Astrotwins — Project Blastoff

by Mark Kelly

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  To my brother, Scott, who is spending one year off the planet to advance our understanding of how humans can live in space for extended periods of time.

  —M. K.

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  JULY 18, 1975

  This time the twins were determined. Nothing would go wrong.

  Scott had stationed Major Nelson, the family’s big, brown, friendly mutt, at the back door to bark if Mom came home early.

  Mark had laid newspapers on Dad’s basement workbench.

  They had assembled their tools.

  And they were absolutely going to follow the advice Grandpa Joe gave them for anytime you took something apart: Lay the parts down in order so when you put the pieces back together, you can simply reverse the process.

  Easy!

  “It’s like Grandpa Joe always says: Learn from your mistakes,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, and since we’ve made so many, we ought to be geniuses by now,” Scott agreed.

  Mark laughed. “Okay, so go ahead. I’ll keep everything organized.”

  With a screwdriver made for repairing eyeglasses, Scott removed two screws, which Mark placed in the top left corner of the newspaper.

  Then—the best part—Scott removed the plastic backplate and the boys got their first look inside Dad’s calculator.

  “Cool!” they chorused.

  Exposed, the insides resembled staples, pushpins, and grains of rice, all of them tiny and arrayed around a white plastic rectangle. The biggest piece was the battery, which was easy to recognize and easy to remove. After that, there were six more screws.

  Mark duly put each in its place on the newspaper.

  “Should we take out the CPU?” Scott asked.

  Mark knew CPU stood for “central processing unit,” that it was made of a material called silicon, and that it was the brains of the calculator. What he didn’t know was which piece it was, but no way was he going to admit that to his brother. “Sure,” he said.

  Scott used the tip of the screwdriver to pry up the white plastic rectangle, and out it popped.

  “Are you sure you can plug that back in there?” Mark asked.

  “You mean, am I sure we can plug it back in there?” Scott said. “Yeah, of course. I think. And these are transistors, right?” He indicated black spheres that looked like beads.

  Mark nodded. “I guess, but they sure look different from the ones in the TV.” Years ago, the boys had watched fascinated as the TV repairman worked on their old black-and-white set. After that, they decided to see what was inside other machines, like the clock radio, the sewing machine, and the lawn mower.

  Usually, they got in trouble, but it was worth it.

  Scott had just lifted up the calculator to examine the underside of the display when Major Nelson’s excited barking made him jump. “She’s home!” he said.

  “She’s early!” Mark said.

  “She won’t come down here,” Scott said. “Will she?”

  “We can’t take that chance,” Mark said and, hurrying, handed his brother each calculator piece to replace. Upstairs, their mom’s heels clicked on the kitchen floor as she put groceries away. Another sound—thump-thump-thump—meant Major Nelson was bounding all around her, hoping for a treat.

  So focused were the boys on reassembly that they didn’t realize the danger till they heard Mom’s heels echoing on the wooden basement steps. By now the boys had been in this predicament so often, they knew the countdown.

  3 . . . Scott closed his eyes, prepared to accept his fate.

  2 . . . Mark made a last-ditch attempt to hide what they’d been doing, in the process yanking the newspaper off the workbench.

  1 . . . Mom appeared in the doorway, just in time to see a scattering of tiny calculator parts bouncing every which way on the floor.

  Ignition: “Boys!” Mom cried. “What in the heck have you done now?”

  CHAPTER 2

  * * *

  After the calculator catastrophe, Scott and Mark estimated they’d be grounded for approximately one century, with maybe a decade off for good behavior.

  But that wasn’t what happened.

  Instead, once the initial lecture was over, Mom and Dad took the whole thing surprisingly calmly. And the next day they announced they were packing the boys off to Grandpa Joe’s for a week. Grandpa Joe McAvoy was their mom’s dad, a widower who lived in a cabin by a lake about an hour’s drive north by car, near the New York–New Jersey state line.

  “You mean, instead of punishing us, you’re rewarding us?” Mark asked.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Scott said. “I mean . . . not that it’s a bad idea, though.”

  “It’s an excellent idea,” said Mark. “And we’re really sorry about the calculator.”

  “We told you that already, right?” Scott said.

  “You did,” said Mr. Kelly. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t yelling either. “Your mom and I think the trouble is, you’re bored around the house. Grandpa Joe’s got plenty of work for you to do.”

  “Our idea is, you’ll be so busy at Grandpa’s, you won’t have time to get in trouble,” Mom concluded. “Get it?”

  “Got it,” said Mark and Scott.

  “Good,” said their parents.

  The Kelly family lived in a friendly neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey—only fifteen miles from New York City. The Kellys’ two-story house was gray rock with white trim and very well kept because, as their dad put it, there were two healthy boys to serve as slave labor. Since Mr. and Mrs. Kelly both worked long hours at hard jobs, Mark and Scott mowed the lawn, mulched the flower beds, watered, and weeded. But the yard was small. So in summer, there was plenty of time left over for goofing around . . . and getting bored.

  Mark and Scott were the only kids in their family. Their parents said two were plenty when they were as rough-and-tumble as the twins. The boys were alike in many ways—good at sports, curious about everything, and fast learners when they wanted to be.

  But there were differences, too.

  Mark was inclined both to act first and speak first. He liked to tease his brother. There was trouble when he didn’t get his way.

  Scott was more even-tempered and usually thought before speaking. He also had a good sense of humor about himself, which was kind of a requirement for getting along with his brother.

  The next day was Sunday. Mr. Kelly was a police officer who often worked nights, so in the morning he drove the boys north in the family’s Ford Country Squire station wagon with wood paneling on the side.

  The drive was mostly on the highway. The car had no air-conditioning. The ride was hot and boring, and both boys fell asleep. When they woke up, it was because the car was bump-bumping along the ruts of their grandfather’s unpaved driveway.

  “Where’s Grandpa Joe?” Mark asked a few minutes later. He and Scott had dumped their duffel bags in Twin Territory, which is what they called the second-floor loft where they always slept. The house, as always, was unlocked. Grandpa said that if he wanted to lock his doors, he would have stayed in the city.

  “Search me,” Mr. Kelly said. “I told him what time we’d be getting here, give or take.”

  “Hello-o-o!” a voice called from the path leading to the shore of nea
rby Greenwood Lake. Scott, Mark, and their dad turned, and here came Grandpa, wearing denim overalls with no shirt underneath.

  Dad shook his head and laughed. “Ever the snappy dresser, Joseph.”

  Grandpa tugged at the shoulder straps. “You like the Farmer John look, eh? Well, of course you do! Overalls provide all the ventilation you could want on a hot day, plus you can’t beat ’em for comfort. Now, how are my outlaw grandsons?”

  Grandpa Joe had served in the merchant marine and later captained a fireboat in New York Harbor. Now, depending on the day of the week, he identified his occupation as either farmer, architect, or mechanic.

  He was a farmer because he had a patch of vegetables planted behind the house and two hens whose eggs he could never find.

  He was an architect because he had designed and built his house himself—or, more accurately, was working on designing and building it. Not all the rooms had walls, and parts of the roof were just blue tarp.

  And he was a mechanic because he had a rusted-out Model A pickup truck up on blocks beside the house and a barn he used as a workshop out back. Brimming with tools, parts, bits, pieces, junk, discards, cobwebs, grease, and gewgaws, the workshop was a source of endless fascination to the twins, in part because they were never allowed to visit without strict supervision.

  Grandpa said he was afraid that otherwise they might blow something up.

  Neither Dad nor Grandpa was a hugger, so the two shook hands and slapped backs and said, “Great to see you.” Then they all went inside and rustled up bread, apples, and peanut butter for lunch. Peanut butter, in Grandpa’s opinion, was the perfect food.

  They ate at a picnic table under a tree, and then Dad said he had to leave to get to work. “Be good, boys. And do what your grandpa tells you.”

  “We will, Dad,” said Mark.

  “We promise,” said Scott.

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  Usually, Mark and Scott loved visiting their grandfather in the summertime, but this time they’d forgotten one thing. Grandpa didn’t have a TV!

  This wouldn’t have mattered so much except that their visit overlapped with the last few days of an important NASA mission, the one where space modules from the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union met in orbit. On Thursday, Scott and Mark had watched the docking of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft; then, later, they watched the astronauts and cosmonauts floating through the hatch and shaking hands.

  The Russian crew had returned to Earth already, but the three Americans wouldn’t splash down till Thursday. TV would cover it live, and Mark and Scott didn’t want to miss it.

  “I don’t see what the trouble is,” their grandfather said. “You can read all about it in the newspaper on Friday.”

  “The newspaper?” Mark couldn’t believe he was related to anyone so old-fashioned. “That’s nowhere nearly as good as seeing it live on TV!”

  Grandpa put his hand to his ear and said, “Hmm. That sound I hear couldn’t be whining, could it?”

  Mark sighed. “No, sir,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

  Even without television, the week passed quickly. As predicted, Grandpa found plenty for them to do—like washing windows, painting the porch, weeding the garden, and gathering the always elusive eggs. On the rare times that Grandpa didn’t have a job for them, there were woods where they could wander and build forts, and a lake where they could row a boat and swim.

  Both boys were skillful tree climbers. Mark made a game out of climbing as high as he could. Scott liked to find a fat branch on which to sit and contemplate the world.

  Finally it was Friday, the day the boys had been dreading. On Friday, a girl had been invited to come over and eat lunch.

  “She’s going into sixth grade like you are and she’s not icky or anything. You’ll like her,” Grandpa had said.

  The boys couldn’t believe it. Didn’t Grandpa remember being a kid? Didn’t he remember how uncool it was to hang out with a girl? How could he assume you’d get along with a total stranger, a female total stranger, just because she happened to be in the same grade as you?

  Mark had argued.

  Scott had sulked.

  But nothing worked, and at lunchtime Jenny O’Malley arrived in a beat-up Ford Falcon with her mom and a homemade blueberry pie. Jenny had wavy brown hair and freckles. She was wearing cutoffs and a blue T-shirt and tennis shoes with no socks.

  She looked normal enough.

  And the pie was delicious.

  Jenny didn’t say much while they ate, but her mom talked a lot, and Grandpa laughed at the stuff she said. After lunch, Jenny’s mom actually uttered these words: “Now, you kids run along and play for a bit before we have to go home. Don’t you want to get to know each other?”

  Jenny looked appropriately mortified. Mark thought he would have died if his own mom had ever said anything that dumb.

  But Scott got up from the table and said, “Come on,” without looking at anyone, and the three of them took off for the shore of the lake.

  Mark was more talkative than his brother and—he wasn’t proud of this—cared more about what other people thought. So when they got to the lakeshore, it was Mark who said, “Uh, I liked the pie. Did you make it? Or your mom?”

  “I did,” Jenny said. “My mom doesn’t really cook.”

  “That makes you an engineer, in a way,” Mark said. “You took flour, water, butter, and blueberries—then you engineered a pie out of ’em.”

  Jenny grinned. “That’s a good way to think about it.”

  After that, they skipped stones on the water, and one of Jenny’s bounced five times. “Good one,” Mark said.

  Jenny shrugged. “I get a lot of practice.” Then she put her hands in her pockets. “You know, coming here today wasn’t my idea. My mom said I had to.”

  “Yeah?” Scott looked up.

  “So that’s okay, then,” Mark said.

  After that, it was easier to talk, and it turned out Jenny was interested in space stuff too. The science teacher at her school—Mr. Drizzle—launched homemade rockets for fun. One time he told the class he was working on a new kind of rocket fuel—a solid fuel, something more powerful and advanced than anything NASA had come up with.

  “You mean he has a secret formula?” Scott asked.

  Jenny nodded. “I think that’s exactly it. Then, later, another kid asked a question about it, and he said he shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place, and we should all forget he mentioned it.”

  “So maybe we should forget it too,” Mark said.

  “My lips are sealed,” said Scott.

  Inspired by Mr. Drizzle, Jenny had followed the Apollo-Soyuz mission and watched the splashdown on TV the afternoon before.

  “Lucky,” Mark said.

  “We read about it in the newspaper,” Scott said.

  “The astronauts almost died,” Jenny said.

  “Yeah—when that poison gas came in the spacecraft on re-entry,” Mark said.

  “Nitrogen tetroxide propellant from the RCS—reaction control system.” Jenny pronounced all that like it was easy. “They forgot to close a valve or something.”

  Scott and Mark looked at each other, then at Jenny, who had turned pink. “Sorry,” she said. “My friends call me an egghead.”

  “Jenny the egghead,” Scott said.

  “ ‘Egg’ for short,” Mark said.

  “Jenny!” Jenny’s mom appeared at the head of the path through the trees. She was walking with Grandpa. “Oh, there you are. Time to go, honey. Did you have a nice time?”

  “I dunno, Mom.” She looked at Mark and Scott. “Did we have a nice time?”

  The boys cracked up, which Jenny’s mom interpreted as yes.

  “Told you so,” she said to her daughter and then to the boys, “Come back later in the summer, why don’t you? Maybe you kids can get together again.”

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  If Mom and Dad had driven up at that moment, the week would have e
nded on a happy note. Unfortunately, Scott and Mark’s parents weren’t due till the next morning . . . and after dinner, things kind of went to heck.

  Jenny’s mom had left the blueberry pie, and Scott was bringing it to the table for dessert. Later, Mark said he didn’t know why he did what he did. It was just one of those irresistible ideas that come into your head. Every morning, Grandpa put the rubber band from the newspaper in a plastic dish on the windowsill by the kitchen table. The dish was overflowing with rubber bands. Mark’s idea was grab one and shoot it at his brother’s head.

  “Ow!”

  A direct hit—yes!

  But Mark’s satisfaction didn’t last. Scott swiped at his stinging ear, the pie fell to the floor, and the plate broke, shooting glass and blueberry goo everywhere. This was bad enough, but then things got worse. Barefoot, Scott stepped hard on a piece of glass, which neatly sliced his foot.

  “Aiiiii!” he squealed as red ooze joined the purple stain on his heel.

  Grandpa was up in a flash to examine Scott’s injury. Then he ordered Mark to get the first-aid kit from the bathroom and maneuvered Scott onto the sofa so he could elevate his bleeding foot.

  While Grandpa cleaned and bandaged the cut, Scott squeezed his eyes shut and willed his tears to stay put in his eyeballs. “Is it gonna get infected?” he asked.

  “Hard telling with a blueberry wound,” Grandpa said. “You might turn purple. You might not.”

  Meanwhile, Mark swept up the mess, did the dinner dishes, and dried them—all without being asked.

  Chores done, Mark approached his brother, who was still on the sofa. “Does it hurt a lot?”

  “What do you think?” Scott said.

  “You might look good purple,” Mark said. “And then people could tell us apart.”

  “Easy for you to look on the bright side,” Scott said.

  “Boys?” their grandpa said. By this time he had made himself comfortable on his beat-up recliner and was reading the dregs of the morning newspaper.