Seventh Grade vs. the Galaxy

by Joshua S. Levy

  As Ari’s always saying, “Life was supposed to be more awesome by now.” According to all those old sci-fi movies he’s always making me watch, we should be zipping around at the speed of light, chasing aliens across the galaxy or something. Yet here we are. No light speed. No aliens. Yes weekly vocab quizzes.

  “Before we let you all go for a much-deserved summer break, we have a wonderful schedule for this afternoon’s assembly.” Everyone groans, even some of the teachers. I look back over at the robots and wish that I too was asleep face-down in a tray of macaroni. “First, our seventh-grade student council president, Mississippi Tinker, will tell us about her summer plans to build housing pods on Phobos as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Next, we will watch a special slideshow put together by the A/V club. We’ll conclude with the national anthem. Then you’ll gather your things and head to the hangar bay to board the shuttles for your trip home.”

  Here’s the worst thing about today: As much as I don’t want to be here on the 118, I don’t want to go home either. The first few weeks after my dad got kicked off, we talked via ring every couple days. I kept asking him what happened and he kept saying that he couldn’t explain it. After a few dozen conversations like this, I gave up and just stopped answering his calls. If he didn’t want to talk to me, fine. I didn’t want to talk to him either. But now, the thought of going back home feels unbearable. Our cramped apartment on Ganymede was small enough when Mom lived with us. And I know it sounds backwards, but now that she’s gone, it’s going to be even smaller.

  I should have at least gotten a summer job or something.

  I try to focus on something else. While Missi gives her speech, my mind wanders to the history final we took this morning. I already know that I bombed it. Looking back, Question #6 was a freebie: “By issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln freed the: _____________.” And of course, I picked “(d) robots.” We spent months on the First American Civil War unit. And I know that the robots weren’t freed until like 300 years later. Next year, when I take American History: 2150 to the Present, I’ll probably write an essay about how George Washington was the first Governor of Mars.

  Missi’s eventually done talking and it’s time for the slideshow. We don’t have anything as fancy as a genuine interactive holoroom. But there is digital paper along every surface of the cafeteria. It’s pretty scratched up, especially along the floor. Still, it’s decent VR, as long as you don’t focus too hard. The demo package that came with the installation has some pretty realistic themes. (“Ocean” is pretty popular on fish stick day.) And this year, we even got to make our own designs in computer programming class. For a few weeks, anyway, until Hunter and Becka started using the VR system to scare the living daylights out of each other. During breakfast one morning, Becka programmed a giant zombie holographic clown to pop out of the walls. The whole project got canceled, but I’ve got new respect for the digital paper.

  Except when Principal Lochner uses it during assemblies to make us watch boring 2D slideshows set to corny music.

  I try not to doze off as the slideshow plays. There are hidden cameras in every corner of the cafeteria. And at least once a week, Principal Lochner goes through the footage to catch kids misbehaving during lunch. I don’t think there’s such thing as detention on the last day of school. But even I don’t want to find out.

  Finally, following Principal Lochner’s lead, we all stand up and put our hands over our hearts—

  “Oh, say can you see . . .”

  The loudest sound I’ve ever heard—an explosion, it has to be—roars in my ears, a jolt knocks us from our chairs, and the ship plunges into total darkness.

  3

  In no particular order of terrifyingness, here are some of the things that happen next: the room becomes so dark that, even with my eyes wide open, I can’t see a thing. The ship jolts from side to side while the artificial gravity fades in and out. The hull groans like a submarine under too much pressure. And our screaming from inside the room competes with a deafening thump thump noise from somewhere outside the ship, which, I guess, is the scariest thing of all. Because C-student or not now, even I know that there’s no such thing as noise in space.

  The emergency lights kick in, pulsing red every few seconds. The ship jerks hard to one side and I flail into a corner, gliding along the tilted floor like I’m going down a slide. My legs slam hard into a pile of folding tables, sending them toppling down over me. But like I said: the artificial gravity is on the fritz. And before the tables can crush me, I’m floating on top of them.

  Suddenly the gravity’s back and I fall hard onto the pile—which is definitely better than the other way around.

  As we level out, I reach for the nearest wall to steady myself. I’ve got that dizzy/nauseous feeling you get from spinning around on a chair too many times. Which is also the feeling I get when I think about my dad. Because if someone gets hurt, I know that they’ll blame him.

  I’ll blame him.

  I’m really hoping this is all just some random accident. Maybe a mistake the maintenance crew made. It wouldn’t be the first time. At the beginning of last year, we lost engine power and slowly drifted toward the surface of Ganymede for three days because, to quote the captain, “We ran out of juice.” But this feels different. It’s the kind of thing everyone worried might happen after all the weird tinkering my dad did to our ship.

  So why did my dad get fired and kicked off the 118? I’ve still got final exams swimming around in my head, so here’s a multiple-choice question: Was it (a) because he repeatedly gained unauthorized access to the engine room, (b) because he was caught ripping out wires from the secondary fusion reactor, (c) because he refused to explain what he was doing or why, or (d) all of the above?

  The answer’s (d), obviously. It’s always “all of the above” or “none of the above” or whatever. (Or maybe not. I get C’s and D’s now, so what do I know?)

  For obvious reasons, it’s hard for me to talk about this. When it happened, I cried. Like, sobbed. Ms. Needle had to offer me a tissue to wipe the snot off my face. It’s not easy to live something like that down. Kids in seventh grade will instantly forget almost anything—except for the one time you soaked your shirt in your own tears in front of the whole class.

  Principal Lochner sent me to see the school counselor. But I didn’t say much more than “uh-huh” and “nope” and “sure.” Near the end of the session I managed to get a peek at Dr. Hazelwood’s notes: “Dad. Self-esteem. Guilt. Anger. Overly self-conscious.” Not sure he needed a full hour to crack that case.

  I guess I should’ve been grateful that Principal Lochner decided not to press charges against my dad—and that the Homeland Security officials didn’t find anything incriminating when they tore the ship apart. But then the maintenance crew had to repair everything my dad had done plus everything the Feds had messed with in their investigation. And for reasons that made sense only to Georgia, the ship’s engineer, this process involved temporarily closing down the gym, the computer lab, and the cafeteria. If you think crying in front of your classmates is bad, try being the son of the guy who basically canceled recess for three-and-a-half weeks. The only upside was that everyone agreed “no permanent damage seems to have been done.”

  Or not.

  I regain my balance and look around. One of the walls is sparking. A few kids are bruised up. Ming is grimacing and holding their arm. Hunter is trying to pretend he isn’t bawling. Missi is de-stressing by reciting all the colony capitals out loud and by heart: “Adlinda, Asgard, Busiris, Conamara . . .” And Becka is fiercely squeezing her younger sister, shouting, “DIANA, ARE YOU OKAY?” Diana looks fine—though her eardrums won’t be, if Becka keeps that up.

  Principal Lochner calls out, “Everyone stay calm! Clearly there’s been some sort of accident. While I’m getting in touch with the crew, divide up by grade so the teachers can do a headcount and make sure everyone’s all right.”

  While we split up by
grade, he presses his hand against a panel, trying to contact the command bridge. But the comm system isn’t working. I see him try his ring. No luck either. And it’s obvious that the broken comms are just the tip of the asteroid. The room is steadier, but there’s this rumbling underneath our feet. Something is still very wrong.

  “Fifth grade!” Principal Lochner calls out, taking attendance.

  “Present,” Mrs. Watts says coldly. She’s been subbing for my dad since he left, though as far as I know, her only qualification for teaching science is how much she resembles the model human skeleton that hangs in the lab.

  Mrs. Watts forces the fifth graders into a perfect line and glares at Principal Lochner like this whole thing is his fault.

  “Sixth!”

  “We’re all here!” answers Mr. Cardegna, the history and civics teacher. He’s cringing and steadying himself against the wall, keeping his weight off one foot. Naturally, Mrs. Watts is totally unscathed, while the nicest teacher got hurt. Because that’s how the universe works, isn’t it?

  “Seventh!”

  “Here,” Ms. Needle whispers. Her voice and hands are shaking. “Everybody’s fine.”

  Before Principal Lochner can say anything else, someone walks into the cafeteria.

  “Tim?” Principal Lochner asks.

  Tim is part of the three-person flight and maintenance crew. As usual, Tim is wearing his uniform—a one-piece silver jumpsuit—but he’s also got a flashlight strapped to his forehead. Behind him, in the hallway outside the cafeteria, even the emergency lights aren’t working. He’s drenched in sweat and black soot. There’s a long, bloody gash along his right leg, where his pants are torn. And his hands are shaking.

  “Sorry,” he mutters for no reason, squinting into the crowd.

  “Finally,” Principal Lochner says. “Status.”

  Tim has a blank, wide-eyed look on his face. At first he doesn’t say anything.

  “Come on, Tim. What happened? System failure? Debris?” He can’t help it—he glances at me for half a second. “Something else?”

  He means my dad.

  “No,” Tim finally says, his voice eerily calm. None of the above. “We’re under attack.”

  4

  In a weird way, I’m a little relieved.

  The 118 didn’t just glitch out on its own. According to Tim, it got hit with some kind of energy pulse. He doesn’t know much more than that because the ship’s scanners and comms are down. AI, too, I think. And without them, we can’t even begin to figure out who attacked us, what they want, or why they seem to have stopped.

  But we do know one thing: this wasn’t my dad’s fault.

  The teachers have told us to sit down and wait for further instructions while they huddle up and debate our options. I’ve heard the word “evacuate” a few times, followed by whispers of “Too dangerous?” and “What if they’re still out there?”

  In theory, getting to the hangar bay and leaving in the shuttles should be easy. That’s exactly what we were all supposed to do this afternoon, when school officially let out for the summer. Of course, that was before the attack.

  I don’t know what’s worse, the chaos that came just after the explosion or the goosebumpy silence that’s creeping up on us now. We’re sitting on the floor in scattered clusters, waiting to be told if we’re going to stay on the ship and get blown up all together or if we’re going to escape in the shuttles and get blown up in small groups. I know that the teachers don’t want us to think that those are our only options. But it only takes one look at Principal Lochner’s face to see that he isn’t exactly overflowing with optimism. In the dark red glow of the emergency lights, even his rubber ducky tie screams DOOM.

  Ari and I are sitting in the middle of the room with our backs against the principal’s podium. It fell and slid over to this spot when the ship was still off balance—and it’s now the perfect spot for eavesdropping on the teachers. Ari didn’t want to, but I insisted that we scoot over here. I’ve kind of become obsessed with finding out if people are talking about me, and I need to make sure that the teachers aren’t somehow blaming this on my dad.

  “There’s some kind of large-scale communications jamming going on out there,” Tim explains. “We can’t talk to Ganymede or anyone else. We can’t even talk to the other ships in the area.”

  “And the ship that attacked us didn’t send a message?”

  Tim shakes his head.

  “What do they want with us?” Ms. Needle asks.

  “No idea. Harriet thought it might be a Peruvian ship. You know, that war over South Ceres just goes on and on.”

  Harriet’s technically the captain. But she’s not an especially reliable source of information. Whenever my class has gone on “field trips” to see the functional parts of the ship—crew quarters, reclamation, the command bridge—Harriet acts as our tour guide, and our teachers always end up correcting her about something. Once, somebody asked her how far it is from Jupiter to Saturn, and she answered, “Is that the one with the rings?” WHICH IS BANANAS.

  “Maybe it was all a mistake?” Ms. Needle asks. “They shot at us and realized that we’re not who they think we are and will leave us alone now?”

  “Maybe,” Principal Lochner says. “But the more pressing question is, what do we do now?”

  “Well,” Tim adds, “Harriet’s trying to see if we can get out of range of that jamming. She’s diverted all non-essential power to the engines and pointed us toward open space. Maybe we can get a call into Washington and find out if they know what’s happening out here. Hopefully they can send help before we’re hit with any more surprises. If we’re fast enough.”

  “How long before we can make the call?” Mr. Cardegna asks.

  Tim looks down at his feet and takes a few too many seconds to answer. “I don’t know. I’m not sure Harriet knows either. Even if we run as fast as we can, any ship with half a military-grade engine will easily catch up with us if it wants to. All we can do is hope that, whoever they are, they have more important things to—”

  My pants beep.

  “What’s that?” Principal Lochner asks. He looks down and finally notices me and Ari sitting only a foot away from him.

  “Did you hear that?” he asks us.

  “No, sir,” I say, which probably sounds suspicious because I’ve never called anyone “sir” in my life. I elbow Ari in the gut so he doesn’t say anything either.

  The principal squints but lets it go. He and the other adults take a few steps away to be out of earshot. Which is probably for the best. Because suddenly my pants beep again—a familiar sound, but it doesn’t make any sense right now. I pull my left hand out of my pocket and stare at the metallic ring on my forefinger, which is faintly glowing like it does when I’ve got a new text message.

  “I thought that communications were down,” Ari whispers.

  “Me too,” I say.

  Up here in space, our rings tap into a ship’s communication system. If the ship can’t send and receive messages, then I shouldn’t be able to either.

  I press the fingers and thumb of my left hand together and open them back up again, bringing up a bunch of tiny holograms that appear in my palm. I scroll through them by swiping my right hand over my illuminated left hand. Some of the messages I recognize: An old video voicemail from my mom that I haven’t deleted yet. A calendar reminder for today’s test that I probably shouldn’t have ignored. A software update notification for the ring itself.

  I wave my right hand over my left to clear away the mess and pull up something new. A lot of somethings, actually: seventeen text messages. All from my dad. One text came in only a few seconds ago, which explains the beeping. (I always forget to put my ring on silent.)

  Ari looks down at his own ring and shakes his head.

  “How do you have service? Mine is totally dead.”

  I flip my hand over to bring up the new texts over my knuckles. Little floating words and numbers all saying the same thing. “En
gine Room. Now.” Sent from: Ganymede Residential Complex (Block 17).

  Over and over.

  I laugh and close my fist, shutting down the ring. I don’t know what my dad wants from me. But there’s no way I’m following in his footsteps and getting kicked out of school for going into a restricted area of the ship. We’re not even allowed to visit the engine room during “field trips.”

  “So?” Ari asks. “Are we going over there?”

  I was hoping Ari hadn’t seen the messages.

  I roll my eyes. “Like my dad hasn’t caused enough trouble?”

  “But if he texted you the same thing a hundred times, it’s got to be important, right?”

  That’s just it, though. My dad’s idea of what’s important is pretty questionable. For as long as I can remember, he’s called himself a “scientist” and not a “science teacher.” And sure, teaching middle-school thermonuclear physics wasn’t necessarily the best use of those skills. But he’s the one who got married, had a kid, and took this job instead of continuing to build rockets, or whatever he did for NASA. He made those choices. And even if he regretted them, that’s no excuse for running secret and dangerous experiments on the engines of a schoolship, with a hundred kids onboard (not to mention his son). It wasn’t just his own life he was ruining.

  He must’ve had a mid-life crisis or something. But he could have just have leased a new hover-sportscar and dyed his hair. I suppose it’s possible that he snapped after my mom left us. But I get the feeling that she left because he snapped, not the other way around.

  Long story short: I’m not sure I can trust him anymore.

  “I’m not gonna risk going down to the engine room when we’re under attack,” I say.

  “But Jack,” Ari says urgently, “maybe he’s trying to help us! He’s down on Ganymede right now, just like all our families. Maybe they’ve been attacked too and he’s trying to do something about it!” He runs his hands through his hair. “Think about it. How does your ring have service when no one else does?”