by Erin Teagan
I didn’t look up until I heard Claire say, “Ella? Are you okay?”
Ella had sunk lower into the water, her ears nearly submerged.
“Ella?” I called breathlessly.
When her ears dipped underwater, I called out her name again, but she still didn’t answer. Knowing Ella, she’d rather drown than fail a test. But then Sarah swooped in and helped her to the side of the pool.
Claire looked at me, frowning. “Is she okay?” She wasn’t even out of breath.
“I … hope …” I sputtered, but it was the best I could do with the little air I had left in my lungs. But I was pretty sure Ella was not okay. This skills test was probably the first test in her entire life that she didn’t pass.
When the stopwatch buzzer went off, we all swam back to the ledge, breathing heavily, our muscles tired, but I was happy and relieved that I passed the first test.
Sarah and Marcus and Pirate Pete gave us high fives. “You passed! Good job!”
I couldn’t help noticing Ella sitting red-faced on the bench, wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping on the floor. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest.
I climbed out of the pool. “Ella? Are you okay? Don’t worry you’ll—”
“I’m not worried,” she said in a yelling kind of voice.
Sensing tension, everyone looked over in our direction as they dried off and collected their things. The boys headed down the ramp without a word.
“I meant—”
“Can we go now?” she snapped, throwing her towel on the ground, and racing down the pool ramp.
Claire tossed her wet towel in the bin and took off after Ella. Picking up Ella’s towel, I walked to the bin with mixed emotions. I was two skills tests away from possibly making the dive team.
But what about Ella?
On the way back to our cottage, Claire tried to offer Ella lots of tips about treading water. But if I’d learned anything about Ella at Space Camp, it was that offering this kind of advice was not the best idea. Ella was more of the figure-it-out-by-herself kind of girl.
“Were you doing the right type of kick?” Claire continued her prodding.
I couldn’t even catch up with Ella, who was power walking through the grassy area, trying to lose Claire.
But Claire only talked louder. “I remember once when my dad was building this rocket that cost him like a trillion dollars,” she half shouted to Ella, “and it just wasn’t working right. He told me that you have to keep trying. When you really want something, you don’t give up on the first try.”
If I was being honest, it was pretty good advice. Except her timing was not the greatest, according to the scowl on Ella’s face.
“I’m not giving up if that’s what you’re saying,” Ella said, turning around. And then, to my surprise, she softened a bit, even slowing down for a second. “Sorry. It’s just … I’m not that kind of person.”
But then she raced off to the cottage, closing herself in the bathroom by the time Claire and I got inside. She didn’t even come with us to lunch, which was a shame because they had watermelon and I happened to know that was her favorite.
If it was Raelyn, I would have packed up some watermelon for her and we would have eaten it together and talked all about what happened in the pool. With Ella, it was best to just give her some time when she was angry or upset.
And even later that afternoon when we all met back in the hangar for our partner projects, I could tell Ella wasn’t feeling much better, sitting rigid and straight-faced in her chair. She didn’t even save a seat for me next to her at the big conference table, so I sat across from her.
“Ella,” I called to her in a whisper. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
I sat back and left her alone, reminding myself that Ella just needed to come around on her own.
“Welcome back, Cetus Team,” Sarah said. “You had a great showing in the pool this morning, and now it’s time to start thinking about partner projects. Over the next two weeks you’ll work with a partner on a project that will be used on board Cetus during the diving team’s mission. You’ll each become experts in your area.”
“Two of you will build an underwater robot to perform a task on the sea floor,” Marcus said. “Another set of partners will use the 3-D printer to create kitchen utensils and an all-purpose tool we can use while on Cetus. And the third group will grow hydroponic plants for food.”
Buzz raised his hand, waving it. “Can I make the robot?”
Marcus placed a basket full of little slips of paper on the table. “To be fair to everyone, we’re going to randomly assign jobs,” Marcus said. He slid the basket over to Buzz. “Here, pick a paper.”
Buzz sighed. “If I get boring plants, I’m going to …” He read his paper. “3-D printing expert.” He shrugged. “Okay.”
He passed the basket to Thomas, who selected a slip. “Robotics expert.” Thomas grinned. “Cool.”
Buzz hit his head against the table. “Come on!”
Dominic picked robotics too, and when it was my turn, I got hydroponics expert, which made me happy. I come from a gardening family. My mom likes to grow fresh herbs and flowers in our backyard, and my abuelita’s patio back in Chile is like one big flower garden.
Claire got hydroponics expert too, waving her little slip of paper around, and surprise-attacking me with a hug. “I’m already such an expert on growing stuff hydroponically!”
Okay … I thought.
That meant Ella would work with Buzz at the 3-D printer. She slumped from across the table. If it were up to me, I’d take Buzz for a partner over braggy, expert hydroponics-grower Claire any day.
Everyone moved to their stations. Buzz and Ella’s 3-D printer stood next to a table where a dozen or so Rocket Science campers were building something big out of soda bottles. Claire and I ducked into the greenhouse, which was basically a large tent made from a semitransparent plastic tarp. The greenhouse shelves were stocked with garden supplies and science equipment. Claire grabbed two official-looking lab coats from a hook and tossed one to me.
I opened a binder on the metal table in front of us that said, “Protocols,” and flipped to the “Setting Up” page.
“I’m not used to following protocols,” Claire said after she read the book title. “I can usually just figure things out. Same with my dad. It’s genetic or something.”
I stopped reading for a second. “Are you the kid that skipped to college?” I asked.
“No, I went to the Arctic with my dad.” She shook her head, laughing. “I probably could have skipped to college, though,” she continued, brushing her hair out of her face and putting on a pair of lab goggles, “but I figure, why rush?”
Ignoring her comment, I moved my finger down the list of materials. “Well, when you’re doing science stuff, everyone should follow the protocol,” I told her. “I mean, if you just skip ahead because you think you know everything, you might miss something important, right?” Immediately, I wished I hadn’t said that. “That came out wrong, I meant—”
“It’s okay,” Claire said with a smile. “I think I know what you mean.”
Maybe she did. And maybe I had to give her a chance. After all, Ella seemed to like her. Although, I admit, I couldn’t figure out why Ella was so impressed by her. Anyway, we were roommates and teammates and that counted for a lot.
“Okay,” I said, returning to the list. “We need the plant pillows, seeds, and a beaker filled with water.”
“Have you ever used one of these turkey basters before?” Claire asked me, inspecting a small glass tube with a rubber bulb stuck to the top.
“You mean a ‘pipette’?” I asked. “Yeah, I saw these in the plant lab at Space Camp.” Shouldn’t Claire-the-hydroponics-expert already know what the tools are called?
Claire squared her shoulders. “Of course I know it’s a pipette,” she said. “I just didn’t think you’d have any idea what I was talking about.”
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sp; I bristled, but decided it wasn’t worth making a big deal out of it. We searched for our supplies in the cabinets and glass cooler in the corner of the greenhouse. I found a bunch of butter lettuce seeds and Claire found the plant pillows, which looked a lot like the travel pack of wipes Mom kept in her purse for Isadora.
“What’s in these anyway?” Claire asked, squishing one of the pillows.
I snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “Stuff to make the plants grow, I guess.”
I picked up a pillow and peeked through the tiny hole in the top where we’d insert the lettuce seed. All I saw inside was darkness, but I could smell something earthy, like soil or sand.
“It says ‘growth media made out of fertilizer and clay,’” she said, reading from the binder. She wrinkled her nose and tossed the pillow onto the table. “Gross.”
What kind of hydroponics expert is grossed out by fertilizer? I wondered. I filled the beaker with water from the jug on the table. “So, you said you’ve done this before?” I asked. “Like with your dad or something?”
“Probably,” she said, tearing open a seed packet. “Or maybe not. I can’t remember.”
I eyed her. So, maybe she wasn’t an expert on hydroponics after all.
“Sometimes I garden with my mom,” I said. “But we do regular gardening in our backyard, so I’m new to hydroponics.”
Claire didn’t say anything, looking at our next step in the protocol. “Hand me that?” she said, pointing to a Styrofoam tray. I slid it over to her and she dumped the seeds into it. “We need to put three into each plant pillow.”
She put on some latex gloves and we got to work, dropping three tiny seeds into each pillow. Through the foggy plastic tarp we could see and hear the other teams working outside the greenhouse. The Rocket Science kids were the loudest as they put together their giant rocket and when they finally went outside, the hangar seemed to echo with quietness.
Sarah poked her head in. “You two doing okay?”
Claire held up a seed with her gloved hand. “Planting.”
Sarah inspected our setup. “Good job, guys. Keep it up and we’ll be eating fresh butter lettuce salad for dinner on Cetus.”
“Really?” I said. “So fast?”
“Yep.” Sarah nodded. “Hydroponic plants grow faster because instead of growing in regular soil, they get a mixture of nutrients just perfect for the plant. They don’t have to spend time growing a big root system because everything they need is right there in the growth media.”
“That makes sense,” Claire said.
“There’s no soil on Mars or on the ISS, so astronauts have turned to hydroponics. You could grow a plant anywhere if you don’t have to rely on soil,” Sarah said.
She watched us plant a few more seeds and then disappeared back out the flap door.
Claire and I continued working silently. I wanted to ask her a thousand questions about what it was like to be Lance Jacobs’s daughter. Did they live in a huge mansion? Was she going to be the first girl to Mars? Did they eat space food for dinner and fly famous astronauts around in their helicopter all the time? Because, that’s probably what I would do if I were her.
“If I had a helicopter, I’d fly it right to Chile,” I accidentally said out loud.
She looked up from her plant pillow. “We did that once. We took our jet, though. My dad had something to do in the Atacama Desert.”
I dropped a seed, thinking about my family, and it skittered across the table. “My abuelita lives there and also some cousins. I never get to see them.”
“Actually, maybe I didn’t go to Chile that time. I probably had homework or something.” She finished her planting and pushed the Styrofoam tray away.
So, she hadn’t been to Chile? Or had she?
I shook my head, reading the next step. “Add 100 mL of water to each plant pillow.”
Claire raised up the pipette. “Turkey baster thingy.” She submerged the glass tube into the beaker, squeezing the bulb and drawing in water until it reached the little line on the tube that read “100 mL.” And then she squeezed the bulb hard, squirting the water into one of the pillows. She handed it to me. “Your turn.”
I moved the plant pillow closer to me and sat down on a stool so I could really concentrate. If we were on the real space station, where water and supplies were limited, one mistake and an entire experiment could be ruined. At first I squeezed the bulb too hard and sucked up too much water. Claire laughed, but in a nice kind of way, not the making-fun-of-me kind of way.
I tried again, this time going slower, and managed to get it right. Claire and I took turns adding water to the rest of the plant pillows.
“Do you get to go places with your dad a lot?” I asked, wondering if that’s what life would be like if my mom or dad had decided to be a space entrepreneur like Lance Jacobs instead of a nurse and math teacher.
“Well, he usually travels without me,” Claire said, pulling up some water with the pipette. She looked up suddenly, her cheeks turning a little pink. “I mean, not like he doesn’t want me there. But if it’s a place too dangerous for a twelve-year-old or something then I probably wouldn’t go.” She passed me the pipette. “He’s always home for Halloween, though. That’s his favorite holiday.”
“That’s cool, I guess,” I said, adding water to the last pillow.
“Anyway, inventors and company presidents have to travel a lot and my dad is both of those things.” She peeled her gloves off and tossed them in the trash. “It’s the reality of the situation, you know?”
I nodded, trying to read Claire’s face, but I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking.
Following the last steps of the protocol, we carefully loaded our plant pillows into the growing tray in the corner of the greenhouse. Then we put on protective sunglasses and flipped on the panel of lights, bathing ourselves in the glow of the red, blue, and green LEDs.
“Awesome,” Claire said, and it was.
We started cleaning up, and I peered at Claire as she dumped the water out of the beaker and placed the glass tube from the pipette in the biohazard bin.
I was having a hard time figuring out exactly what was real and was not real with Claire. It seemed as though when Claire wasn’t bragging, she was making up stories.
I took a breath. We are on the same team. We are roommates, I reminded myself. Sarah said we’d be family by the end of the week.
So, I let my bad feelings go. This time.
The next morning, I awoke to Sarah tapping on the cabin window, letting us know it was time to get up for breakfast. Groggily, I wiped my hair out of my face and hung over the side of my bed. “Good mor—”
But Claire’s and Ella’s bunks were empty and their beds were even made as if they’d been up for hours.
“Ella? Claire?” I jumped down and quickly got dressed before stumbling outside. Thomas and Dominic were sitting with Sarah in the grassy area by the beach, watching the water. Buzz was just leaving his own cabin, blinking in the bright sun.
“Has anyone seen my roommates?” I asked, sitting next to Thomas.
“They’re working in the pool with one of the lifeguards,” Sarah said, stretching her legs. “Claire was kind enough to offer to train Ella in the pool each morning to help her catch up to the rest of the group.”
Buzz collapsed into the spot on the grass next to me, flopping over and closing his eyes.
“Teamwork,” Sarah said. “Sacrificing for the greater good of the mission, you know?” She nudged Buzz with her shoe.
But it didn’t feel like teamwork if not everyone was included. And sneaking out of the cottage before all the teammates were up? That didn’t feel like teamwork either. Claire and Ella left me out. I ran my fingers through my hair, spotting my purple stripe, and thought of Raelyn. We always included everyone. It was basically one of our rules.
I felt a streak of loneliness and wished I could call Raelyn, but I knew she was at art camp already. My heart was suddenly heavy with homesickness.
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“Are we allowed to call home today?” I asked, knowing my parents were probably up with Isadora already.
“Of course,” Sarah said. “We’ve set up the video-chat app on the laptop by the 3-D printer.” She stood up. “Come find me after breakfast and I’ll get you started.”
After Sarah walked away, Buzz popped up. “I’m getting in line for bacon.” He ran toward the dining hall.
Dominic pulled out a pair of binoculars, scanning the beach. Across the calm water of the Chesapeake Bay was Assateague Island. If I squinted, I could make out a few wild horses eating their breakfast of marshy grasses on the shore.
“I was going to ask Sarah the same question about calling home,” Thomas said. “I miss my family too.”
I perked up. “You do?” I asked, surprised, because I thought I was the only kid here who felt homesick.
“A ton,” he said with a sad smile.
And for some reason just knowing he felt the same way made me feel less alone.
“I have a baby sister,” I told him. “She needs surgery on her heart.”
Thomas sat up straighter. “Oh. Wow. That’s … but she’s okay?”
Dominic put his binoculars down. “My uncle had surgery on his heart and we bought him a balloon and his favorite cookies at the hospital. But the doctor said he couldn’t eat the cookies because they aren’t good for people who have heart surgery, I guess.”
I sighed. Isadora loved cookies. But maybe a balloon would make her just as happy after her surgery.
Thomas was looking at me, still waiting for me to answer his question. “My parents said she’ll be okay,” I said, shrugging because how could they even know if that was true?
“Hey, guys.” Claire and Ella walked up to us, their hair still dripping wet from the pool. “Did you see we have our first scuba lesson this morning?” Claire asked.
Ella waved to me, looking more cheerful today. “Claire’s helping me train to pass my next treading water test. I got up to nine minutes!”
“Oh, and good news,” Claire said. “Even though Ella failed the treading test, Sarah said she can do the scuba lesson today.”
