• • •
The start-up sequence is mostly a blur to me. A haze of tears. I’m mildly aware of Cole settling Olivia back into my arms, and of her clinging to my arm, blowing cute little raspberries at my cheek. At some point Dad and Byron wander over to me. Dad sets a hand on my back, and Cole moves in closer too. Together we watch as our friends and family shoot off into the great unknown.
“You going to be okay, dearheart?” Dad asks me softly.
I sniffle, watching the ship dart higher, higher, highest into the atmo. It is quickly less than a speck, leaving a trail of vaporized exhaust in its wake. Then it’s gone. I look down at Olivia. Her beautiful face. “I think so,” I reply.
We are silent for a while, all of us watching the empty sky, until a horrifying thought occurs to me.
“Do I have to go back to high school?” I ask. “’Cause I’m not sure Lower Merion is going to transfer my credits from the evil alien academy.”
“Your grandfather and I were discussing that,” Dad says.
“Really?”
“Well,” Byron says with that rakish grin of his, “I know it’s always been your dream to join the Ares Project someday.”
“You’re going forward with the terraforming?” I ask. “You think people will still want to colonize the surface even after the discovery of an underground martian civilization?”
“I’m optimistic that the terraforming and archeological interests will dovetail together nicely,” Byron says. “Now, you’re not really in a position to join the team right now, of course, but seeing as the provost of the Armstrong School is a personal friend of mine . . .”
“The Armstrong School?” I gasp. “Really?”
“What’s the Armstrong School?” Cole asks
“Only the single best and hardest-to-get-into aeronautic engineering program in the world!” I gush. I turn back to Byron. “You know the provost?”
“I should say so. I did save his life during the Franco-Prussian War. If you want to go, there’s a spot for you in the fall class.”
If my jaw dropped any lower, I’d need Olivia to scoop it up and push it back into place.
“You cannot be serious.”
“And yet I am.”
My dad is grinning too. “Great news, right?” he says, rubbing my shoulder.
“What about Olivia? Cole?”
“We can place Mr. Archer in a position nearby, if he likes,” Byron replies. “And my great-granddaughter will not want for care.”
“Wow, I just . . . Wow,” I say. It’s like getting exactly the Christmas present you asked for, immediately after learning that Santa is an old man in a fat suit. But I have to slow down, think everything through.
“Can I have some time to think about it?” I ask.
“Dearheart?” Dad says.
“I’m not saying no,” I tell them. I shift Olivia on my hip. “God, I’m not saying no. It’s just . . . I’ve been thinking . . . well, I guess I’ve come to realize lately that, despite everything, I’ve lived a very fortunate life, and that there are a lot of people who haven’t. That ozone factory that blew up—there are hundreds more places like it, and maybe millions of people living lives that until recently I couldn’t even conceive of. The kind of poverty I saw there, that was more alien to me than any pretty boy Almiri or monster-looking Devastator. I think . . . I think maybe I’d like to help people the way I’ve had people help me. Maybe that still means Ares. Maybe more. But I need a little time to think. Like what you were talking about on Mars. ‘The world forgot’ and all that.”
“Yes, about that,” Byron says. “Maybe don’t mention to Alex that I was quoting him. It’ll go straight to his head.”
When I look back up, my father is beaming. “You’re a wise woman, Elvie,” he says. “That’s for sure.”
I lean my head on his shoulder and snuggle my daughter closer into my side. Cole wraps an arm around the two of us, and together with Byron we go back to watching the sky. In the upper atmosphere I think I catch the glint of something shining briefly, and then disappearing the next moment. Perhaps it’s the flash from the Nautilus’s hyperdrive, pushing my loved ones into the final frontier. Perhaps it’s a satellite for HBO. Regardless, my friends are beginning their greatest journey, just like I’m about to embark on mine. Who knows what lies around the bend, what calamity we’ll have to deal with next? How will we handle all the unknown perils our new life has in store for us?
In my arms Olivia giggles—the kind of sweet, charming, delightful baby giggle that travels all the way through you. I kiss her head.
“You’re right,” I whisper to my daughter. “Whatever comes, we’ll adapt.”
About the Authors
Martin Leicht lives in Pennsylvania. A master’s graduate from the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU, Martin decided at the age of three that he wanted to be a writer, much to the chagrin of his grandfather, who hoped he’d become either an accountant or a bookie.
Isla Neal grew up in a ski resort town in Southern California, where she quickly mastered the fine art of falling over on a ski slope. A former children’s book editor, she earned her MFA in creative writing for children and teens at the New School in New York City. She currently lives in Pennsylvania. Martin and Isla’s previous novels in the Ever-Expanding Universe series include Mothership and A Stranger Thing.
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authors.simonandschuster.com/Isla-Neal
Also by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal
Mothership
A Stranger Thing
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Lisa Graff and Martin Leicht
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The text for this book is set in Electra.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leicht, Martin.
The world forgot / Martin Leicht and Isla Neal. — First edition.
pages cm. — (The ever-expanding universe ; 3)
Summary: Teen mom Elvie Nara searches the universe after her daughter
has been kidnapped.
ISBN 978-1-4424-2966-6 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4424-2968-0 (eBook)
[1. Science fiction. 2. Teenage mothers—Fiction. 3. Human-alien encou
nters—Fiction. 4. Kidnapping—Fiction.] I. Neal, Isla. II. Title.
PZ7.L53283Wo 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014024001
The World Forgot Page 24
