Lily & Kosmo in Outer Outer Space

by Jonathan Ashley

  CHAPTER 12

  Space Math

  The Spacetronauts formed two facing ranks. Kosmo marched between them, the freckly boy in the coonskin cap marched beside him, and Lily shuffled after them, tripping over her baggy trousers.

  Kosmo whispered to the freckly boy, “Anybody sit in my chair while I was away?”

  “Don’t you fret none, Koz,” the boy answered. “I kept ’er cool for ya!”

  Kosmo climbed into a raised bucket chair, so high that his little feet dangled a foot above the floor. On the wall behind him, painted in huge white letters, were the words MISHUN CONTROLL CENTR. The boy in the coonskin cap stood between Lily and the chair, and folded his fringed arms across his chest.

  “Lily, meet Davy C. Rocket, King of the Final Frontier,” said Kosmo.

  “And best bosom friend to Kosmo Kidd,” Davy added, looking down his nose at Lily.

  Kosmo took a piece of crinkled cardboard out of his belt pouch, and passed it to Davy.

  Davy uncrinkled it and read aloud, “ ‘Rescue Argos from Planet Earth.’ ” He climbed onto the shoulders of the boy in the chef’s toque, to draw a line through the words chalked high on the wall, RESKEW ARGOS FRUM PLANNIT URTH. Then he crumpled the card, and tossed it into a bin marked MISHINS O’COMPLISHED.

  “Well, fellers,” Davy shouted, “Another Mission O’Complished!” The Spacetronauts clapped and hooted.

  The wall was covered in chalk-written “missions” with lines through them. Many had souvenirs displayed beside them. (Since Spacetronauts were not A-plus spellers, Lily had to sound out the words in her head.) Next to the words GIV MAD MYESTRO 4TSEEMO A TAISTA HIZONE MEDISIN! (i.e. “Give Mad Maestro Fortizzimo a Taste of His Own Medicine”), she saw a pair of white, fifty-fingered gloves. On a shelf next to PILFER THE PEEPRS OF DOKTER OKULUS (i.e. “Pilfer the Peepers of Doctor Oculus”), there sat a jar of alien eyeballs, with pupils that looked around the room, in a single, unified gaze. And beside STELE THE TAEL OF LOTHAN LORDUV LIZZERDS (i.e. “Steal the Tail of Lothan Lord of Lizards”) was a scaly, blue lizard tail, pinned to the wall, alive and twitching.

  “Right, lads,” said Kosmo. “What’s next? Gernsback, activate Mission Control!” Out stepped a round boy in Coke-bottle specs, a ball cap, and tool belt, carrying a tin coffee can with a crank on the side, and the words MISHUN CONTROLL painted on it. “This here’s Gernsback, the gadgetician, the nuts and the bolts of our operation.”

  Looking into Gernsback’s blinking, magnified eyes, Lily got the weird feeling there was something there that shouldn’t be, or maybe something not there that should be.

  “Delighted. To make your. Acquaintance. Lily Lupino,” said Gernsback, in a voice that was somehow mechanical and chipper at the same time. He stuck out a grease-blackened hand, and shook Lily’s.

  How come he talks like that? thought Lily. Then she wondered if she had accidentally said it out loud, because Kosmo said, “Gernsy, show the rookie how come you talk like that.” Gernsback took off his cap. There was a scar across his brow, and Lily could see through his crew cut a row of bolts around the crown of his head.

  “He scooped his brain out,” Kosmo explained, “and stuck in an adding machine. Now he’s the cleverest lad in space. Watch! Hey, Gernsy, what’s the minus of . . . um . . . seven and two?”

  “Seven. Minus two. Equals . . .” Gernsback’s eyes rolled back, and inside the boy’s head, Lily heard a whirring, clicking sound. “Five.” The Spacetronauts all nodded, impressed.

  “But that’s easy!” said Lily. Right away she wished she hadn’t, because every Spacetronaut whipped around to stare at her.

  “Well, well, fellers,” said Davy. “Looks like we got us a smarty-pants! Okeydokey, tenderfoot, if yer so smart, let’s see who can answer first, you or Gernsy!” The Spacetronauts circled round for a scrimmage. “What’s seven hundred plus . . . four thousand?”

  The Spacetronauts gasped. Davy had gone straight for the big numbers! Gernsback bit his lip. His eyes rolled back. His brain whirred. . . .

  But he had barely begun to calculate, when Lily said, “Four thousand seven hundred.” Davy puffed up his chest.

  “All right, then. Y’all try this ’un on fer size! What’s . . . a cat . . . plus . . .” Davy scratched under his coonskin, cooking up a real humdinger. He smiled like a coyote, and a breeze blew in from nowhere to tickle his fringe. “. . . a coat hanger?”

  Gernsback’s brain set right to work. Lily’s stopped dead in its tracks. This was Space Math, not one of her stronger subjects. But she took a deep breath, closed her eyes . . .

  The answer popped into her head, just as Gernsback was about to open his mouth. Lily shouted: “A sloth!”

  Gernsback blinked at her, in shock, then took off his hat to Lily.

  “Tell me. Lily Lupino. Are all. Earth Men. Clever. Like you?” The Spacetronauts cheered—all but Davy.

  “Lucky guess, greenhorn,” he sneered, then stalked into the corner to lick his wounded pride.

  “Well, rookie,” said Kosmo. “Care to earn yourself a Spacetronaut Star?”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You gotta ’complish a mission.”

  Gernsback held up the Mission Control can. Lily gave it a good crank, and out popped a card: NAB THE MENEMANS MOSTASH FRUMUNDR HIS VAIRY NOS.

  “Well, rookie, what’s it say?” asked Kosmo, kicking his giddy feet in the air.

  Lily sounded it out aloud, “ ‘Nab the Mean-Man’s Mustache from Under His Very Nose.’ ” The Mean-Man! Remembering the warning of Gluck back at his station, she shivered, and all of Fort Spacetronaut shivered with her.

  “Nah, nah,” said Kosmo, hopping down from his chair. “Let’s save that mission for another day, shall we?” He snatched the card from Lily.

  “What in heckfire for?” protested Davy, snatching the card back from Kosmo. “Ain’t it about time we stuck it to that miserable red-faced so-and-so?” The Spacetronauts cheered at this. One stood on another’s shoulders, and chalked the mission onto the wall.

  “Draw again, rookie!” said Kosmo.

  “Now, hang on a tick,” argued Davy. “Are mine ears a’fibbin’ at me, or do I hear the great and fearless Kosmo Kidd duckin’ the will o’ the Mission Control dingus?” He took Kosmo aside and whispered, “What gives, Koz? Y’ain’t gone yella on me, have ya?”

  “Yella? Ha!” Kosmo laughed. “Kosmo Kidd knows no fear, as you well know, Davy C. Rocket.” He climbed back into his chair, and crossed his arms. “I just figured, this being the rookie’s first mission, we ought to ease him in. There’s plenty of other space bullies we can battle.”

  But Lily Lupino wasn’t about to be eased in. She grabbed the card from Davy. “I’m not scared of some old Mean-Man of Morgo,” she insisted, hoping it was true.

  “¡Oye!” cried the boy in the chef’s toque. “Not afraid of El Diablo del Espacio? ¡Que valiente chico! This Earth rookie has some guts in him, eh, amigos? Soy Pando, the chef.” He took off his toque, and bowed like the bullfighter on one of Mrs. Lupino’s paperbacks. “Bienvenido a nuestra casa en las estrellas. Let’s measure this chico for his Spacetronaut Star right away!”

  “Now hold your horses, hombre,” interrupted Davy. “He ain’t even—”

  But Pando held none of his horses, slapping Lily on the back, while Gernsback rifled through his tool belt for a measuring tape.

  “Sir. If I. May,” said Gernsback. Wrapping the tape around Lily’s waist, he snagged the buckle on the Space Trousers. The straps came loose, and the trousers hit the floor. . . .

  If there were crickets in space, you would have heard one now. Every eye in the place—even the ones in Dr. Oculus’s jar—fell upon Lily.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Lads vs. Lily Lupino

  The Spacetronauts crowded around Lily in her nightgown, with the fallen Space Trousers bunched at her bare feet.

  “Boy! What in star-nation are you doin’ in a dress?” Davy asked.

  “It’s a nightgown,”
said Lily.

  Only Pando came to her defense. “Amigos, this frilliness must be a ritual garment of Lily’s people, the robe of some manly Earth Man ritual.”

  “I dunno . . . Somethin’s been sticking in my craw about this new feller,” said Davy. “Scan ’im, Gernsy!”

  Gernsback leaned in and covered one eye. The other eye rolled over and over in its socket, like a slot machine.

  “Genus . . . HUMAN. Origin . . . PLANET EARTH. Sex . . .” Ding! His eyeball came to rest, and where there had been a pupil, now there was a pink symbol of Venus. “FEMALE!”

  The word spread like wildfire among the panicking Spacetronauts.

  “Uh-oh,” said Kosmo to himself. He slid off his chair, and tiptoed out of sight.

  “Code Pink!” cried Gernsback.

  “Female on deck!” hollered Pando.

  “Flank that filly, fellers!” cried Davy, and the Spacetronauts closed in around her.

  “So I’m a female,” said Lily. “So what!”

  “Spacetronaut Rule Number One,” sneered Pando.

  “No. Women. Allowed,” recited Gernsback.

  “How come?!” said Lily.

  “ ’Cause, missy, females just ain’t fit fer space.”

  “Says who!”

  “It’s bio-logical. All flowered up and daintifed, gals make a man’s head go funny, til next thing he knows, he’s pickin’ flowers instead o’ fights.”

  “Oh, hogwash,” said Lily.

  “Koz, looks like you done been hornswaggled! This here femmy-fatally done bamboozled her way into our supersecret, man-only space base.” He looked for Kosmo, but there was only his empty chair. “Koz?”

  “There he is!” cried a squat Spacetronaut in a newsboy cap. Everyone turned to see Kosmo at the top of the fire pole, about to slide down into the hangar.

  “Say, Koz, where you scurryin’ off to in such a hurry?” asked Davy. “Sidle up here, and tell us just what you was thinkin’ of, bringin’ this here Earth Woman into our lads-only lair.”

  The Spacetronauts dragged Kosmo into the center of the deck, and stood him beside Lily.

  “Spill it, Koz!” said Davy. “You gone frilly or somethin’?”

  “Yeah!” taunted the boy in the newsboy cap. “Whatcha been doin’ on Earth anyways, havin’ tea parties?”

  “Ha!” laughed Davy. “Another minute, this here vix-een mighta had us all pinkies-up and nibblin’ tea cakes!”

  “What’s a tea cake?” asked Lily.

  “Clap it, girlie!” shouted Davy. “Y’aint gonna feminize us with any o’ yer lady talk. Well, Koz? Whatcha got to say fer yerself?”

  Kosmo looked at Lily, then at the wall of Spacetronauts surrounding him, with folded arms and lowered brows.

  “What can I say, lads?” said Kosmo. “This here she-spy got the jump on me.”

  “What?” cried Lily.

  “Aye!” Kosmo continued. “Decked himself out like a lad, so I’d let my guard down. You know women, lads, all full of fibbery and falseness.”

  “I am not!” Lily protested, turning to the others. “I told him I was a girl, over and over and over. . . . I told him back on Earth, I told him downstairs. . . . He’s the one who made me put on these dumb pants!” She kicked the Space Trousers. They flew through the air, and knocked the toque off Pando’s head.

  “Silence, spy!” hissed Kosmo.

  “Silence, both o’ y’all!” ordered Davy. “Now, Koz, this pains me somethin’ awful, us bein’ bosom mates and all. But here inside o’ Fort Spacetronaut, if there’s one crime wickeder’n bein’ a woman, it’s bein’ a sucker to one. Ain’t that so, fellers?”

  All the Spacetronauts stared at the floor, murmuring their grudging agreement (except for Agent Argos, who was busy gnawing on Lothan’s twitching tail).

  “Well then, that about seals ’er. For the breakin’ of our sacredest rule, Spacetronaut Rule Number One, I herely-by find both o’ y’all . . . guilty.”

  “Guilty,” echoed the mournful crowd.

  “Hey, Gernsy,” said Davy. “What’s the sentence?”

  “The sentence. Is . . .” Gernsback ticked through the filing cabinet in his head. “Spaceman’s. Holiday.”

  “Spaceman’s Holiday,” chanted the crowd.

  “Spaceman’s Holiday?” shouted Kosmo. He turned to Lily and hissed, “Well done, rookie! Couldn’t keep your pants on, could you!”

  “Me?” Her nostrils flared. She turned to the others and asked, “So, what is a Spaceman’s Holiday, anyway?”

  But the crowd just repeated the words “Spaceman’s Holiday,” grinning like devils.

  “Your molecules,” answered Gernsback, “shall be de-sintegrated. Cast across the reaches. Of space. And instantaneously re-sintegrated.”

  “Where?” asked Lily.

  Gernsback shrugged. “I haven’t quite. Tackled. That part yet.”

  “Will it hurt?” asked Lily.

  “No, no!” Gernsback assured her. “However. The procedure. Has been known. To tickle a bit.”

  “Come, lads!” pled Kosmo. “It’s me, Kosmo Kidd, the original Spacetronaut! You really want to go de-sintegrating your own—”

  “Now, Koz,” said Davy, “your choices are two: Stand the gaff like a man, or whinny and whine in a most yella and unmanly manner.”

  “Well, then, as I’m not yella, there’s nothing else for it. Charge up the Tele-Moleculizer, and fetch me my helmet. And one more for this . . . woman.”

  “I get a helmet?” asked Lily. Her own helmet? Maybe a Spaceman’s Holiday wasn’t so bad. Besides, she wasn’t exactly hitting it off with these Spacetronauts, so why not try her luck with the holiday?

  Davy and Pando lowered two shiny, fishbowl helmets onto Lily and Kosmo, then marched them onto a contraption marked TELLA-MOLEKULIZR, whirring and sparking, with blinking bulbs, a big twisty antenna, and lots of buttons and dials to keep Gernsback busy.

  “Any last words?” asked Pando.

  “Kosmo Kidd can go suck an egg,” said Lily. The echo inside the helmet sounded just like on Trip Darrow!

  “No!” said Kosmo. “Only Spacetronauts get last words. How about . . . hmm . . . ‘Mark me, lads: You ain’t seen the last of Kosmo Kidd.’ ”

  The Spacetronauts nodded—as last words go, those were pretty good.

  “Very well,” said Gernsback. “De-moleculizing in ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

  On the floor under Lily and Kosmo, a glowing, spinning spiral appeared. It gave off a hum that tickled Lily’s feet. And when the tickle reached her sides, she doubled over with giggles.

  “Three . . . two . . . ONE!” With a sigh of grief, Gernsback pulled a lever.

  The walls of Fort Spacetronaut slurped in around Lily and Kosmo, followed by trees, then stars, then—ssshhloop-POP!!!—darkness.

  CHAPTER 14

  Marooned

  Then, just as breathing in follows breathing out, the universe slurped inward again and—ssshhloop-POP!!!—Lily and Kosmo were floating in a sea of stars. Lily managed to get ahold of her giggles, as the last of her molecules tickled their way into place.

  An icy cold crept under her skin.

  She looked down: Under her dangling feet, there was no ground, just stars. She looked up: stars. To the right: past Kosmo (who looked just as lost as she felt), stars. To the left: stars. Behind her: She guessed there were probably more stars, but with nothing to push off of, she couldn’t turn around to check.

  Her eyes began to pick out other, closer shapes in the blackness between stars. There was a reef of scattered asteroids, coated with barnacles and crustaceans. She saw a wrecked spaceship, snapped in half, with all its spilled insides sitting perfectly still, frozen in time. And a strand of sea green vapor rippled through it all like an ocean wave.

  “Blimey, the Deep End!” Kosmo shuddered. “Of all the places to re-sintegrate!”

  “What’s the Deep End?”

  “The Great Uncharted. Outer-est edge of Outer Outer Space. Some first day
you’ve had, rookie. First you turn my entire crew against me, then you get us both marooned in deep space. . . .”

  “You fibbed on me! I told you I was a girl. It’s not my fault you don’t listen!”

  “And it’s not my fault you get your kicks running about with boy hair!”

  “Astronaut hair!” she shouted.

  “Oh, have it your way, love. I’m off!” He began kicking his legs and scooping with his arms.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s always suppertime in the Deep End, and I’d rather not be on the menu.”

  “Suppertime for who?” Lily’s eyes darted from asteroid to asteroid. In every crag and cranny, she saw shining eyes, blinking, staring. “Or what?”

  “Whatever’s bigger than you.”

  “Well, you’re never gonna get anywhere like that.” She was right. For all Kosmo’s kicking and scooping, he just looked like a worm wriggling on a hook.

  “Oh, mind your own hide!” he panted.

  “Fine, I will.” Lily extended her telescope and scanned the stars. “Aha!” she exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “Can I borrow your ray gun?”

  “What for?”

  “That star just winked at me.”

  “So you want to kill it?”

  “No, I’m gonna send an SOS.”

  “To a star? They tend to stay put, love.”

  “If a star winks, there might be something moving in front of it. Like a spaceship. With your ray gun I can send a signal and get us picked up.”

  “Or gobbled up. What if it’s a great spiny star eel, out for his next meal?”

  “Well, if you’d rather just float around in space til you shrivel up like a raisin . . .”

  “So it’s picked up, gobbled up, or shriveled up, is it?” Kosmo gave up his wriggling, and slowly drew his ray gun. “I don’t know . . . Handing a weapon to a known saboteur . . .”

  Lily grabbed the ray gun, took aim, and began to fire long and short pulses of light at the winking star.

  “What are you saying to them?”