by K. A. Holt
“During the investigation it came out that my mom was in charge of the group who calculated the thickness of the Spirit’s hull. And both Mom and Dad had specifically requested not to be members of the flying crew on the mission.”
Larc’s white eyebrows furrowed.
“It looked like my parents had been part of a plan to ruin the mission. And the public cried for a trial, but there never was one.”
“Why not?”
“Because they had nothing to do with it!” I said sharply. “They weren’t guilty! How could they have been? They’re my parents!” Some kids from the next table turned and looked at us.
“But what about the calculations? What about the request to stay on Earth?”
I started to answer her, but a loud ping sounded in the room and everyone started gathering their things. Larc and I stayed in our seats until Mrs. Halebopp came by.
“Don’t dally now, children. We have an afternoon of research ahead of us.”
I scowled and stood up. Mrs. H lumbered away.
Larc shook her head. “Don’t mind her. Her bark is worse than her bite.”
“She’s bitten you?” I asked, only half joking. “I hope you had your rabies shot.”
Larc looked down at my tray as I scooped it off the table. “You didn’t finish your burger.”
“Neither did you,” I said, pointing at her burger. It didn’t even have one bite taken out of it. “Maybe you should get a doggie bag.”
“I’m not hungry. And I don’t have a dog.”
“Ha-ha,” I said as I dumped the food into the de-atomizer.
“What?”
We filed out of the cafeteria behind the rest of the class, with Mrs. Halebopp shooing us out the door.
“You’re sure your parents aren’t guilty?” Larc whispered to me.
“Of course I’m sure,” I said through clenched teeth. But to be honest, I wasn’t really sure about anything anymore.
I headed out of the cafeteria and told Larc I had to go to the bathroom. Instead of going to the bathroom, though, I slithered my way back to the tiny hallway that led to the escape pod. I darted around corners and hid behind benches, afraid that someone would spot me outside class. When I finally got to the hallway, I was shocked to find it completely closed. The bench was gone and now there was a door—with no doorknob—and a glowing keypad.
Hmmmm.
This put a wrench into my “find out everything I can as quickly as I can” plan. For a second I thought about randomly banging on the keypad, but that didn’t seem like a good idea. Maybe I could hack it. I stepped closer and examined the device until I heard quick footsteps coming up behind me. I darted away from the doorway and crouched behind a nearby bench. It was a terrible hiding place but it was as good as I could do.
Breathing hard, I concentrated on willing myself to become invisible. Mr. Shugabert walked past me and stopped in front of the keypad. What was an executive assistant doing in front of a secret hallway? He paused for a second and I thought, Oh, man, I’m toast! But then I heard a rustle and some quick beeps. I barely stuck my head out from behind the bench and I saw Mr. Shugabert slipping a handheld into his pocket as the hallway door whooshed open and he walked into the narrow passageway. The door whooshed shut behind him and I stood up.
Well, that was that. I steadied myself and started toward class. No need to hack the keypad; I just needed to get my hands on Sugar Bear’s spankin’ cool handheld. And figure out what on earth he was up to.
Before I got two feet closer to the classroom door, I felt my peapod shake in my pocket.
Stinky was breathless. He didn’t even let me finish answering. He shouted, “Nita isn’t with your gram!”
“What?”
“She’s not there, Mike. I ducked out of class and called your gram as soon as I found her number. She was totally freaked. She’s been trying to contact your parents since the shuttle took off. The Project shipped Nita’s clothes and stuff to your gram’s house but that was it. Nita never showed up.”
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down,” I said, sinking onto a bench. “What do you mean Gram’s been trying to contact my parents? There’s an emergency contact number that relatives are given.”
“Dude, the number doesn’t work. It’s bogus. Your gram says she’s getting an ‘all circuits busy’ message.”
“What?”
“She’s filed a missing persons report on Nita. She said that she was going to file a report on the whole family if she couldn’t contact you guys on the ship. I told her I had talked to you and I think that made her feel a little better.”
“I don’t understand why she can’t contact the ship. Hasn’t she talked to anyone at the Project?”
“Of course she has, Mike,” Stinky said impatiently, “but she says they’re not being very helpful. She had to threaten them with police action before they finally gave in and let her speak to some lady in charge.”
I stared at the hologram of the solar system circling above my head. “Well, we have to find Nita,” I said, more to myself than to Stinky.
“Duh,” Stinky said. “Your gram has the whole police department behind her.”
“I know, I know,” I said impatiently, “but we should try to find her, too. Maybe she just ran away. Maybe this has something to do with the Hubble stuff she was talking about before….”
My brain was whirling and the only thing I could think of to tell Stink about was Mr. Shugabert and the keypad.
“Well, be careful, whatever you do,” Stinky said. “You don’t want this Sugar Bear guy to—”
“Hey, Stinky,” I interrupted. Something about his voice had just changed. “Talk again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Say anything.”
“Anything.”
“Your voice is coming in clearer than it was before.”
“Hunh.” Stinky sounded clearer but not impressed.
“I mean, you sound like you’re right around the corner instead of …” I turned and looked up at the front of the lobby, through the giant front window.
Stinky had started describing his plan to call the Project himself when I interrupted him.
“The ship is moving.”
“What do you mean moving?”
“It’s traveling through space. The stars are all streaking by, and the Earth is …” I was puzzled. “The Earth is getting closer.”
“It’s way too early for you guys to be on the move,” Stinky said.
“I know. Mom said there’s at least two weeks of work just getting supplies off of SpacePort and onto the ship. Plus, we need another week to power up the plasma-propulsion units.” I stood up from the bench and paced back and forth. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would we be on the move so early?”
I stopped pacing and looked at the little timer on my peapod. “Listen. I’m sorry, but I really have to go. I’ve been away from class so long now Mrs. H is going to give me detention for a week.”
“Well, I’m gonna go call your gram back.”
“Let her know I’m telling Mom and Dad about Nita—and that we’re all fine on the ship.”
“Hey, Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“You know they’re—we’re—going to find Nita, right?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Okay, man. Bye.”
“Bye.”
I sprinted back to class, but when I got to the door, I thought, This is stupid. Nita is lost back on Earth and Gram is freaking out. I didn’t care about getting a million detentions. I needed to go find Mom and Dad.
Other than being really mad at me for breaking the rules and talking to Stinky via peapod, Mom and Dad seemed to take the news that Nita was missing remarkably well. They seemed upset but … preoccupied.
We were in a tiny room in the back of the ship. It was called a Family Room and was designed for private contact with Earth if someone had news of a family catastrophe. (None of our private quarters had communicators that could reach Ear
th.) The walls were a kind of rosy color and the floor had soft beige carpet. Mom and I were sitting on a plush blue sofa and Dad was pacing back and forth in front of a small table where the communicator was embedded.
As Dad talked to Gram, he described the clothes Nita had been wearing and the mole she has on her left shoulder. Mom would shout out something irrelevant every now and then, like “Don’t forget she just had a haircut,” and then go back to frantically writing on her handheld. It was all very surreal.
“What are you doing?” I asked finally, not understanding why Mom was so concerned with her handheld and so not concerned with helping Dad give an accurate description of her missing daughter.
“I can’t really talk about it, Mike. The flight schedule has been pushed up, that’s all. A lot of things are going on right now.” She talked to me without even looking up.
“The ship is moving,” I said. “We’re leaving too early for the Fold, aren’t we?”
Mom stopped tapping on her handheld and looked at me. Her eyes looked a little crazy, but everything else about her was perfectly in place. She set her handheld down and put her hand on my knee.
“Yes. The timetable has been moved forward. But that’s nothing for you to worry about, okay?”
“But what about the plasma propulsion? We haven’t had time to generate the power, or …”
She smiled wearily at me and then gave me a spontaneous hug. “I hate that I forget how smart you are sometimes.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, somehow feeling offended and proud at the same time. People always acted like I was a big dummy, but before … everything happened … I’d had the highest grades in my class. At least Mom never forgot that—no matter how annoying her nagging was.
“I just mean that with all of your detentions and poor grades … Well, I wish you could think of a different way to act out, Mike. You’re just too smart to waste your education by trying to get back at me and Daddy.”
“Get back at you? For what?”
“For everything, Mike. For all of the unwanted attention our family has received. For Hubble.” She looked at me intently. “I know you’re still very angry with us.”
“I am not. I don’t even think about it anymore,” I lied.
“Oh, you don’t? Hubble was like a big brother to you, Mike. I know you miss him—and now Nita, too. And I know being on this ship must be creating a lot of confusing feelings for you.”
“I’m not confused!” I shouted, standing up. “I just don’t know what to think. I know that Hubble’s gone and now Nita is gone. And the ship is moving too soon for us to survive a trip through the Fold and … and it seems like the Spirit stuff is all happening again.” I stopped myself, knowing that I’d just accidentally proven her point.
There was silence in the room. Dad was listening intently to Mom and me. He was doing his typical doctor thing—observe the situation, then assess, and soon he’d be offering his “cure.” To him everything was like an illness—a problem with a solution. A blister and a bandage.
“I’m here to keep you safe,” Mom said in a low voice. “It’s my job to keep everyone safe. Let me worry about the plasma propulsion. Let me worry about the Fold.”
“What about Nita?”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Mom said.
“How do you know?” I shouted. “Gram is freaking out.”
Dad sighed. “Nita is nearly an adult, Mike. She can make her own decisions now. Her staying with Gram, well, that was something she was supposed to do. But as we all know, people don’t always do what they’re supposed to do.” He and Mom exchanged looks.
“What Daddy is saying, Mike, is to trust us. Trust Nita. Everything will be fine.”
I didn’t understand any of this. They seemed so … calm. What was going on here? Mom was tapping away at her handheld again.
“Well, I better get back to class. I have a detention,” I said, still irritated by Mom’s preoccupation with that stupid handheld and by the idea of zipping, unprepared, through a Fold that might eat us just like it ate the Spirit. “Plus, I really have to get my speech researched. At least in detention I’ll have some quiet time to work. Don’t want anyone thinking I’m a moron when I present my speech.” I gave Mom the stink eye.
I wanted out of the Family Room. Mom and Dad were smothering me and yet still keeping me at a distance. Though I would never admit it, I could understand why Mom and Dad weren’t spazzing out about Nita’s disappearance. I didn’t really feel crazy worried about her, either.
I knew she’d have no trouble out on her own. Plus, her left hook is so quick no one would have enough strength or stamina to kidnap her. She must have run off somewhere. I hoped this was true. Why didn’t we just call the EFEs and see if Nita was there? I was going to suggest this, but before I could say anything, Mr. Shugabert opened the door and stuck his head into the room.
“Everything okay in here?” he asked, not smiling for once.
“We’re fine, Leslie,” Dad answered. His words said, “We’re fine,” but their tone said, “Leave us alone.”
Instead of leaving, Mr. Shugabert opened the door a little more and stepped one foot into the room. “Would you like an escort back to class, Mike?”
“I’ll take him,” Dad said, coming up next to me and draping his arm over my shoulder.
Mr. Shugabert crossed his arms and smiled that crocodile grin of his. “I’m just trying to do my job, Al.”
I heard my dad grit his teeth. He hated being called Al. He said it made him sound like an old man.
“I appreciate your concern,” Dad said slowly. “But Mike and I are just on our way out.”
Mom hugged and kissed me and hugged Dad, too, and then we pushed past Mr. Shugabert’s hulking presence without another word. It was hard to place the weird vibe between Sugar Bear and Dad. It was like they were dogs sniffing each other’s butts; would it lead to fighting or indifference?
Once we got a few yards away, I whispered to Dad, “What’s the deal with that guy, anyway?”
“He’s just trying to do his job,” Dad said.
“Well, why didn’t you let him?” I asked accusingly. “He’s basically a glorified babysitter, right?”
“This is a time when we need to stick together as a family, Mike. I know you’re feeling confused and scared about Nita’s disappearance and I want you to know that you can always come to me or your mother if you need to express some of your feelings.” Dad had pretty much ignored my question.
“He seems pushy to me,” I said, pressing the point and ignoring Dad’s little speech. “And he is always around.”
Dad sighed. “That’s what he’s supposed to do. He’s here to take care of us, to lessen the load of everyday crap so that Mom and I can concentrate on our jobs.”
I didn’t say anything. We had made it back to the classroom. I held my hand out, palm forward, to wave it in front of the door opener, but Dad put his hand over mine.
“You know your mother and I love you very much, right, Mike?”
As much as I hated to admit it, it was nice to know he and Mom still realized I existed in the same world they did.
Finally I muttered, “I better get back to class.”
Dad shrugged, suddenly looking really tired. “Well, come straight ho—to the apartment after class, then.”
“I have a detention, remember?”
“Right,” Dad said, crossing his arms. “Well, come home directly after your detention. Don’t hang around in the hallways. Just get home.”
“Fine,” I said.
Without warning he grabbed me in a tight, awkward hug. I stood there, arms stiff at my sides. I tried to free my hands to hug him back, but they just sort of patted at his hips, which was embarrassing, so I stopped and just let him hug me. He didn’t seem to mind. Finally he let go.
“Have fun in class, son.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll come find you if we learn anything about your sister.”
>
“Okay,” I said again. I raised my palm to the door and waved it past the sensor. The door shot open and Mrs. Halebopp appeared, standing in front of the class. She shot me a look that said, “Well, come in or stay out, but don’t stand in the doorway.”
I swallowed hard and walked into the classroom. My brain was twisting, spinning, grappling to make sense of everything. I felt like I was losing my mind.
“It looks like you’re losing your mind,” Larc whispered to me as I sat down at my desk behind her.
“I’m having a very strange day,” I said. I pulled my handheld out of my backpack and noticed the dreaded stench of burnt coffee beans hovering in my nostrils.
“Mr. Stellar,” Mrs. Halebopp whispered fiercely. “I do believe you have broken the world record for longest walk back from lunch.”
I started to stutter an excuse when she held up her hand.
“Your mother just buzzed down and informed me of your family situation.” Her face contorted into what I could only guess was a sympathetic grimace. “We can postpone your detention for another day. However, I would still like you to work on your research project until the end of class today. If you would prefer to go to your apartment and study, you may.”
I swallowed. Was she being nice to me?
“Okay,” I said, shocked, and put my handheld back into my bag. I didn’t really want to go back to my apartment, but I definitely didn’t want to stay in class, either.
The monstrous blue hair teetered down in front of my face. “If you don’t mind taking Larc with you, you can both study together.”
“S-sure,” I stammered. I figured Mrs. H wanted me to take Larc along so that she could vouch that I actually researched instead of goofing off.
“Oh, and, Mike?”
I looked up into those bottomless eyes. “Yes?”
“I trust you’ve had plenty of time to glean some pertinent quotes from the book I let you borrow?”
“Uh, of course.” Dang! I hadn’t even opened that dumb book yet.
“Excellent. May I have it back now?”
“Well … I don’t really … It’s not with me right now.”
