Cosmic (10 page)

I said, “You’re not thick at all. Who said that? You know loads of stuff—just not the right stuff, that’s all.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, you’re really good at remembering things. You know all those celebrities’ names, and who they’re going
out with and everything. You’re very good at storing and retrieving information. It’s just that it’s not very useful information.”

Florida was starting to look a bit better. “It was good today when they were all sitting round explaining to me about buoyancy and pressure and stuff. I was like—so
that’s
why we don’t just fall into millions of pieces. I never even thought about it before. Did you know all that already?”

“Some of it. I’m in Gifted and Talented, you know.”

“Maybe you could teach me stuff. You are supposedly my dad after all, and dads teach their kids stuff, don’t they?”

“They’re supposed to, yeah.”

“Only my dad’s been too busy. Because he’s so important. But you’re not busy or important. You could help me get to know stuff. And I could show you how to be a better dad. Because this book is rubbish.”

“Okay.”

Florida looked thoughtful for a bit and was surprisingly quiet. Then she said, “You know when your in-box is full on your mobile and you delete old messages? Can you do that with your brain, do you think?”

“Mmmm…not sure. Why?”

“Cos my brain is full of un-useful information and I was thinking of deleting all of it and filling it up with useful information instead. What d’you think? Or maybe new good
stuff could just force out the old stuff. Like if I learned about gravity, I’d forget about Jennifer Aniston’s alleged struggle with depression.”

“You wouldn’t need to delete anything. Your brain’s got loads more storage capacity than a mobile phone. You can put new information in with no need to take old information out.”

Florida smiled. She looked different. Happier than I’d seen her look in ages. “So I can be clever and stupid at the same time? Cool!”

Oh. Strangely, someone voted for me that day. Everyone got one vote. I assumed that mine was from Florida, but she said it wasn’t. It must’ve been someone whose idea of a good dad was someone who couldn’t work his own trousers.

When the alarm woke me the next morning, it still felt like there was someone trying to drill into the top of my head. Florida explained that it was a hangover. You get them from drinking too much alcohol. She said the best cure was a big fried breakfast. “But we’re not supposed to eat this morning. We’re going on one of the rides.”

“My thrill-ride days are over.”

“Liam, you’ve got a hangover. It’s no big deal, not if you’re a grown-up. Grown-ups get them all the time. Just drink some coffee and when you see the others, make a joke about it.”

“Okay. And Florida…thanks.”

Even though it wasn’t finished—there were still diggers and workmen everywhere—you could see Infinity Park was definitely going to be the World’s Greatest Thrill Park. There were gardens and lakes and lots of half-built rides in the
shape of rockets. The entrance was a huge arch in the shape of two rockets crossing each other. Outside the gates was just endless beige desert and mountains. Inside, everything was bright colors and trees and waterfalls.

As we drove around in the little Caterpillar minibus thing, Dr. Drax acted as our tour guide. “In Infinity Park,” she said, “some of the rides are not ordinary fairground rides. They can be demanding and dangerous—that’s why you have to train to go on them. And that’s why you have to do exactly as you are told at all times. Sorry. The insurers make us say that. Any questions?”

Hasan put his hand up. “Can we have a proper breakfast now?” he said.

“No. Any more questions?”

“What about a packet of crisps?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Why?”

“Come and see.”

She took us to a kind of meadow with rockets instead of trees, like a rocket orchard. At the far end was a plane.

“Looks like an ordinary plane,” said Dr. Drax. “Not too different from the kind of plane that takes you on holiday. Except it doesn’t have any windows. And it’s not taking you on holiday. It’s taking you on a parabola. Quite a few parabolas, as it happens. Does anyone know why?”

Samson Two’s hand shot up. “Zero gravity.”

“Oh, Samson Two, aren’t you clever?”

“In fact,” said his dad, “he’s officially a genius—”

“Today,” Dr. Drax went on, ignoring him, “you are all going to have a little taste of how it feels to be weightless. Excited?”

We were.

“Any more questions?”

“Can we have just one packet of crisps between us?” said Hasan.

“Hasan,” Dr. Drax said, “this plane is officially called the Draxcom Zero Star. But the people who’ve been testing it have been calling it something a bit more informative—the Vomit Comet.”

“Oh.”

“Because most people who ride on it throw up.”

“Ah.”

“So no crisps.”

“No.”

The outside of the Vomit Comet might look like an ordinary plane, but the inside certainly doesn’t. There’s only one seat—a long bench thing with lap belts. The walls are completely covered with giant white cushions. There’s nothing else in there but a big empty space. “You could
think of it,” said Dr. Drax, “as a kind of giant soft-play area flying through the air. There. That’s a nice, cuddly thought, isn’t it? Sick bags are under the seats. Good luck.”

While we were strapping ourselves in, Florida whispered, “What does she mean, weightless? We’re going to lose weight?”

“Sort of….” I started trying to explain about gravity but then the engines started up. And we were taking off. I don’t mean like a normal takeoff. The Comet seemed to be heading straight up into the air for ages. We had to hold on to the bench so we wouldn’t slip off. And the ringing in our ears was so loud we thought we’d never hear anything else again. I felt like my head was going to explode. It was not enjoyable. Everyone was trying not to think about what was going to happen, which wasn’t easy because Samson Two was trying to impress Florida by describing the whole thing—how we were going to climb to some amazing height and then dive faster than we would fall if we were shot down.

Max wailed, “Dad, tell him to stop talking!”

Monsieur Martinet looked at him sternly and said, “Max, there is no point trying to hide from fear. Fear will find you. You have to look fear in the eye, say hello and keep walking by. Remember, Fear is the Enemy of Courage.”

“Yes,” shouted Samson Two, “you must understand that you feel more fear than normal partly because of the unusual amount of gravity acting on your pituitary gland. It’s being squeezed and is therefore pumping out more adrenaline than usual. You should just enjoy it.”

Max stuttered. “But…”

“Max,” snapped his dad, “I insist that you ENJOY IT!”

“LET ME OFF!” wailed Hasan.

“You know,” said Eddie Xanadu, “there are rides like this in America. Only they cost four thousand dollars each time. Don’t think of it as a scary experience. Think of it as a bargain.”

Florida was gripping my arm. But I didn’t feel too bad. The higher we climbed, and the more my ears hurt, the more I thought I’d had this feeling before. Then I remembered where. I turned to Florida and said, “The log flume.”

“What?”

“It’s just a big log flume. You remember, how it takes you ages to chug up to the top of the ride and then you roll over the top and…”

“Oh yeah,” said Florida. And she relaxed her grip a bit.

“It’s a twenty-thousand-foot log flume. The only difference is, you won’t get wet at the end.”

She grinned at me. Thinking of it as a log flume made it feel different. Suddenly the feeling in our ears wasn’t just
horrible air pressure—it was excitement filling our heads like a balloon. A voice on the loudspeaker said, “We are now approaching the crest of the curve. Please unfasten your safety belts and prepare for a zero-
g
interlude.”

“This is it!” said Florida and she let go of me completely, put her arms in the air and screamed, just like on the log flume. Unlike Monsieur Martinet, who grabbed my other arm even tighter.

“I remind you,” said the loudspeaker voice, “that your sick bags are under your seats.”

Monsieur Martinet still didn’t let go. He hadn’t undone his seat belt and he didn’t go for his sick bag. He was just sitting there, breathing deeply with his eyes shut, gripping my arm. I tried to prise his fingers off me.

Then it happened.

I stood up, pulling myself out of Monsieur Martinet’s grip, and tried to walk. The first step was longer than I expected. The second was a lot longer and on the third I just took off.

For a whole second I was flying headfirst down the plane like Superman. But my feet kept going upward so I ended up doing the first double somersault I’d ever done in my whole life. I said, “Whoo hoo!” or something. And when I came up I was facing Florida. She jabbed me and shouted, “Tag!” and the jab sent me spinning back
the other way. When I came up this time, I was facing Samson Two. Before I even thought about it I tagged him. He looked completely surprised and confused. Like no one had ever tagged him before. I tried to swim off—that’s what it felt like, swimming in the air—but suddenly it was all over. One of my feet touched the floor and before I knew it everyone was standing on the floor again. Except Monsieur Martinet, who was still strapped into his seat.

Florida was whining. “Why’s it called the Vomit Comet? No one was sick.” She sounded like she thought I should do something about it.

Then that voice came on the loudspeaker again and said, “That was the first parabola. Please prepare for the second.”

“There’s more!” said Monsieur Martinet, and grabbed my hand again.

So it all happened again. The plane climbed, our ears hurt, Hasan said he wanted to get off and then we all started floating again.

Someone thumped me on the back and sent me somersaulting down the plane. When my head came up, I could see Samson Two grinning at me and shouting, “Tag to you too!” He put his thumb up.

Suddenly a voice yelled, “Stop!” and there was Monsieur Martinet, still in his lap belt, but a bit floaty, like a balloon
on a string. “The pilot has lost control!” he bawled. “This is an emergency! We need help! We need—” but instead of words a ball of puke slipped out of his mouth and drifted off down the plane like a tiny green planet.

“Look!” yelled Florida, pointing at it as if it was the most exciting thing in the world ever. She got herself in front of it, opened her sick bag and let the vomit planet drift inside.

“Back. Of. The. Net!” she yelled.

When we were all back on the floor again, Florida showed me the sick bag and said proudly, “Caught it.”

“I know.”

“Want to see?”

“Not really.”

She also tried to show it to Dr. Drax when she landed. I did try to discourage this. “Florida,” I said, “I’m sure Dr. Drax doesn’t want to see that.”

“Oh, but I do, I do.” Dr. Drax smiled. “I was watching on the monitors and I have to say, Florida, the coordination and agility you showed when you caught Monsieur Martinet’s little accident was very impressive. I think you have the makings of an excellent taikonaut.”

Florida glowed a kind of radioactive pink and looked round to make sure that everyone was listening. No one was. Everyone was staring at the plane. A little girl with her hair
tied back with a ribbon and her hands held stiffly at her sides was trotting down the steps of the plane and onto the tarmac. We were all thinking the same things—how did she get on there? Where was she when we were all floating around? She looked about Florida’s age, but the way she stood next to Dr. Drax reminded me of Mrs. Sass standing on the stage at assembly—still and straight, waiting for us all to be quiet.

“Ah,” said Dr. Drax, “I’d like you all to meet my daughter, Shenjian. She was piloting your plane today.”

Eddie Xanadu said, “Surely you’re teasing again.”

“Not at all. This,” said Dr. Drax, “is what Infinity Park is all about. Giving children the chance to show what they can do. Although Shenjian is only thirteen—”

“Thirteen?!” shrieked Monsieur Martinet.

“—she is an excellent pilot.”

Everyone gasped.

Shenjian said, “Infinity Park believes in young people. This is why I started training as a jet pilot when I was nine years old. Astronauts of the future must be young so that mankind will be able to make longer journeys. I am the future.”

You could see that Dr. Drax was enjoying how amazed we all were. She said, “Any questions?”

Florida said, “That’s a lovely coverall. I like the detail on the pockets. Will we be getting ones like that?”

“Possibly.”

“They look very astronauty. I’d love one.”

“Any questions that are
not
about clothing?” snapped Dr. Drax.

“This is very inspiring,” said Samson One. “Samson Two can do things that many adults cannot do. And when he was only thirteen Alexander the Great was already a great leader. Although of course, even Alexander the Great was not flying jets. Because they hadn’t been invented.”

After that the grown-ups had to go and see a doctor for finger pricks and blood pressure.

“Mr. Digby,” the doctor said when it was my turn, “you have the metabolism of a twelve-year-old. You’ll have to tell us your secret.” And she winked at me!

Monsieur Martinet was next in line. He said, “I believe he has the brain of a twelve-year-old too. When the pilot lost control of the plane, this man tried to start a game of tag!”

“The pilot lost control of the plane?” said the doctor. “I heard that it all went very smoothly.”

“They have to say that,” said Monsieur Martinet, “for insurance purposes.”

Florida was waiting for me when I came out of the doctor’s room, which is unusual because she usually just gravi
tates toward the nearest television. She was still radioactive pink and worryingly smiley. She said, “How did that happen?”

“What?”

“How did we just start floating around like that?”

She was being so nice. My game skills told me to suspect a trap but I couldn’t help enjoying her treating me with respect like this. I started to explain about the Earth having gravity which keeps you on the ground and how if you go far away from Earth you have less gravity so you float.

“Yeah, but what
is
the gravity? I mean, how does it work?”

“Well, all objects exert gravity. And big objects—like planets—they have enough gravity to pull things toward them. Like the Earth attracts the moon and the moon attracts the sea.”

“What are you talking about, the moon attracts the sea?”

I tried to explain tides and stuff to her, but the more I tried to explain how it worked, the more I realized I didn’t really know.

“Liam,” she said, “you don’t really know, do you?”

“No.”

“We’ll go on Wikipedia tonight and find out.”

“You do know that
Celebrity Dental Check
is on TV tonight?”

“We can skip that. It’s the one with Tom Cruise, where they find out that his teeth are completely false. Like you couldn’t already tell.”

I was sure I was going to get all the votes. After all, I was the only grown-up who actually liked being weightless. I got one vote. In fact, everyone got one vote again. I said to Florida, “What is the point of the voting? Who is ever going to vote against their own dad? Except when someone pays them not to, in ice cream.”

“I voted against you,” said Florida.

“What?! Again? Why? You said you were going to help me.”

“I voted for Monsieur Martinet.”

“You…what? Why? He was scared! He passed out on the runway! He
threw up
.”

“I know. Wasn’t that great?”