MAX ATTACK
Late June
Trevor hung up the phone. Brandon and Archie were loading the Moon Colony video game, and said they would wait until he got there. He knew from experience they wouldn’t wait long. Archie wasn’t known for his patience.
“I’m going to Brandon’s, Mom,” he called up the stairs.
“Okay. Be back before the streetlights come on.”
Trevor dashed out the front door and it banged behind him. The afternoon sun beat on his back as he headed up the street.
It was already June and they were still trying to beat the video game. The star book from his dad had given him a new idea. He couldn’t wait to see their faces when he spouted his new knowledge.
A faint mew invaded his thoughts. It came again, louder.
He looked back and a shadow passed under a parked car. A few seconds later Brownie’s head poked out with an accusing meow. Trevor took a few more steps, but the cat paced him.
With a sigh, he turned back. Brownie followed from the street, meowing all the way as if chiding him for leaving the yard.
When they passed Mrs. Hayworth’s house, Brownie jumped onto the stone wall and strutted along the top. His tail waved like a flag on the back of a ship and brushed a low hanging tree branch.
“Brownie!” Trevor called in a low voice. “Get down from there. Max won’t like having you on his wall.”
The garden looked empty. No sound. No movement. Trevor reached for Brownie when a long hiss rose up from the other side of the wall. The hair rose on Trevor’s neck. The sound grew into a yowl, and a yellow ball of indignation burst onto the wall. Trevor jerked away. His elbow struck the stone sending a numbing tingle down to his little finger.
Brownie leaped. His front claws dug into the branch. He swung like a stretched out rubber band with his hind feet scrabbling in the air.
Max moved much faster than Trevor would have thought possible for such a fat cat. Brownie’s feet finally contacted the wood, and he surged up the tree with Max right behind him. He was forced to the end of a thin limb. It bent under his weight and began to sway as Max edged closer.
Brownie dug in his claws and looked down with wild eyes. Trevor jumped up on the wall. He reached for Brownie. Max swiped at him. The claws sliced across his knuckles.
Yanking his hand back, Trevor yelled. The motion threw him off balance. He grabbed the branch. For a moment he hung with one foot on the wall and the other in open air. The branch gave way with a loud crack, and Brownie was flying toward him.
With a shower of leaves, Trevor fell with Brownie clinging to his shoulder. As his feet hit the sidewalk, his ankle twisted under him and he gasped with pain.
A door banged. Mrs. Hayworth began yelling about kids and damage to her prize tree. Gingerly he tried putting weight on his foot. It hurt, but not too badly. Bending over he hobbled along staying out of sight behind the wall. At the corner he slunk from one tree to another until the garden was out of sight.
When he got home, he put Brownie down on the porch. The cat stretched and began taking a bath. While he was occupied, Trevor quietly limped down the steps and headed up the street. Each time he looked back, the small figure was still on the porch.
His ankle was sore but not swollen when he arrived at Brandon’s house.
“What took you so long?” Brandon said. “Archie already crashed the cruiser half a dozen times.”
Trevor told about his run in with Max while Brandon’s mom made him wash the blood off his hand. She insisted on putting antibiotic cream on the long scratches.
Trevor hopped up the stairs explaining his new idea for the game. “We use the coordinates from constellations.”
“This is a game, not a science project,” Archie said.
“No, this could really work,” Brandon said. He grabbed his scientific calculator and started punching numbers. “We have the angle. We can estimate the distance. The speed can be calculated using the cosign of the hypotenuse…”
Archie interrupted, “You really think a game writer is going to be a math genius?”
“The best ones,” Brandon said.
“Ah, I don’t know anyone who uses trig,” Archie said.
Brandon looked up and stared at him.
“Okay, you and Mr. Polinsky. But he teaches math so he doesn’t count.”
“Sure he counts,” Trevor said. “He’s a math teacher.” There were peals of laughter.
“Funny,” Archie said. “Just type in the name of the constellation and see how intelligent the program is.”
To Trevor’s delight, they managed to land the cruiser with the new coordinates and started building the lunar city built before the power generator began to fail.
“You’ll have to handle the evacuation without me,” Trevor said. “If I leave now I can just make it home in time.”
Brandon glanced out the window. “You still have ten minutes.”
“You’re forgetting my ankle.”
“Wimp,” Archie said with a laugh. “Watch out for that killer cat.”
His ankle was better, but he needed the extra time to take the long way home. He wasn’t going anywhere near Caesar or Mrs. Hayworth’s garden. When he came around the corner, his dad was waiting on the porch. The streetlights were still dark. What could be the problem?
Next to his dad sat a large black tube on a round base. It looked like a canon and was as tall as he was.
His dad grinned and rotated the tube. It swung smoothly, and Trevor could see it was open on the top end.
“What is that?” he asked.
“What we’ve been waiting for! The telescope. A Dobsonian telescope to be precise.” He lifted the tube. “Grab the base and follow me.”
Trevor struggled with the base. No one had said anything about being a weight lifter for stargazing. He managed to pick it up and stagger several feet at a time as he made his way to the side yard.
He couldn’t wait to tell Brandon. This was better than an old dusty telescope in the school observatory. His dad balanced the tube on his shoulder and chattered away.
“The design was adapted from a sturdy utility tube for pouring concrete. There’s an eight-inch mirror in the bottom. The base has a silicon mechanism for easy alignment.” He shook one hand in the air and pointed into the sky. “It’s balanced so you can turn it with one finger.”
Trevor gasped as he made another few steps forward. It was taking more than one finger to carry the base.
His dad turned in a circle. “This will do. Set that down over here.”
Trevor grunted and covered the last few feet. He set it down on the grass with a thump.
“Careful with that.” His dad slipped the tube into the base. “Spotter is all lined up.” He swung the tube around like a magician about to do a trick. “It’s not dark enough for stars, so let’s start with the moon at low magnification.”
He checked the spotter, then looked into the small eyepiece jutting out from the tube. With exaggerated care he pushed the tube with one finger. “There we are...just a little bit more...okay, have a look.”
Trevor leaned over and peered into the eyepiece. Blinding light filled the view. He blinked several times and the moon craters popped into focus.
“What do you see?”
“Craters. Lots of them. It’s so bright.” The light winked out followed by a thin trail of sparkles. He straightened up. “Wow, I think a shooting star just wiped out the moon for a second.”
“Let me see.” His dad nudged the tube to keep the moon in view. “You must have just bumped it out of focus. Have another look.”
The moon filled the view. At the bottom of the sphere was a bright crater with white lines radiating out from it.
“The dark patches on the top were once thought to be water,” his dad said. “The one on the right is the Sea of Tranquility where the astronauts landed.”
He started humming, then singing softly.
“By the light
of the silvery m
oon
Where craters formed
With a flash, and a silent ka-boom!
Your silvery beams
Will light my dreams
Hope we’re going back soon
To the silvery moon.”
Trevor laughed nervously. “Don’t sing in front of the guys, okay Dad?”
He gave him a lopsided grin. “They’re not ready for that level of sophistication?”
“They may never be ready.”
“Probably right. Let’s look at some of the big stars in the constellations. Then we can look up the next lunar eclipse when we go in.”
They spent an hour with the star book and the red flashlight locating stars until his mother called them in for dinner.
A Sprinkling of Thought Dust Page 17
