or maybe because I didn’t read the orientation stuff. All of the normal things I did, or didn’t do, if I was being honest.
“Just imagine if you were a team on the space station,” Alex said. “You’d be in tight quarters, doing dangerous work, far from your family or friends. Without a good leader to get everyone working together, it could end in disaster.”
I slouched in my seat. They were right. I was good at a lot of things, doing science experiments, knowing a lot about space rocks, math except for fractions. But maybe not so much at being a leader.
My heart panged. If I wasn’t a good leader, would I ever be a good astronaut? Or a good big sister for that matter?
Mallory leaned over and deposited Orion into my lap. I patted his back three times and he lay back down. At least I was good at comforting a robotic dog.
“I do know of one guy who gives pretty hefty sponsorships,” Mallory said.
“Really?” I brightened. Because that’s all we needed to get back on track.
“Who?” Alex said. “Samuel?”
Mallory nodded. “But he’s hard to find sometimes.”
“Okay. Do you have any hints?” I asked.
“Just look for the guy with the robotic unicycle,” Alex said.
“Robotic unicycle? But—”
“You’ll have to figure out the rest on your own,” Mallory said with a wink.
I sighed and sat on the ground with the other Space Campers and tried to focus on the movie. But I couldn’t focus. How would I ever find the guy on the unicycle?
When the movie ended, Johanna and Charlotte ran up to me and I immediately noticed something.
“What happened to your names?” I pointed to the empty spaces on their flight suits where their glitter letters used to be.
Charlotte’s face reddened. “Oh, it’s no big deal.” She patted me on the shoulder.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. Sure. Great.”
Ella and Meg joined us and I couldn’t even bear to look at them. Because it felt like a pretty big deal, actually.
Johanna bumped me with her hip. “It’s okay, friend. They were falling off anyway.”
But I knew they weren’t.
“Mallory?” I said, after everyone started going to the stairs and back toward the habitat, Ella leading them of course. “Can I call my parents? I know it’s late, but just to make sure they got home okay?”
Mallory looked at her watch. “You’ve got to make it quick.” She waved me toward a phone booth.
As soon as my mom picked up the phone, I felt relieved.
“Luci?” she said, and then she called my dad over to share the line with her.
I wanted to tell them everything that had happened. With the robot. With mean Ella. But then I thought about all the astronauts on the Space Camp wall of fame. Did they call their parents on the first day of camp because they were homesick? I could pretty much guarantee they did not. “I’m just checking in. Making sure you guys are doing okay because I’m doing great over here,” I lied.
“I’m so glad to hear that,” Mom said. “I was worried you might feel a little homesick.”
“I told you she’d be fine, dear,” Dad said. “Didn’t I say that?”
“Any news on Isadora?” I asked. Silence on the other end.
“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?”
“Luci, we didn’t want to worry you with this, but since you asked, I want to be honest,” Mom said. “It seems that Isadora is no longer at the same orphanage.”
“Where is she then?” I said, standing straighter.
“Transferred maybe or …”
My pulse started racing. “Or what?”
Mom’s voice was softer now, the way it always got when she had bad news like when my goldfish Sharky died or when Dad backed over my scooter with the car. “There’s a small possibility there was a mix-up and mayb
e she went to another family.”
I sucked in a breath.
“That’s the worst-case scenario. Barely even possible, Luci,” Dad added.
“How is that even a possibility at all?” I said. “You sent in the paperwork.”
“I know,” Mom said. “Abuelita is going to the orphanage tomorrow first thing in the morning. And the orphanage is looking into it; it’s their top priority. We will figure this out and let you know as soon as we hear, okay?”
“This is nothing for you to worry about during your week of adventure,” Dad said.
“But …” Did they not know how much I wanted Isadora to be my sister? Even though I would probably be a terrible sister anyway, never reading directions and always doing things without thinking. But, a baby sister … Isadora … I could learn to be better, couldn’t I?
Mallory signaled to me. “All right,” I said to my parents, knowing that it was almost time for lights-out. “But call me when you hear anything.”
“We will,” Mom promised.
“And no worrying allowed. We love you.”
“Sure, Dad. I love you too.”
And then they made kissing noises into the phone and we hung up.
The RoboEngineers were late to the Mission Control Complex after breakfast the next day, so Mallory let us do a practice mission simulation to the International Space Station in the commercial crew vehicle. Charlotte and Meg followed Mallory to the mission control room and Johanna, Ella, and I stepped into the orbiter, clipping ourselves into our seats, putting the headphones on, and opening up the manuals in front of us.
“Capsule crew, do you copy?” I heard through my headset.
“We copy,” Ella said. It was Charlotte on the other end, from down the hall in the mission control area.
“I copy too!” Meg piped in.
I turned to Johanna, sitting in the back of the orbiter, and she gave me a thumbs-up. I had had a lot of time to think about stuff overnight. There was nothing I could do to help look for Isadora while I was here at Space Camp. What I could do was work on my big-sister skills. And that started with being a good team leader. So the first thing I had to do was find Samuel, the robotic unicycle guy, and he’d give us a big sponsorship and all of our problems would be solved. Mostly.
I twirled my purple hair, wishing that Raelyn could be here too. Anyway, she’d at least still be wearing her glitter name. She was used to my crazy ideas and she barely got mad at me when things went wrong. Except for the time we painted hearts on our foreheads with nail polish and then our moms wouldn’t let us use nail polish remover on our skin to get them off. We had hearts on our heads for two days.
Mallory’s voice came on over our headsets. “The right seat is the pilot.” Ella smiled and I heard her sniff through the headphones. “The back seat is the mission specialist, and the commander is the front, left chair.” Ella looked at me again, this time not smiling. It wasn’t like I sat in this seat on purpose so I could be in charge again. If I was being honest, I was pretty sick of being in charge.
“Want to switch?” I asked.
Ella shook her head. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
But I knew she did.
“Launch ready in T-minus one minute and counting,” Charlotte said from mission control.
“Really, Ella, if you want to switch,” I said, putting a hand over my microphone.
She glared at me. “I’m fine, Luciana. Just don’t let us crash or something.”
“Well, I’ve never done this before, but I’m sure I can figure it out.” I looked back at Johanna and she shrugged.
Ella let out a breath. “Let’s just at least try to do this right, please?”
“What does that mean?” I felt a prick of anger in my chest because maybe I messed up on our first rover challenge and maybe I should have read the orientation materials a thousand times like some people, but I made a mistake which people do all the time and I was going to fix it.
“Guys,” Charlotte said over the headset, “cut it out. Thirty seconds.”
I looked at Ella. “I know a guy that might sponsor us.”
“Nobody will sponsor a team with negative two million bolts!” Ella hit her forehead with her hand. “And we don’t even have an idea for our competition robot yet.”
“T-minus twenty seconds and Ella stop it,” Charlotte said through the headset.
“No. I’m not going to stop it. The RoboEngineers paid one million bolts for an extra build session this morning in the lab. That’s why they’re late,” Ella said. “They’re going to be so far ahead of us!”
“Ten … nine … eight …” Charlotte said.
Johanna poked her head between us and patted us on our shoulders like robot puppies. “In Germany we are always talking about forgiveness.” But Ella wasn’t calming down.
“Six … five … four …”
“This would have never happened if I was in charge!” Ella yelled.
“And three-two-one-lift-off!” Charlotte said, extra loud in the headsets. “You are lifting off into space. GET YOURSELVES TOGETHER.”
And the screens in front of us that looked like windows to the outside showed our orbiter flashing through clouds and blue sky and then a burst of red from the rocket and we were in blackness, floating through space with the stars. I didn’t know if it was the feeling of being in motion, or the fact that Ella was steaming mad at me over in the pilot seat, but I felt sick to my stomach.
We drifted in space for a few minutes in total silence except for someone chewing gum through the headset. And then we heard a Beep! Beep! Beep!
It was an anomaly. A problem.
I hit the big red button on my console. “Houston, we have a problem,” I said like Mallory had instructed us.
“Hi, Luciana, all the way up in space!” It was Meg in mission control, and I couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Okay, okay, locate F panel which is probably near the—”
“Got it,” I said. “I mean, roger.”
“Locate keypad.”
I found the keypad on the F panel, lit up in red lights. “Roger.”
“Ops, enter five … two … three … six … Oh, wait, I mean seven. Right. Okay, start over. Sorry!”
Johanna and I laughed, but Ella remained stonefaced. “Stop playing around, Meg.”
“This is Mallory,” we heard through the headphones. “I’ll reset the keypad.” Had she been listening the entire time? “Okay, try it again.”
“F panel, keypad. Here we go,” Meg said. “Enter five … two … three … seven … nine … enter.”
“Roger,” I said.
“Good job,” Meg said. “Anom—anomony resolved.”
“Anom-oly,” Ella corrected her.
We floated through space some more and Johanna had to prepare for docking with the ISS, all while I tried not to look at Ella. And I pretended like I hadn’t heard her yell that she should have been in charge of the robotics team. Or that it felt like a punch to the gut or like getting a paper cut which also really hurt.
“Commander, prepare for docking to the ISS,” Charlotte said and I sat up, straightening my headset and tightening my seat belt. I pressed a series of buttons and flipped a few switches, following the docking instructions in the checklist, wondering if this was what being the commander of a spacecraft really felt like.
“Pilot, begin docking,” I said to Ella when we got into range. But she stayed frozen in her seat. Arms crossed. “Ella. Docking probe.” We were closing in on the space station pretty quickly at this point. Johanna sat back in her chair, the image of the ISS flying at us through the capsule windows.
“Pilot,” Charlotte said. “Pilot, please respond.”
But it was no use. Ella wasn’t going to respond.
I poked her arm, covering up my microphone with my hand. “Come on, Ella. I said I was sorry like a trillion times.” Frustration grew in my gut. I watched us hurtle toward the International Space Station. “We’re roommates and on the same team, but yo
u treat me like your enemy.” And I remembered the unofficial camp law about roommates being friends, but did I even want to be friends with Ella when she was mean all the time?
I could see Johanna out of the corner of my eye about to say something, and I waved her off.
Ella looked at me, and for a second, her eyes softened. “I never said you were my enemy.”
We plummeted through space and I stared at my commander’s manual, helpless. And anyway, Ella didn’t have to say I was her enemy for me to know it.
“We’re going to crash!” Johanna shouted, covering her head with her arms.
“Pilot!” Charlotte urged from mission control. “Pilot! Engage docking probe!”
“Ella. You need to cooperate or you’re going to fail the mission for everyone,” Mallory warned.
With the threat of failure, Ella straightened her headset and got back on track, pushing buttons and pulling levers.
“Confirming that docking probe has been engaged,” Charlotte said, out of breath. “You are free to dock.”
I grabbed the joystick and steered us toward the target, but the joystick was hard to control and the spacecraft swerved and swung away from the ISS.
“Luci …” Johanna cautioned, and I tried harder to control the spacecraft.
I finally steadied the orbiter and lined up with the docking ring just in time to dock with the International Space Station. It wasn’t perfect, but we also didn’t crash in a ball of fire.
We heard cheers from mission control as we took our headsets off and left the capsule, successfully completing our mission.
Barely.
When we walked into the robotics lab after lunch, my stomach dropped. All of the robotics teams for the nine-to-eleven-year-old category were listed on the computer screen now, with their scores. The MarsBots, Wizards, and NinjaCoders each had three million bolts. The Space Heroes were in the lead with five million bolts, the RoboEngineers were close behind with four million, and we were in last place with negative two million.
