Gripping the rocket by the fin, Kosmo wrenched its nose out of the fridge, and dragged it to the middle of the kitchen floor. It slid easily on a puddle of Mrs. Lupino’s chicken gravy. Lily saw letters painted on the side of the rocket, like on the bomber in the background of Mr. Lupino’s framed WWII picture (except the rocket didn’t have a lady with one leg pointing up, like on Mr. Lupino’s plane). “M-I-L-D-R-E-D . . . ,” she read. “Mildred? Your rocket’s name is Mildred?” She tittered.
ZZOIP*&#@!!!—the rocket blurted angrily at Lily, startling her straight up into the air like the little squirrel at the shooting gallery.
“I mean, Mildred’s a swell name,” granted Lily. “Swell.”
Kosmo tossed the helmet in through the hatch, and pulled out a huge winding key, as long as his arm. He inserted it into a socket in the hull and—tic-tic-tic—began to turn it.
“What are you doing?”
“Powering up the engine. What’s it look like?”
“Oh. So, you came for who again?”
“Agent Argos. Finest field operative in space, til he got pinched by Lizard Lads in the Omaris Sector. Word is they shipped him here for safekeeping. So, what are you in for?”
“In for?”
“Aye, you’re serving time here, aren’t you? What for?”
“Oh. Um . . .” Lily tried to think of her worst crime. “I cut my hair.”
“That your handiwork, is it?” Kosmo took a moment to admire Lily’s short and shiny do.
“I call it the ‘Trip Darrow.’ ”
“Oh, you know Trip? Fine spaceman. I taught him everything he knows.”
“But you’re a kid!”
Kosmo paused his winding to glare at her.
“No, lad, I’m the Kidd, always was, and never saw much use in being anything else. Now, have you seen Agent Argos or not?” He gave the key a final turn, and tossed it back into the hatch. “You may know him by his undercover name: Alfie.”
Alfie? No, not her Alfie. The universe was a big place. There must be lots of Alfies, right?
“I know an Alfie, but all he does is dribble and stink.”
“Aye, that’s him! But don’t let the disguise fool you. Old Argos is sharp as a shiv. Where they keeping him?”
“What are you gonna do with him when you find him?”
“Bust him outta jail, and rocket him back to HQ.”
“Where’s that?”
“Light-years away,” he said. Alfie, light-years away? That sounded just fine to Lily.
“The ‘brig’ is this way,” she said, leading Kosmo into the hall.
CHAPTER 5
The Liberation of Agent Argos
Lily stopped just short of her parents’ door. Snores and darkness wafted through the crack. “Shh!” Lily whispered. “Don’t wake up Dad. He hates monkey business!”
“Dad, you say?” sneered Kosmo. “Never could abide their sort,” he said, and spat on the floor, “P-tooey!”
“Me neither,” said Lily. “P-tooey!”
Kosmo drew his ray gun, and with a wolfish gleam in his eyes, poked his foot into Mr. and Mrs. Lupino’s bedroom. . . .
“Wait!” whispered Lily, holding him back.
Part of her was itching to see what would happen if he went in. She’d never seen a disintegration before. Sure, she’d heard plenty on the radio, but a real live demonstration? What would it look like? Would Mr. Lupino melt into jiggly jelly, or glow red and pop into a cloud of smoke? But then she thought of poor Mrs. Lupino, waking up in the morning to find out she was no longer married to a man, but to a pile of gray ashes.
“Whose side are you on, lad?”
“If you alert the guards, you’ll never get Argos.”
“Aye. Clever lad.” Kosmo followed Lily down the hall, into her room.
• • •
Kosmo stalked toward Alfie’s crib.
“Locked up like a bloody animal. Savages!” He shook his fist in the air. “Oy, Argos! It’s me, Koz,” he whispered, rapping on the bars. “Time for our daring escape!”
Alfie’s round, groggy face appeared between the bars.
“You sure he’s your guy?” asked Lily. “I mean, look at him!” Alfie blinked and dribbled.
“I told you, that’s his cover. He’s as sly as a fox.” He urged the toddler, “Go on, old man, lay some slyness on the lad.”
Lily waited, almost expecting to hear some strange new voice come out of her brother’s mouth. . . .
Until Alfie stuck his finger up his nose. Kosmo swatted Alfie’s hand.
“Traumatized. Snap out of it, man!” Kosmo turned to Lily and asked, “Give us a hand here, will you?” Together they hoisted the fleshy toddler out of his crib and set him on the floor, where he started whimpering.
“Here.” Lily handed Alfie Colonel Shanks, and he quieted right down. “Or he’ll cry the whole way. Trust me.”
• • •
They stalked back down the hall to the rocket, wound and waiting in the kitchen.
“After you, old man.” Kosmo tossed Colonel Shanks into the hatch, and Alfie clambered in after the pig. Kosmo sat in the pilot’s seat, and saluted Lily.
“You’re a good man in a pinch, lad. Sayonara!” he said, reaching for the hatch.
“Wait!” Lily exclaimed. “So . . . where you guys headed?”
“Back home. Fort Spacetronaut,” Kosmo answered. The lads’ll be wondering after us by now.”
“What lads?”
“My crew, the Spacetronauts.”
“In . . . outer space?”
“Outer space? Pff! Outer Outer Space!”
“What do you do there?”
“Oh, we do space missions, roughhouse, fight galactic villainy, race rockets. . . .”
“Explore planets?”
“All the time. Ta!” Kosmo was about to pull the hatch closed, when Lily caught it with her hand.
“You know,” she said. “I’m training to be an astronaut when I grow up.”
“Grow up? Why bother! All the best spacemen are kids—look at me!”
“You got room for one more?”
“What, up there?” Kosmo asked. “Depends. Are you good at anything?”
“Lots. I can tell a red giant from a white dwarf, and I can always tell you which way is north. See?” She pointed her telescope through the hole in the ceiling, found the North Star, and pointed out the four directions. “Never Eat Soggy Waffles.”
“Sure, brains are well and good, but can you fire a vaporizer pistol?”
“Sure,” Lily assumed.
“Or fly a twin carbo-thruster space rocket—”
“Yeah,” she guessed.
“—through a flaming meteor shower?”
“Probably.”
“Can you wallop a moon troll?”
“I walloped you, didn’t I?”
“Now see here, lad!” Kosmo fumed, jutting out his chin.
“I AM NOT A LAD!” Lily protested, stomping her foot. Why wouldn’t it sink in? Maybe it was because of her—Oh yeah! “Hair!” she blurted. “I can cut hair.”
Kosmo scratched his chin. “Now that you mention it, we don’t have a barber on the crew. The lads and me could use the odd trim, eh, Mildred?” Mildred’s answer was less than enthusiastic.
“Now, Mildred, don’t be rude!” scolded Kosmo. “He can’t help that, can he?”
“Is she talking about me?” asked Lily. Mildred chattered on.
Kosmo answered Mildred, “ ’Course he’s up to it. You think I’d recruit him if he wasn’t?” Mildred honked a warning. “Sure,” said Kosmo, “I remember the last recruit, but—” Mildred interrupted. “Fine!” groaned Kosmo, raising his right hand and reciting after Mildred, “I, Kosmo Kidd . . . do swear to take full responsibility . . . for recruiting and training Lily something-or-other—”
“Lupino,” Lily threw in.
“. . . and not to get him disintegrated or shot into space like that last recruit, what’s-his-name.”
“W
ait, who?”
Kosmo stuck out his hand, and shook Lily’s.
“Congratulations, lad! You’re hired.” Kosmo climbed out of the rocket. Lily was about to climb in, when Kosmo stared coldly into her eyes.
“Think hard on it, son. Space is no picnic: the most monstrous monsters, the vilest villains, black holes that’ll turn you inside out, then squirt you out like toothpaste on the backside of the universe. Believe you me, space’ll make a man out of you. You climb on board, there’s no going back.”
Lily nodded gravely, climbed in, and slid across to the passenger seat. Kosmo sat in the pilot’s seat, and with a rusty squeak, pulled the hatch closed behind him.
CHAPTER 6
(Regular) Space
Mildred’s insides smelled like leather and stale candy. From the outside, she had looked barely big enough for two, but the inside was surprisingly spacious. She had two seats up front, and room in the back for Alfie (who was already curled up with one velveteen hoof in his mouth), with extra room for at least two or three more Spacetronauts. Kosmo pounded the dashboard, and a panel of glowing gauges and bottle cap buttons blinked to life.
“Mildred, fire up scramjets and set trajectory. Ten . . .Nine . . . Eight . . .” Lily’s seat grew hot and began to shake. Through the windshield, she saw that they were pointed straight at the open refrigerator.
“Um . . . ,” she said, “don’t we need a runway or something?”
“Nah,” answered Kosmo, gripping the joystick. “We’ll just aim for that bulkhead.”
“That’s not a bulkhead, that’s the fridge!” Her seat was shaking so hard she sounded like Tarzan hollering on his vine.
“You may want to buckle that strap, rookie,” urged Kosmo. “Five . . . Four . . .”
“What strap?” asked Lily, searching. “I don’t see a—”
“Blast off!” cried Kosmo, slapping a big red button. The rocket shot forward, straight through the open refrigerator, and exploded out the other side in a spray of ketchup, mustard, and assorted produce. Lily’s stomach jumped into her throat. City lights streaked past the windshield—up or down, she couldn’t tell which—then suddenly fell away, leaving only the nighttime clouds sliding by, and beyond them, a sea of pinhole stars.
As the noise of the engine softened, Lily noticed Kosmo making noises with his mouth:
“Ffffrrrroooommmm . . . Vyarrrrnn! Shooooffff . . .”
“Why are you making that noise?” she asked.
“What noise? Vveeyooowwmmm . . .”
“That noise. With your mouth.”
“That’s not me, it’s the engine. Sshhhhfff!” he said, misting the cabin with spit.
“Ew! You’re spitting on me.”
“No, no. That’s condensation. Perfectly normal as you breach the atmosphere. Ffffshhhh!”
The full moon floated into view, so close that Lily could see every dimple in its silver surface.
“Ooo, look! The moon. It’s so—”
“Mildred, lock on target . . . Fire! Tsew-tsew!” Kosmo pulled a trigger on the joystick, firing two bolts of golden light from Mildred’s underbelly. In a hot white flash, the moon exploded, pelting the windshield with gravel.
“Um . . . You just blew up the moon.”
“What, that asteroid?”
“That wasn’t an asteroid. It was the moon. You just killed the moon.”
“So? It was in my way.”
Lily felt sad, thinking of how empty the night sky was going to look. But then she remembered that it wasn’t her night sky, not anymore. In Outer Outer Space, there would be moons aplenty. She giggled at the thought of Mr. Lupino stumbling home from work on a newly moonless Brooklyn night, tripping over a planter and spilling his papers in the mud.
Through the porthole on the passenger side, the stars looked tiny and far away. Mildred must have been going very fast, but the stars weren’t streaking by. They were just sitting there, still.
“Funny,” Lily mused. “Outer space still looks far away, even when you’re in it.”
“Oh, this is still just regular Space. Outer Space is coming up shortly.” And sure enough, they passed a floating road sign that read: NOW ENTERING OUTER SPACE.
CHAPTER 7
Outer Space
Not a whole lot happened during this phase of their journey, but Lily did make a few curious observations:
One) Outer Space did indeed feel much closer than Regular Space. Stars burned bigger and brighter, and whizzed by, so that Lily felt like the rocket was going much faster than before.
Two) Unlike Regular Space, in Outer Space you didn’t need to know the constellations to spot them. Here their silver outlines were in plain view, and even moved around. This was good news to Lily, who had always felt bad for constellations, having to hold still for so long. In Outer Space, a ram could ram, Leo could roar, and Orion could loosen his belt once in a while (and did so, as they passed).
Three) Lily spotted two stars bobbing side by side, one large and red, the other small and white. She raised her telescope for a closer look, and saw that these weren’t stars at all, but a lumbering red giant attempting to club an impish white dwarf, who teased the giant by skipping and giggling around the giant’s trunklike legs.
Soon another floating road sign appeared, rougher than the last one, made of mismatched wood like something out of a covered wagon movie, with the hand-painted words, NEXT EXIT: outer OUTER SPACE.
CHAPTER 8
Welcome (?) to Outer Outer Space
Far ahead, through the windshield, Lily saw a golden glow, and felt a tickle in her tummy.
“There it is,” announced Kosmo, “Outer Outer Space! Ready for the big leagues, rookie?”
The glow got bigger and brighter, and Lily could almost see the outlines of a faraway carnival.
But just as this starlit frontier wonderland was about to take shape, a wisp of red smoke slashed across the windshield, washing the vision away. Kosmo gasped, and jerked the hand brake. Mildred spun to a screeching stop, just short of a blood-red river of fog, blocking their way to the golden playground beyond.
“Slight detour, rookie.”
“What is that?” asked Lily.
“The Murky Way Nebula. One big, creeping cloud of bad news, that. Gets a little bigger every time I see it. Steer well clear of there, rookie, and you’ll do just fine.”
He steered Mildred alongside the rambling fog, seeking a passage through, or over, or under the Murky Way, dodging its curling, seeping, seeking fingers.
“Keep your distance, Mildred,” warned Kosmo. “If that fog catches a whiff, it’ll be all over us like stink on a sock!”
“A whiff of what?” asked Lily.
“Juvenility, youth, kiddishness . . . Call it what you like, they don’t take kindly to our sort in these parts.”
“What’s ‘our sort’?”
“Kids.”
Hulking shadows glided through the nebula, casting cold searchlights through the gloom. Mildred’s engine began to sputter and pop, and she slowed to a lazy crawl.
“Fine time to wind down, Mildred!” grumbled Kosmo, and the rocket honked back, in a huff. “Oh well, keep an eye peeled for somewhere we can wind up.”
He steered them into a field of craggy asteroids. “Too small . . . Too bumpy . . . Too holey . . . ,” said Kosmo, seeking somewhere—anywhere—to land. At last, “Hallo!” he exclaimed, as a towering, three-eyed rooster in a mechanic’s jumpsuit appeared, looming over one of the asteroids. Painted on a faded billboard with the words GLUCK’S GAS-’EM-UP, the rooster pointed a welcoming wing toward a rectangular opening carved into the asteroid.
“That oughta do,” said Kosmo. They dipped under the sign, into the core of the rock, where they scraped to a halt on the stone floor, just as Mildred’s engine ticked its last tick.
Kosmo grabbed the winding key from the backseat, careful not to disturb the sleeping Alfie, popped the hatch, and slid out of the rocket. “Keep an eye out while I wind ’er up, will you?”
Lily poked her head out, and her blood instantly froze in her veins—looming over the rocket were three tall, broad, metal men. She rubbed her eyes and took another look—and saw that they were actually three fuel pumps, rusted over and draped in cobwebs. She slid out and joined Kosmo.
By Mildred’s failing light, Kosmo was about to insert the winding key into the rocket, when—
BWAWKK!!! A squawk startled the key right out of Kosmo’s hands. It clanged onto his foot.
“Yow!” he cried, hopping on the other foot, as a mangy rooster, in grease-stained coveralls, hobbled out from behind the fuel pumps, pointing a vaporizer rifle at Lily and Kosmo. He was bigger than an Earth rooster, and might have even stood a head or two taller than Lily, if he wasn’t so stooped.
“It’s Gluck!” Lily whispered, recognizing the rooster from the billboard, even though in person he looked much worse for wear, and far less friendly, with patches over two of his three eyes, and only a few stubborn feathers remaining in his leathery chicken hide.
“What do we have here?” Gluck clucked. “A coupla ankle-biters?” He said “here” like “heeyah,” and “biters” like “bitahs.” He reminded Lily of the guy at the fish counter where Mrs. Lupino bought her salmon. Mrs. Lupino said he was from “Main,” even though Lily never heard anyone on Main Street talk like a three-eyed space rooster. “Ankle-biters don’t fare so well out this way, not since that mean ol’ red fog rolled in. And folks caught harborin’ ankle-biters don’t fare much better. Besides, I’m clean outta rocket juice, so you may as well skedaddle.”
“Just a quick windup, and we’ll be outta your hair. Or, feathers,” Kosmo said. “See, Mildred here runs on elbow grease.”
Lily & Kosmo in Outer Outer Space Page 2
