by Maggie Allen
Just then, Mike skidded up to her, butter pie in hand. “Thanks for watching my stuff.”
“No problem. I’m Bee, by the way.”
“Mike.” He shook her hand and plunked himself down by the bags to eat his snack. “You wanna sit too? I can move this out of the way.” He shoved the heavy duffle over to make room for Bee.
“Why is your duffle so heavy?” Bee asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
“It’s got rocks in it.”
Bee snorted as she sat down next to Mike, a big grin on her face. “Why?” she asked.
“I found them in a small crater not far from home, and they’re different than anything else I’ve seen before. I wanted to show them to Etienne. He’s one of the counselors at Lunar Camp. He knows a ton about lunar geology.”
“So I guess you’ve been to Lunar Camp before?” Bee asked, skeptical that anyone could possibly enjoy it so much they’d actually want to go back.
“Since I was ten,” he said with a hint of pride. “So this is my third year.” Mike took a bite of butter pie and rolled his eyes back in appreciation. “It’s great, you’re gonna love it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s not to love?”
“Rocks,” Bee said, matter-of-factly.
Mike looked startled, as if he found it impossible to understand how anyone could not love rocks as much as he did.
Eventually more kids and a few counselors appeared, and soon everyone was rounded up and put aboard the Lunar Camp transport vehicle. The vehicle looked much like the people mover she’d taken from the docking station, with tall, heavily treaded tires.
“Be sure to buckle up good,” Mike told Bee. “The ride can be kind of bumpy.”
Mike sat next to Bee on the transport though she wasn’t sure why. Wouldn’t he have friends among the other campers since he’d been to Lunar Camp so many times before? But though he’d nodded to a few of them, he didn’t speak to anyone else. At one point, he rolled his eyes a bit as the noise from the rowdiest kids – sitting in the back to maximize the bumpiness of their ride – washed over them. Bee smiled and turned to look out the window at the so-called magnificent desolation on the other side of the pressurized glass.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Mike said gesturing at the view.
“Is it?” Bee turned to look at Mike. “It’s so… lifeless.”
Mikes eyes shifted from the view to her and back again. He lifted a shoulder. “I guess it’s all in what you’re used to.”
“How do you ever get used to not having trees? And grass? And birds?”
“How do you ever get used to not being able to see the Earth hanging there up in the sky?” he countered. “And weighing so much when you’re walking around outside?” Just then the vehicle went over a bump, causing it to catch air for a second.
Bee pulled her seatbelt tighter, but stayed silent. She didn’t have answers for any of Mike’s questions. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t cling stubbornly to the things she knew. She gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “All right then, tell me. What’s it like living here? You’re from Plato, right?”
When Mike gave her a quizzical look, she replied a little sheepishly, “I saw the name tag on your luggage back at the terminal.”
Mike flashed Bee a smile. “No problem.” He thought for a second. “I don’t know how much you know about Plato, but it’s the oldest of the colonies, so it’s kind of built up now, though it started out as a small polar outpost.”
“That colony had a rough start, didn’t it?” Bee wasn’t that well versed on lunar history, but like every school kid, she’d learned a few things that she frequently misremembered.
“Yeah it did – it was totally dependent on Earth until they figured out how to mine water from the craters nearby, the ones that always stay dark. But it’s totally different now. It’s a lot like New York City. You’d like it!”
“You’re assuming I like New York,” Bee grinned. “From what I hear, it’s about as green as the Moon is.”
“Don’t they have a big park there?”
Bee shrugged. “Don’t know, never been there.”
“What are they teaching you on Earth? Even I know about Central Park,” Mike scoffed.
Bee defensively folded her arms. “I’m supposed to be the expert on everything about Earth now? If you know so much, tell me more about Luna City.”
“It was built in… uh… well, it was after Plato.”
“Uh-huh.” Bee gave him a smug look.
“Okay, I don’t know how old it is. But I do know it’s way closer to the lunar equator than Plato is. It’s in the Sea of Serenity. Lunar Camp is a little further out in the Sea of Tranquility. It’ll take us a couple of hours to get there, even in these things.” Mike patted the seat in front of him. “They’re fast. And bumpy. Even with the big tires.”
As if to make his point, the vehicle plunged over the edge of a small crater, making Bee’s stomach drop. She was starting to regret having eaten the butter pie.
“Hey.” Bee poked Mike in the arm, waking him from his doze. “We’re here.”
Mike’s head popped up, and he craned past Bee to see out the window. “Are we inside the bubble yet?”
“Just got through the airlock. That bubble looks flimsy to me. Are you sure it’s safe inside?”
“Yeah, totally. Most places on the Moon have shields like this around them. Obviously, they keep the air, temperature, and pressure regulated, so we don’t scald or freeze.”
“It looks like it’s not even there.” Bee pressed her cheek to the glass, trying to get a good angle. She knew they were inside the bubble now, but it was nearly impossible to tell where its boundary was.
“It’s stronger than it looks. I’ve seen micrometeorites bounce right off these things! Besides, if the bubbles weren’t clear, you wouldn’t be able to see the moonscape. While you’re here, you’ll want to get the full experience of actually being on the Moon, you know?”
“Hmm.” The “full experience” seemed like more of a threat than a treat to Bee.
The transport stopped at what appeared to be a loading zone. Bee noticed rovers and small vehicles of all different shapes and sizes parked nearby. She’d heard there would be day trips and excursions out to different sites near the camp. She couldn’t work up any excitement over the idea of excavating rocks; she was actually interested in seeing where the historic Apollo 11 mission had landed.
In short order, Bee and the others were herded off the transport, through the loading area, and into the artificially gravity infused visitor center. The visitor center was almost a cliché. Like every space or science museum she’d ever been to, it was decorated with interactive information kiosks and holographic 3D immersive images of galaxies and nebulae. It also had a rotunda with a starscape on it – except the starscape was real. As was the crescent Earth that hung overhead, glowing brightly in the darkened sky. Bee swallowed as she looked up at it, a feeling of homesickness washing over her.
Before she could focus for long on missing home, all the kids were ushered into the auditorium. Some of them were quiet and looked nervous, others laughed and joked with the friends they had clearly been reunited with. Bee looked around for Mike, despite herself. At least he was familiar. She sat near the aisle, an empty seat next to her, just in case.
Two adults, a man and a woman, stood at the front of the auditorium, waiting for the campers to be seated. And there was Mike, talking animatedly to one of them. It dawned on Bee why Mike didn’t seem to have that many friends among the kids. How could he when he clearly preferred hanging out with the counselors? Presumably talking about rocks?
Once most of the kids had shuffled into the rows of chairs, the man Mike was talking to gestured for him to join the others. Mike looked around and smiled when he found Bee and the seat she had saved for him.
“Thanks,” he said, popping into it.
“No problem.” Bee had to admit that it was nice to know one person he
re, even if that person seemed to like rocks more than people.
“Hi kids, I’m Etienne Cooper, and I’ll be one of your counselors during this session of Lunar Camp.” Bee eyed him suspiciously. Etienne was bouncing on his heels as he spoke and kept fiddling with the zippered pockets of his jumpsuit as if it pained him to stay still. With his athletic build, Bee thought he seemed like he’d be more at home canoeing around a lake at a traditional Earth summer camp than up here on the moon. Etienne looked like he was about twenty-five, just like her cousin Omar. He was sporty too. Bee didn’t especially like sporty.
“This is Merja Petrowski, who will be your other counselor.” Etienne gestured at the woman next to him, who gave a shy wave. She was pretty, thin, and pale, with long, dark hair. “Please feel free to come to us about anything at all. There are lots of other counselors here, who you’ll meet for various classes and activities, but we’ll be the ones in charge of your age group, the Eagles. It’s great to see so many familiar faces from last year, and I’m really glad we can be together again this year. Despite having a lot of Earth kids from the northern hemisphere here right now, since it’s summer for them, you’ll still meet people from all over the solar system during this session. We even have a group of junior campers here, the Eaglets. We’ll expect you all to set a good example for them.”
Etienne nodded at Merja, who tapped busily away on her tablet.
“Merja’s just uploaded your schedules to your PALs, along with a map, and important emergency information. Why don’t you all check and make sure you’ve received them?”
The air was filled with the sound of twenty-six campers pulling out their PAL devices from bags and pockets.
“Are you with Etienne or Merja?” Mike asked Bee.
“What do you mean?” Bee looked up from her PAL at Mike.
“We won’t all fit in one cabin. They’ll split us in two, half with Etienne and half with Merja.”
Bee scrolled through the files they’d sent. “Looks like Etienne.”
“Oh good, me too.”
Bee wasn’t listening. She was gazing in horror at her schedule. It was exactly as she’d feared. Sure there was lunar history, volcanology, math, rocketry, arts and crafts, and a slew of other things. But there was also not one, not two, but three different classes on Moon rocks: lunar mineralogy, lunar geology, and lunar topography.
“What’s the deal with this?” she demanded, showing her PAL to Mike.
“Oh, cool, you got the same random electives I did.”
“Random electives?”
“Sure. Most of us have the same stuff, but there’s a couple of electives that are given out randomly.”
“So why do I have three classes on practically the same thing?”
“Because it’s random?” Mike said with a sheepish smile. “And here, they’re not the same.” He pointed to her screen. “Lunar mineralogy is all about the composition of lunar rocks, and lunar topography tells you where they came from, and lunar geology…” Mike trailed off at the look on Bee’s face, and then rushed through the rest of his sentence “…and lunar geology is a lab course, it’s more hands on.”
It was going to be a long summer.
“You should come with me after lunch, I want to show you something,” Mike said, lifting a forkful of unidentifiable grey stuff from his plate before shoving it into his mouth.
“Is it a rock?”
Mike laughed at Bee’s expression. “What else would it be? But seriously – remember the ones I brought from home to show Etienne? He thinks they have rare earth elements in them, and we’re going to run some samples through the chromatograph to see if we can maybe isolate some Yttrium or something.”
This piqued Bee’s curiosity. Chemistry was a key part of agricultural science, and Bee wanted to learn anything she could that would help her advance in her field of interest.
But one thing held her back from jumping on it – a trip to the lab would mean interaction with the one person she’d taken a dislike to since being at Lunar Camp. Etienne.
Mike practically worshipped him, so Bee didn’t have the heart to say that she found Etienne’s sporty “go get ‘em” enthusiasm exhausting. Mike was as serious about his love of rocks as Bee was about her love of plants. Even if she didn’t understand it, she respected it. Etienne? He was more of a geology evangelist. Mike might try to find some angle of lunar geology that might appeal to her, hoping to hook her interest, but at least he didn’t try to convert her. That was more than she could say for Etienne.
And there was one more thing.
“He’s going to call me by my real name, you know.”
“You mean, Beyon—”
Bee put up her hand to stop him. “Don’t say it.”
“What if I tell him not to call you that anymore?”
“Again, you mean?”
“Oh yeah, I did try once, and he didn’t listen.” Mike chewed thoughtfully.
Bee just gave Mike an exasperated look.
“I’m sure it’ll work this time. He’ll stop calling you Beyon…” Mike checked himself just in time. “…by your real name. I promise.”
Bee looked over at the hopeful expression on Mike’s face and softened.
“All right, let’s do it.”
“Yesss!” Mike crowed.
“After we’re done eating.” Bee looked down at what was left of the refried bean pizza boat on her plate. “Actually, I think I’m done.”
“Are you sure?”
Bee nodded and then watched Mike stab the rest of her lunch with a fork and pull it over to his own plate. She didn’t know how he stayed so small with an appetite like that. And for camp food no less.
“Mike! Beyoncé!” Etienne boomed at them as they entered the lab.
Bee cringed. “It’s just Bee,” she tried to correct him, but he’d already scurried over to the other side of the lab and clearly wasn’t listening anymore.
“Come over here, Mike, and we’ll start putting some samples together to run through the chromatograph. Beyoncé can come over and help if she wants.”
“I don’t think she likes being called Beyoncé,” Mike interjected.
Etienne looked up from the lab bench and ran his hands through his curly hair distractedly before focusing on Bee. “Don’t like your name, eh? Why not? It’s distinctive.”
“I just don’t,” Bee said stiffly.
“Not a fan of the classics?”
“Not really.” Bee liked some of the music from years ago, but that didn’t mean she wanted to have to share her name with some long-gone music legend. Bee guessed she should count herself lucky that she hadn’t been named something even less desirable by her music-loving parents. Like after one of the robots in The Zartoids. Twenty-second century girl-bot pop was the worst. Ultimately, Bee didn’t want to be named after anything. She just wanted to be herself.
Etienne studied her, a slight twinkle remaining in his eyes. Bee felt like he was evaluating her, trying to figure her out. Bee gazed back stolidly. Let him try.
“You know what Etienne’s favorite old band is?” Mike broke into the awkward silence Bee’s words had left with an attempt at a joke. “The Rolling Stones.” He looked at them both expectantly. “Get it?”
A loud guffaw suddenly burst out of Etienne, making Bee’s eyes grow wide with alarm. Mike cracked up at this and suddenly doubled over with a helpless whoop of laughter. Etienne started laughing harder, more at Mike’s reaction to the bad joke than at the joke itself.
What was wrong with everyone? Bee thought. Had there been something in the food?
Still, standing there, watching Mike and Etienne practically weeping with laughter, it was hard to resist a little smile. Mike was so serious that when he did crack a joke, it seemed especially funny.
Bee made a decision. She reached down and grabbed Mike’s arm. “Yes, yes,” she said patiently, trying to lever him up off the floor. “It’s pretty obvious that you both probably like rock music.” At that, Mike los
t it again, and this time dragged Bee down with him.
Bee let a giggle out, almost despite herself. It had been hard for her to resist the obvious pun. After all, she wasn’t completely devoid of a sense of humor, even if it sometimes seemed that way. Especially here, out of her element, Bee felt like it was hard to shine, and her personality was suffering for it. It felt good to laugh for a change, even if it was over something silly.
When they’d all recovered their composure, Etienne looked over at Bee. “So if you don’t want to be called Beyoncé, what should we call you?”
“Just Bee is fine,” she said, relieved that maybe the name situation would finally be resolved.
“Hmm. You don’t seem like a Bee to me.”
“I don’t?” Bee wasn’t sure she liked where this was going, and her guard went back up.
“Where are you from?” Etienne asked as he busied himself again with the lab equipment on the table in front of him.
“Iowa, on Earth.”
“Well, then, Iowa,” he said with a grin. “Why don’t you hand out those safety goggles and we’ll get to work.”
Bee let out a deep sigh and complied with Etienne’s request. Clearly there was no hope for him.
As she turned to pick up a box of glassware, Mike gave her a grin and a thumbs-up, as if it were mission accomplished. Clearly there was no hope for him either.
Etienne continued to call her Iowa for the next few weeks. Bee was alternately exasperated, confused, and the tiniest bit flattered. Iowa wasn’t bad as nicknames go, but it had come from Etienne, who she felt was purposely teasing her by using it. She tried her best to simply not react to it. That became hard to do, however, when it caught on and most of the other kids followed Etienne’s lead and started calling her Iowa also. Eventually, Mike was the only one who still called her Bee.
