Mike Stellar

by K. A. Holt

  Without turning around, Larc just shrugged. Then Mrs. H was up, passing some kind of awful pop quiz to the class.

  “Though I have all of your records, I’d like to see how you do on this quiz. It will help me understand what level I should begin teaching on. Beginner …” And here she looked squarely at me. “Or advanced.” She looked at Larc with a smile. “Write out a timeline of Venus Aldrin’s greatest accomplishments. You have ten minutes.”

  She paced the aisles to make sure no one was cheating and she seemed to pause for an extended amount of time by my desk. I hurriedly began working on my quiz.

  2150—Venus Aldrin hired by the Project

  2157—Venus Aldrin creates Search and Rescue Department after third-generation Mercury probe is lost

  2162—Venus Aldrin eats a sandwich

  2163—Venus Aldrin takes a nap

  Finally I heard Mrs. H’s green shoes click forward to Larc’s desk. She leaned over to Larc and said, “I know this is probably very simple for you, honey, but just play along. I’ll add something challenging to your presentation assignment.”

  Honey?

  “Okay, Aunt Beebo. I’m excited to see what you’ve chosen for me to research!” Larc whispered enthusiastically.

  Aunt Beebo?

  Oh, holy mother of donkeys. Mrs. Halebopp was Larc’s aunt!

  I practically fell out of my desk. Mrs. H turned around and looked at me with a grimace.

  “I, uh …” I swallowed. “I’m feeling very, suddenly, tremendously like I’m going to spew chunks. Please, may I be excused?”

  Mrs. H grunted. “It’s coming out of your quiz time.”

  “Fine.” I scrambled to my feet and bolted out the door. I saw a men’s restroom and staggered inside. At the sinks I splashed cold water on my face and looked into the mirror.

  I ducked into a stall at the farthest end of the rest-room and plucked the peapod from my pocket. “Mrs. H is Larc’s aunt,” I said to myself in disbelief. “I have got to talk to Stinky.”

  “That is not just fishy, Mike. That is funkified fishy.”

  Stinky’s voice was crackly through the peapod as I relayed all the morning’s craziness.

  “Am I a nutbar to think something bizarre is going on? Am I turning into a conspiracy freak or something?”

  “It definitely sounds like something weird is happening, Mike. I’m not sure about the escape pod, but the Mrs. H thing is definitely bizarro. And that Sugar Bear guy? He’s the nutbar.”

  “I know! I don’t know what that guy is up to. And Mrs. H! She doesn’t even work at the Project and suddenly she’s a teacher on board my ship? She has a mystery niece who’s our age but never came to school? That’s deep-sea fishy.”

  “Do you think you can find out what’s up with her?” Stinky asked.

  “Who? Mrs. H? How can I find anything out? Good grief, at this point she probably has my brain waves downloading into her handheld.”

  Stinky made an exasperated noise that sounded like a balloon deflating. “You’re the one on the ship with her, doof. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Dude. That’s exactly right. I’m on a ship. How am I supposed to snoop around and find out why Mrs. H is here? It’s not like I can fake my eyeball scan and bust into her apartment or anything.” But as I said that, I wondered if finding out more about Mrs. H would be as hard as I thought.

  “What if you ask the kids at school if they’ve ever heard of this Larc girl, Stink? She had to have left her house at some point,” I said. “Maybe kids at the library know her or something.”

  “I’ll ask around, but I can’t promise I’ll come up with anything,” Stinky said unconvincingly. “And I’m not talking to any teachers, that’s for sure.” He paused. “What’s Larc’s last name, anyway?”

  “I don’t know, man. Probably Halebopp. I mean, the girl is on the ship with her dad, who’s pretty tall and ugly, so he’s probably Mrs. H’s brother.” I shivered to even think about that vile woman having relatives.

  “What about Larc’s mom?” Stinky asked.

  “She said she doesn’t have a mom.”

  We were both quiet for a few seconds and suddenly it was as if angels from Uranus had sent me a vision. I let out a bwa-ha-ha-ha-I-have-a-plan laugh. “I have a brilliant idea, Stinky!”

  “What?” he asked slowly.

  “Detention!”

  “What do you mean ‘detention’?”

  “You can cause trouble in class—throw a flashnobang or something. That’ll get you a detention for sure. Then, if you get lucky, you’ll have to e-file papers and stuff in Mrs. H’s old office. You’ll be able to snoop around—in the lion’s den!” I was suddenly very excited (and a little bit jealous) about Stinky’s new top-secret mission.

  Stinky was more skeptical. “But why would Mrs. H have anything about Larc in her office?”

  “I’m not talking about Larc, man. I’m talking about Mrs. H. Maybe you can find out what she’s doing on the ship.”

  “I don’t know, Mike,” Stinky said, and I thought I could actually hear him shaking his head. “Detention? The substitute teacher is almost as pure evil as Mrs. H. And if I get another detention, my mom is going to fry my—”

  “I don’t think it could hurt to see what’s there.” I pouted.

  “Fine. But don’t get mad when I can’t find anything. Seriously, Mike, if there really is some kind of conspiracy going on, you can’t expect to find clues just laying around in people’s abandoned hard drives.”

  “Mother of donkeys, Stinky, do you want to help me or not?”

  Neither one of us said anything for a while. “Mother of donkeys” had been one of Hubble’s favorite phrases, and since he’d disappeared, things could get a little awkward when one of us accidentally uttered it.

  Finally Stinky spoke up.

  “What does Nita think about all of this? Surely she’s noticed your parents acting weird. Did you tell her about the escape pod? I guess she probably doesn’t know about Mrs. H yet.”

  “Oh, man,” I said loudly, and grimaced, trying to keep my voice lower. “I totally forgot to tell you. Nita isn’t even here!”

  “What?!”

  “She didn’t pass the security clearance. She’s moving in with Gram.”

  Stinky made a sheeeeew noise and said, “Mike, that is one important detail you left out.”

  I didn’t say anything, because there was another important detail I’d left out, too.

  Stinky continued. “Maybe I should find her and tell her about everything.”

  I bit my lip and then just started talking before I chickened out. “The thing is, Stink, she was talking really strangely when I saw her last.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if you go talk to her, she may just upset you.”

  “What are you babbling about, boogermunch? Out with it.”

  As quickly as I could, I mumbled, “Whenshehugged megoodbyeshetoldmetohelpherfindHubble.”

  “What?” Stinky’s voice faded into a kind of whisper. “Hubble?”

  “I know, man. She told me to watch out for anything weird and to help her try to find him.”

  “Well, but … that’s impossible. Isn’t it?” Stinky’s voice sounded like it had the only time he’d gotten punched in the stomach. (Marcy Fartsy, fourth grade.) It had been really hard for him to lose his older brother, and even harder to know that his best friend’s parents might be the reason. Stinky and I had made it through all the weirdness because Hubble had been like a brother to me, too. Hubble had been my go-to guy for questions and advice and everything. Losing him had hurt me almost as much as it had hurt Stinky. Our shared hurt is what had kept our friendship from becoming strained when Hubble vanished.

  “So what is Nita talking about?” Stinky asked. “Do you think she knows something?”

  “I can’t imagine she’d know anything more than we do.”

  “I don’t know, Mike. I bet she does.” Stinky’s voice was stronger now; he soun
ded more like himself. “I’m going to have to call her.”

  I made an exasperated noise.

  “Look, I know that nowadays you and Nita want to eat each other for lunch,” Stinky sighed, “but don’t you think, maybe, possibly, she’d want to know that you guys made it safely to the ship?”

  “I guess….”

  “Shut it.” Stinky switched to his lawyery voice, so I knew he wanted to make a point. “You don’t think that after twenty-four hours with your gram out there in Old Lady-ville, Nita’ll be ready for a little news? You don’t think she’s tired of cooking biscuits and knitting and doing whatever else grandmas do all day?”

  “What are you talking about, Stink? My gram’s a police officer. You know that.”

  “Oh. Right. But you get my point, don’t you?”

  “Well, I’m not gonna. I’m not even supposed to have this peapod. Something about it interfering with the ship’s instruments,” I said. “But if you feel like you have to, find Nita. Tell her we’re all skipping down the hallways and eating chocolate truffles all day. And that I have my own bathroom.”

  “Is her number still the same? I have it in one of Hubble’s old handhelds….”

  “I guess it should be the same,” I said.

  “When do we rendezvous next?” Stinky asked.

  I snorted, “‘Rendezvous’?”

  He ignored me. “Want to say this time tomorrow?”

  “Make it lunchtime. Then I won’t have to sneak out of class.”

  “Right. Well. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then,” Stinky said.

  “Okay, Stink. Good luck with the detention.” I snickered.

  “Good luck to you, too. And if Mrs. Halebopp tries to eat you, Mike, go for her black eyeballs. Just jab at ’em with your fingers. That’s what you’re supposed to do with an alligator.”

  “It is not.”

  “Hey, it’s one of the last things Hubble ever taught me. He saw it on the Extinct Animal Channel.”

  I laughed. “He was such a dork. Just like you.” I paused suddenly, wondering if I shouldn’t have said that. But Stinky was laughing, too.

  “Bye, Mike.”

  “Bye, Stink.”

  I slipped the peapod back in my pocket and prepared to head back to class. Then I had a thought. When would I have a better time to sneak back to the hallway to try and get a look at the escape pod again? Now was the perfect opportunity.

  My heart pounded. My palms started sweating. I felt like I was about to go on a secret CIA operation. My mission was to discover all I could about the escape pod, and to do it before Mrs. H sent someone to find me. My conversation with Stinky had emboldened me. I was a new Mike. A Mike with a mission (instead of a Mike with a nagging curiosity that often got him grounded). I was going to find out the truth about what was going on…. I had nerves of steel. Nerves of steel!

  I headed out of the bathroom with my collar up and my chin tucked down. I was embracing my new CIA self. I was preparing for my “infiltrate weird hallway” mission. I was crashing headlong into a kid in front of me.

  I stepped off the kid’s heels and looked up. I had exited the bathroom into a throng of kids from my class. They thundered past me toward some unknown destination. A couple of kids glanced at me and whispered to their friends, then hurried away as if I had sprouted oozing sores or something. Awesome.

  “Lunchtime!” Larc hollered at me from the doorway of the classroom. I sighed and smoothed my collar back down. Larc came up and linked her arm with mine. So much for infiltrating the weird. The weird was now infiltrating me.

  “Don’t mind the lemmings. Just get out of their way. I’ll help you make it to the cafeteria without being stomped to death.” She started to lead me away from the spot my feet had frozen to. “You weren’t really vomiting in there, were you, Michael?”

  I yanked my arm away from her. “None of your business. And don’t call me Michael.” So much for cozying up.

  “Well, I hope you weren’t, because we’re having cheeseburgers for lunch today. Real meat.” She smacked her lips and widened her eyes like she was some kind of starved animal. “There’s only two weeks’ worth of real meat on the ship and then it’ll all be soy patties. I hope you’re feeling carnivorous.” She walked backward so she could look at me and talk at the same time.

  “Why don’t you turn around?” I said snarkily. “You’re going to fall on your butt.”

  “Mr. Stellar!”

  Argh.

  “Nice of you to finally rejoin us.”

  “What? Was I gone very long?” I spluttered, playing dumb.

  “One-hour detention after class to think about it.”

  I looked up at the metal bulk of the ship’s ceiling and exhaled slowly so I wouldn’t say something I’d truly regret.

  “Tough luck, Mr. Stellar,” Larc said, turning around and walking by my side. “Detention on the first day of class. I bet your parents are going to be cah-raaazy mad at you.” She screamed the “raaazy” part like she was an opera singer.

  “Larc!” Mrs. Halebopp’s voice rumbled back toward us and I shot a ha-ha-you’re-in-trouble look at Larc.

  “I’m disappointed in you. Screaming down the hallway is inappropriate—and not very mature, is it? One-hour detention for you, too.”

  For the first time Larc’s smile faded.

  “Ha-ha,” I said. “Now your dad is going to be crazy mad, too.” But I didn’t sing it.

  Larc was sullen until we reached the cafeteria door. Then she brightened.

  “You save us a table and I’ll go get the food.”

  “B-but—” I stammered. Before I could explain that I wanted to be alone, she had disappeared into the lunch line.

  Not feeling up for a fight, I decided not to go chasing after her. I settled into a hard plastic chair and crossed my legs, resting my foot on the edge of the table. I thought about the conversation I’d just had with Stinky. I was going to have to snap into action. I needed to practice some of the latest hacking techniques, not to mention investigate the so-called personal homework station in my room. I wondered if it was a stand-alone computer system or if it was networked or what. I was going to have to dust off my research skills, too.

  I buried my face in my hands. What I really needed to do was concentrate on my presentation and just ignore all this other stuff. Then I laughed to myself. Yeah, right.

  “What are you laughing about?” Larc dropped a tray of food onto the table. “Dig in.”

  I reached for a cheeseburger. Larc was looking at me expectantly.

  “Uh, cheers,” I said, holding my burger up to smack with hers. She took the other burger off the tray and plopped it down in front of her. She did not return my cheers.

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Larc stared at me from across the table. Her arms were folded in front of her and she peered at me like I was a monkey at the zoo.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’re a very interesting person, Mike Stellar.”

  I shrugged again. The cheeseburger really was pretty good. And she had brought me some fries, too.

  “I on’t oh how shoo ansher at,” I said with my mouth full. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable.

  “I think you like my company but don’t want to admit it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I think I intrigue you.” She said “intreeeeeg” and raised her eyebrows at me.

  “Who said anything about you intreeeeeging me?” I retorted, my face flushing. “Maybe I just feel sorry for you because everyone else thinks you’re a freak.”

  Larc wasn’t fazed. “Maybe you like me because I’m more of a freak than you.”

  I snatched up my burger and stood as if I was going to stomp off to another table. But there weren’t any other tables to go to, so I sat back down in a huff.

  “Maybe you like me because I’m the only person who likes you.” Larc was talking softly now, unperturbed, leaning her face toward me.

  I
crossed my arms angrily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Tell me why people whisper when you walk down the hall, Mike.”

  “Like you don’t already know,” I muttered, feeling my appetite drain away.

  “I don’t know. I told you, I was homeschooled.”

  I looked at her incredulously. “You mean to tell me you don’t know anything about the Spirit? About my parents? Do you have eyeballs? Do you have ears? Did you not see the black ribbons on all of the trees for like six months? Did you not hear the church bells every time there was a memorial service?” I was breaking into a sweat.

  “Uh-uh. What happened?”

  I took a sip from the water pouch she’d brought me with my lunch. “I’m just giving you the short version, okay? I don’t really like to talk about it.”

  “Fine,” she said, looking very serious for once.

  I took another sip of my drink and lowered my voice. “Almost two years ago, during the first Mars mission, there was some kind of miscalculation with the thickness of the ship’s metal hull. The hull has to be a certain thickness to make it safely through a Fold. But when the Spirit went through the Mars Fold, it never came out the other side. The scientists at the Project said the hull probably crumbled and the ship just disintegrated. Kablooey. The pressure indicators and magnetic indicators on the ship were shooting back crazy numbers right before the Project lost contact. That’s where the disintegration idea comes from.”

  I fiddled with my drink and thought about ending the conversation, but something made me keep talking. It actually felt kind of good.

  “I’ve always secretly hoped that the ship made it through the Fold just fine,” I continued. “Maybe their radios were just messed up from the Fold. I asked my mom about that once and she said there’s like a two percent chance of me being right. But still. Two percent—at least it’s something. Better than I did on my last astrophysics test.”

  Larc laughed softly and said, “I can help you with astrophysics if you want.”

  I shook my head.

  “So why did this tragedy make people hate you?”