Before the Jin’Kai can back out of the sliding doors, a team of security guards that look like they stepped out of a bachelorette party catalog step into place behind them, weapons already drawn. But even as the head baddie and his cohorts are placed in restraints, the guy finds it in him to smirk.
“When all is said and done,” he says with disdain, “you may wish you’d lost here today.”
“This is our home now, Jin’Kai,” Cole replies very seriously. “Our planet. We don’t have room for noobs.”
The security guards drag the Jin’Kai away, and Cole returns to my side, his face immediately lightening.
“Hey, babe,” he says. “Was that badass or what?”
“Very,” I grunt. “And I’d love to celebrate with you, but right now we’re kinda—oof!—having a baby.”
Cole kisses me on the forehead, and he, Ducky, and my dad follow along as the orderly pushes my wheelchair into the delivery room.
• • •
I’m not gonna pretend like labor is all cream and peaches. It’s disgusting and loud and painful, every second of it. But I’ve got Cole—who’s right at my side, squeezing my hand—and Ducky, and Dad, and one seriously pretty doctor to get me through it, so I guess things could be worse.
“All right, Miss Nara,” the doctor tells me, “it looks like the little guy’s just about ready to come out. Have you thought of a name for him yet?”
“Oliver,” I tell him, “after my mom.”
“Your mom’s name was Oliver?” Cole asks.
“Sweetie,” I say in between contractions. “You are very pretty. But you’re dumb as a brick.”
Cole gives my hand an extra tight squeeze and brings his face down close to my ear. “I love you, Miss Elvie Nara,” he whispers.
And maybe it’s just the rush of the moment, or the total incoherence of having a living being trying to escape my body, but I look at Cole, right in those enchanting eyes, and I tell him, “I love you, too.”
“You do?” he asks, all incredulous.
“Yeah. I mean, I think so. I mean, yeah. I do.”
And Cole laughs at that, and then gives me a kiss, right on the mouth. It is wet and warm and wonderful.
“Ewwww,” Ducky exclaims from his post down by Dr. Handsome.
“What?” I cry, wrenching away from Cole and trying to hoist myself up on my elbows to see. “What’s going on? Is something wrong with the baby?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean ‘eww’ the baby,” Ducky says. Quite frankly, I never imagined my best friend would ever be that up-close-and-personal with my girl parts, but once you’ve nearly lost your life and your bowels in the span of fifteen minutes, privacy doesn’t seem to matter so much. “Everything on this end is perfectly delightful. I meant ‘eww’ stop kissing.”
“Thanks a lot, Duck.”
“Any time.”
“Does this mean . . .,” Cole asks, squeezing my hand a little harder. “Does this mean we can, you know, get back together again? I mean, since you’re having my baby and everything?”
“I’m having my baby,” I remind him. “And one step at a time, all right?”
He smiles. “All right.”
“Okay, Miss Nara. This is it,” the doctor announces. “I need you to push. Push!”
And I do.
It is in this moment—finally pushing the goddamn Goober out of his hiding place in my uterus—that I look at the faces in front of me. Cole. Ducky. My dad. All of them watching, waiting, to meet my new baby. And, even through the mind-searing, body-splitting pain, I smile. I am pretty lucky, I think.
“Push again, dearheart!” Dad cries.
Cole squeezes my hand so tightly that I momentarily can’t feel the pain in my groin.
And Ducky, he looks at me and says, “I just want you to know, Elvie, that this is, like, the most intense horror movie I have ever seen.”
Yeah. Pretty lucky.
Push.
Push.
“A little harder!” the doctor says. “I can just make out the head!”
And as I push, push, push, my three fellows lean in to look.
Push.
Push.
“Yes!” Cole pumps the air. “There’s the starkiss! He’s beautiful, Elvie. Such a gorgeous little face.” My dad is grinning from ear to ear. Ducky high-fives the doctor. I would join the party too, but you know, I’m a little busy, what with two thirds of a baby still inside me.
“Almost there, Miss Nara!”
Push.
Push.
PUSH.
And I flop back onto the bed in relief as I feel little Oliver leaving me completely. My bones have turned to jelly. It’s official. I’m a mom.
I look up, smiling, my entire body overcome with exhaustion. “Can I see him?” I ask the doctor, who is cradling my little bundle of joy in his arms.
That’s when I notice their faces. The doctor. Cole. Ducky. Even my dad. They all look completely bewildered.
“What’s the matter?” I ask. Suddenly I’m afraid that Dr. Marsden was messing with my head when he told me that I hadn’t been processed. “It’s Jin’Kai, isn’t it?”
“No, Elvie. It’s not that.” Cole seems positively dumbstruck. “It’s . . .” His voice turns to a nervous whisper as the doctor hands me my baby.
“It’s a girl.”
MARTIN LEICHT
lives in New York City, although his heart will always remain in his hometown of Philadelphia. 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, where she currently lives and works.
Jacket design by LIZZY BROMLEY
Jacket illustrations copyright
© 2012 by LUKE PEARSON
SIMON & SCHUSTER • NEW YORK
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Graff and Martin Leicht
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Book design by Hilary Zarycky
The text for this book is set in Electra.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leicht, Martin.
Mothership / Martin Leicht and Isla Neal. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (The ever-expanding universe; bk. 1)
Summary: In 2074, while attending the Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers, set aboard an earth-orbiting spaceship, sixteen-year-old Elvie finds herself in the middle of an alien race war and makes a startling discovery about her pregnancy.
[1. Human-alien encounters--Fiction. 2. Pregnancy—Fiction. 3. War—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Neal, Isla. II. Title.
PZ7.L53283Mo 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011026283
ISBN 978-1-4424-2962-8 (eBook)
MOTHERSHIP
Mothership Page 26
