George and the Big Bang

by Lucy Hawking

“And what did you find?” asked her father, pulling up a rickety old swivel chair so he could sit between Annie and George, who were still gazing wide-eyed at Cosmos’s screen.

  “Erm … well, Cosmos looked around the Solar System but we didn’t find anywhere,” said George.

  “I bet you didn’t,” murmured Eric. “Can’t quite imagine Freddy on Pluto.”

  “So we thought about taking him to a planet that would be suitable for human life, but we haven’t found one yet,” continued George.

  “Then we looked in Foxbridge instead—to find somewhere close to home to keep Freddy for a few days,” Annie burst out. “But we found a group of horrible people in a basement, saying that your experiment at the Large Hadron Collider would exterminate the Universe!”

  Suddenly Eric looked furious. “Cosmos!” he barked. “What have you been doing?”

  “I was only trying to help,” said Cosmos sheepishly.

  “Gallumphing galaxies!” Eric didn’t look quite so happy now. “What were you thinking of, allowing the kids to eavesdrop on those idiots?”

  “They said that you’re going to destroy the False Vacuum … ,” said George slowly. “And that this will make the Universe dissolve. Is this true?”

  “No! Of course not! It’s a crazy theory,” said Eric angrily. “Don’t pay them any attention! They’re just trying to frighten people because they don’t like the work we’re doing at the great experiment in Switzerland.”

  “But they were at your college!” squeaked Annie. “College schmollege,” said Eric dismissively. “They could be anywhere—it doesn’t make them any more credible.”

  “So you do know who they are?”

  “Not entirely,” admitted Eric. “They’ve concealed their identities because it’s a secret organization—all we know is that they call themselves ‘Theory of Everything Resists Addition of Gravity.’”

  “Theory of Everything Resists Addition of Gravity … ,” repeated Annie. “That’s T-O-E-R-A-G. That makes TOERAG! Is that really their name?”

  Eric laughed. “It’s certainly the perfect one for them! They are absolutely a bunch of total toerags.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Last year,” said Eric, “TOERAG, as I’m now going to call them, wanted us to abandon the Collider. They said we would create a black hole if we started the experiment. Well, we ignored them and turned it on. Since we’re all still here today, you can tell the world wasn’t actually swallowed up by a black hole. After that we thought they’d give up. But now they’ve seized on this ‘vacuum’ nonsense to prevent us from starting our next experiment, which uses more energy than the ones we’ve conducted in the past.”

  “But why?” said George. “Why would they keep on dreaming up crazy theories?”

  “Because they don’t want us to succeed,” Eric explained. “Our goal is to understand the Universe at the deepest level. So we need to know not just how the Universe behaves, but why. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why this set of particular laws and not some others? This is the ultimate question of life, the Universe, and everything.

  And some people simply don’t want us to find that out.”

  “So this ‘bubble of destruction’ stuff—it really is all nonsense?” George double-checked, just to be sure.

  “Complete cosmic cobblers!” exclaimed Eric. “But”—a frown crept over his brow—“despite that, more and more people seem to believe what TOERAG is saying. So we changed the plans for our new experiment, just in case TOERAG decided to surprise us with something nasty.”

  “So when does it start?” asked George.

  “We already started it!” said Eric. “The accelerator is up, the detectors are online, and we even achieved our design luminosity a few weeks ago.” The scientist shook his head sadly. “We’re keeping it as quiet as we can to stop TOERAG from interfering. Those losers … Now, back to the real stuff—where are we going to put Freddy? Cosmos?”

  As though trying to make up for his earlier mistake, Cosmos quickly brought up a new image on his screen. It was a beautiful scene, which showed the sun hanging low over a peaceful wooded valley, with gently swaying trees, wild flowers, and colorful butterflies dancing across the hedges.

  “This would be a good place for your pig,” suggested Cosmos.

  “What about it?” Eric said briskly to George and Annie. “Does that look all right? Would you be happy about Freddy living here?”

  “It looks lovely—” George managed to squeeze in. Where is it? he wanted to ask, but Eric, who was obviously in a great hurry, had already moved on to the next task.

  “Great!” said the scientist, tapping a few commands onto the keyboard. “Now, kids, this is a bit complicated but I think I can make a double portal.”

  Before the two friends could say anything, Cosmos had opened up a portal to Freddy’s farm and Eric had hopped through into the pig pen. The giant pig looked so shocked to see Eric appear out of nowhere that he didn’t resist when he was gently pushed through another doorway that Cosmos had created. He trotted away happily into the wooded valley that was still displayed on the screen.

  George and Annie watched in amazement as Freddy disappeared through one doorway from the farm, only to reappear in the valley, scampering through the thick grass, his snout twitching excitedly in the fresh country air, eyes sparkling once more.

  Eric backed out of the portal doorway and closed it down. “We’ll go back in to check up on Freddy very soon,” he said. George noticed a faint dusting of straw on his corduroy pants. “I’d better do something about the farm too—stop them from panicking that a pig has escaped and is on the loose.”

  “What will you say to them?” asked Annie.

  “I don’t know!” admitted Eric. “But I’ve managed to explain how a Universe could arise out of nothing, so I expect I can explain away a disappearing pig.”

  “Pig relocation mission completed. Pig safe and happy in new home. Food, water, and shelter all provided. Threat status to pig—zero,” Cosmos flashed up on his screen.

  “And now,” said Eric in the voice that the children knew meant the subject was firmly closed, “it is time for me to do some work—I need to prepare for the talk I’m giving at the university. And you two should be getting ready for school in the morning.”

  The two friends slouched reluctantly out of Eric’s study. This meant that summer vacation was over. Annie had one evening to do all the preparation homework she had stored up throughout summer vacation. George realized that it was time to go home to his real family. He hoped the babies wouldn’t cry constantly the night before he had to go to his new school for the first time.

  Annie sighed. “Bye, George.”

  “Bye, Annie,” said George sadly. The next morning they were both starting at different schools: Annie was attending a private school, while George was going to the local school.

  “Why do we have to go to middle school?” Annie burst out as they hovered by the back door, neither of them wanting to take the next step. “Why can’t we go to a School for Space Exploration? We’d totally be top of the class! No one else has seen the rings of Saturn from close up or nearly fallen into a lake of methane on Titan.”

  “Or seen a sunrise with two suns in the sky,” said George, thinking of the hot planet in a binary solar system that they’d once visited by mistake.

  “It isn’t fair!” said Annie. “To make us pretend to be ordinary kids when we’re not!”

  “Annie!” Eric’s voice floated out from his study. “I can hear you! People who don’t do their homework don’t get to travel into space at all! That’s the rule, as well you know.”

  Annie made a face. “May the Force be with you,” she whispered to George.

  “And with you,” said George, before turning and heading home.

  Chapter Four

  George’s first day at his new school passed in a blur of long corridors and confusing schedules. Again and again he found himself in cl
assrooms for the wrong subjects with older or younger kids.

  It was noisy, perplexing, and a bit scary at this enormous school. George wondered if this was how Freddy had felt when he’d moved from the quiet, safe world of George’s backyard, first to the small, bustling petting farm and then to the huge, scary new farm. No wonder Freddy hadn’t looked happy. On the first day at middle school, even those kids who had been super-confident at George’s old school looked lost and worried as they wandered around the huge maze of a building, trying to find the right classrooms. It didn’t matter if you hadn’t been friends at elementary school—it was such a relief to see a familiar face, rather than all these terrifying grown-up kids—that even sworn enemies suddenly became best friends.

  George had only just worked out where he was supposed to be when it was time to go home. He headed out of the gates. Long ago, at his old school, he used to hide in the coatroom every afternoon until everyone else had left, to make sure he wasn’t pounced on during his walk home.

  But that was before he had learned how to travel across the Universe and unravel great cosmic mysteries. Ever since he’d become friends with Annie and learned about the wonders that surround our planet, George had stopped feeling scared. After all, he’d faced down a mad scientist in a distant solar system; after that, there hadn’t been much to be afraid of.

  But it wasn’t just the journeys that had changed George’s life; the knowledge he had gained from those trips had made him feel intrepid. He had used his brain to solve great challenges, and he now knew that he could cope with anything.

  As he walked home, George thought about Eric and the adventure with Freddy the evening before. Perhaps, he thought, he could pop over and see Eric to ask if they could check up on his pig. George kicked himself for not asking where Freddy actually was. That valley had looked lovely, but George didn’t even know if his pig was still on planet Earth or whether clever Cosmos had transferred him to some other far-off, miraculous place that could support life as we know it. George was sure that Eric knew where Freddy was, but he’d feel happier if he also knew himself.

  At home, he dumped his school bag in the hall, then raced right through his house, only stopping to say a quick hello to his mother and baby sisters and scoop up a pea and cabbage muffin, which he crammed into his mouth in one bite. (George’s mom only cooked with the vegetables from their garden; sometimes she had strange ideas about which recipes to use for her home-grown produce …) He ran straight out of the back door and into the yard where Freddy had once lived. Jumping through the hole in the fence that led to Annie’s backyard, George tore up the path to their back door. He banged on it, but there was no reply. He hammered on it again.

  The door opened a few inches. It was Annie, back from school, wearing her new green school uniform.

  “Oh, George!” she said. She didn’t look entirely pleased to see him.

  “Hi, Annie,” said George cheerfully. “How’s your school? Mine was weird, but I think it might be okay.”

  “Um, it was all right,” she replied, rather quietly. “Did you, er, want something?”

  George was surprised. He came over all the time and she’d never before asked him why.

  “Er, yeah!” he said, a bit startled. “I was going to ask your dad if he knows where Freddy is. So I can go and visit him.”

  “Dad’s not here,” said Annie apologetically. “I’ll tell him you asked. I expect he’ll e-mail you later.”

  Then she actually started to close the door in his face. George couldn’t believe his eyes. What was going on? Then it all became clear.

  “Who is it?” came an older boy’s voice from behind Annie.

  “Oh, it’s, um … it’s someone who lives next door,” said Annie, looking to and fro as though trapped between the two of them. “He wants to see my dad.”

  She opened the door a tiny little bit wider, and George could now see the other boy. He was taller than both George and Annie, with black spiky hair and skin the color of caramel. Like Annie, he wore a green school uniform.

  “Hi!” He nodded to George over Annie’s head. “I’m sorry Eric’s not here. You’d better go. We’ll tell him you came over.”

  George’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

  “I’m Vincent, by the way,” said the boy casually.

  “Vincent also started at my school today,” said Annie, not quite meeting George’s eye.

  “Seriously?” said George in surprise. “You’re in sixth grade?”

  “No!” Vincent looked annoyed. “Eighth grade. I know Annie from outside school.”

  “You do?” said George.

  “Vincent’s dad is a film director,” said Annie shyly, but in a way that George just knew meant she was super-impressed by Vincent. “He knows my dad—he made Dad’s new TV series.”

  “A film director,” said George, feeling defeated. “Nice. My dad’s an organic gardener,” he said defiantly to Vincent.

  “C’mon, Annie,” said Vincent. “We should get rolling.”

  “Mom’s taking us to the skate park,” Annie told George. “Vincent is a champion skateboarder.”

  “You roll, then,” he said, trying to sound normal. “You just roll along.” He turned around and walked back along the backyard path until he reached the hole in the fence. Annie and Vincent were still standing in the doorway, watching him.

  George tried to hop casually through the hole in the fence, as he had done so many times in the past. But it didn’t quite work and he crashed into the wooden planks instead, falling to the ground with a thump. George couldn’t help looking around. Annie and Vincent were still there, which was super-annoying and unfair. When he’d been at the door, they hadn’t wanted to open it. Now they wouldn’t go away.

  With as much dignity as he could manage, he picked himself up and calmly stepped through the gap, trying to behave as if nothing had happened. But inside, he felt wounded and left out. It was only day one of the school year, and already Annie had a new friend to do cool stuff with.

  Where did that leave George?

  Now he had no pig, and no Annie either. He suddenly felt empty and alone. He trailed into the house, looking miserable.

  *

  A little later that afternoon, when George had done his chores and finished his homework, he decided to go back next door, just in case Eric had come home before Annie and the champion skateboarder Vincent returned.

  George found the back door ajar. He pushed it open and sidled in. The house was quiet, dark, and unusually cold, as though, inside, winter had started, while outside it was still only the beginning of autumn. There didn’t seem to be anyone home. But if the back door was unlocked, George thought, somebody must be home. He listened carefully for signs of life: nothing.

  In the gloom, he suddenly noticed a pale blue light coming from under the door of Eric’s study. He tapped on it lightly.

  “Eric!” he called. “Eric?” He put his ear to the door. There was no sound other than the occasional mechanical beep, which signaled that, inside the study, Cosmos was operational.

  George hesitated. Should he open the door? He didn’t want to disturb Eric if he was working on an important theory, but it might be his only chance to catch him on his own. Using his fingertips, he carefully pushed open the study door.

  Unless you counted Cosmos the supercomputer as a person, there was no one inside Eric’s study. Cosmos sat in his usual place on the desk, twinkling away like a Christmas tree, with all his lights on full alert.

  From his screen shone the twin beams of light that Cosmos used to draw the space portal—the doorway that had taken George and Annie on so many cosmic journeys. In the middle of the study hung the doorway to space, suspended by the two rays of light and propped open by one of Eric’s suede loafers.

  Through the crack George could see a desolate cratered surface under a deep-black sky. He leaned forward to push the door open a little farther so that he could see better, but he was dazzled by brilliant sunlight and had t
o shield his eyes with his arm.

  He stepped back from the portal doorway and looked around Eric’s study. Suddenly he spotted his old space suit, left crumpled on an armchair in the corner. Quickly he pulled it on, checked the levels in his air tank, buckled himself in as Eric had shown him, and prepared to step closer to the entrance to space.

  With his hands safely encased in space gloves, George pushed at the portal doorway and had a close-up view of the surface of the Moon, the closest celestial body to the Earth. A grayish expanse of dusty ground stretched far into the distance; it was bathed in harsh sunlight that cast strong shadows across the crevasses.

  Between the portal and the mountains, George could make out a tiny figure, bouncing enthusiastically toward a crater in the distance. Even though it was wearing an all-in-one white space suit with a fitted space helmet, George could still tell from the uneven, joyous way it was leaping about that it must be Eric. On Earth, Eric tended to shamble along in a distracted haze, but in space he behaved as if he had been set free from earthly cares to enjoy and revel in the wonders of the Universe.

  Taking a bold step forward, George crossed the threshold and set first one and then the other boot on the Moon.

  As he left planet Earth behind him, he floated up off the ground, the surface of the Moon scrunching under his feet as he landed again. In the Moon’s low gravity, he could bounce several feet into the air just by gently pushing off with his space boots.

  THE MOON

  Q: When did our Moon form?

  A: It’s estimated that the Moon formed over four billion years ago.

  Q: How did it form?

  A: Scientists think that a planet-sized object struck the Earth, causing a dusty hot cloud of rocky fragments to be catapulted into Earth’s orbit. As this cloud cooled down, its component bits and pieces stuck together, eventually forming the Moon.

  Q: How big is it?

  A: The Moon is much smaller than the Earth—you could fit around forty-nine Moons into the Earth. It also has less gravity. If you weigh one hundred pounds here on Earth, you would weigh less than seventeen pounds on the Moon!