Cosmic (15 page)

At launch minus six I was still insanely hoping that Dad would actually turn up. Especially at launch minus six, to be honest. Because at launch minus five they were going to do the spray-on Power Rangers space suit thing.

The thing about the spray-on space suits is that you have to have a bald chest before they put the stuff on you. So, if you’re a dad, you have to have your chest waxed. That means they pour warm wax all over you and then rip it off with strips of cloth. When the wax comes off it pulls all your chest hairs out with it.

At launch minus five my dad still hadn’t come and I was screaming in pain and looking at a piece of wax covered in curly hairs that had been pulled out by the root.

“There,” said Dr. Drax. “The agony of reentry will be nothing after that.”

Apparently women do it to their own legs, and they don’t
even get to go to space afterward!

After that they sprayed on my space suit—it felt warm and tickly—and I was allowed to go back into the living quarters and wait for it to dry.

When I got there, Mr. Bean was waiting for me. He shook my hand and wished me well. “You take care of yourself now,” he said.

I said, “I thought
you
were going to be taking care of us. I thought all
we
had to do was enjoy the view.”

He laughed. Then he said, “Since you mentioned the view, there was something I wanted to tell you. You got your PiPs, right?”

“Yes.”

“Think hard about what you put in there. It could be your most important piece of safety equipment.”

“What? More important than our space suits?”

“Maybe. You see, the thing about space is—”

I said, “—it’s full of dead people. You already told me.”

“Space is somewhere else. D’you see? It’s not just far away. It’s a different kind of place. It can get a hold of you.”

“Are you saying, ‘You’ll like it when you get there’?”

He smiled. “My mother used to say that. Did yours?” He looked out of the window. Even though it was daylight, you could still see the moon, pale but huge, like a big balloon. He said, “Did you ever hear of Ed White?
First American to spacewalk. A long time ago now—1965. First American to open a door into space, to dangle from a wire and look down at the Earth and see the whole planet roll by beneath him. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Everything he knew and didn’t know. His friends, enemies, places he’d been, places he’d never go, all just sitting there in his field of vision. When it was time to go back inside he couldn’t tear himself away. He was like, ‘Ah, let me stay a little while, why don’t you?’ And, ‘Isn’t that America? Oh no, it’s Africa.’ And…you know. The command pilot—Jim McDivitt—he had to bawl him out somewhat to bring him back to his senses. Do you see what I’m saying?”

I said, “Not really.”

Florida had just arrived in her Power Rangers getup. She said we were supposed to keep moving around to check for fissures and flaws.

Mr. Bean went on. “I’m talking about how to stay in one piece. Try to get hold of the things that are important, the good and true things about your life. Up there is some kind of lovely. And maybe you need to have something in your heart, you know, something even more lovely. To help you find your way home. Otherwise maybe you could be beguiled.”

“Beguiled?”

“I think that would be the word. I’ll say good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Bean.”

He smiled and said, “Call me Alan.”

Just as he was about to go out the door, Florida shouted, “Wait! Alan Bean?
Apollo 12
, 1969? That is cosmic.”

It was the first time she’d ever used my word. There probably isn’t any other word for being able to touch someone who has walked on Another World.

“Wow!” said Florida. “An Apollo astronaut? That makes you dead famous, doesn’t it? I mean, you had ticker-tape parades and went to all these parties, and you were on TV all over the world.”

“I wasn’t on TV so much, actually. I broke the television camera. When we landed on the moon, I accidentally pointed the camera at the sun and burned it out. Imagine that—we went all the way to the moon and didn’t get any holiday footage. So…not on TV as much as some! What I remember is being on the moon. I remember every second. Every stone. Every star we saw. Sometimes it feels like I never really came back.”

He shrugged. “But I did come back,” he said, “and you remember that. Where you’re going—it seems far away and dangerous. But you will come back.”

Which is more or less exactly what my dad said to me on my first day at Waterloo High.

As soon as Alan had gone I wedged my old phone into
the PiP, because it had pictures of home on it. And Dad’s St. Christopher statue. It wouldn’t have fitted if it hadn’t been a bit broken.

Florida said, “What’re you taking that for?”

I said, “Why? What’re you taking?”

She said, “Haribo, mostly.”

When we left the crew quarters the next day, the dads were all waiting by the transporter, ready to say their last good-byes. Monsieur Martinet, Samson One and Eddie Xanadu with two security guards, one on each side of him. They chatted to their boys, rubbed their hair and punched them in the shoulder. Samson One shouted to me, “Look after my boy, now.” I had one last crazy hopeful thought that my dad might show up with the others, but he didn’t. At least I had Alan to talk to.

Dr. Drax gave us each a “lighter than air” ice lolly shaped like the
Dandelion
. “A last-minute treat.” She smiled. “When Infinity Park opens we’re going to sell these all over the world. Aren’t they just delicious? Oh, by the way, I have to ask you all to hand in your new Draxphones. Just to protect the secrecy of the mission.”

The first thing I did when I got onto the flight deck was shuffle Dad’s St. Christopher out of my PiP and wedge it
into the instrument panel. The whole rocket was throbbing, so St. Christopher looked as though he was doing some kind of mad dance. The other thing that I found in there was the little credit-card stress tester. As I picked it up it changed from blue to pink and a message appeared. Just one word: “Stressed.”

The
Infinite Possibility
was two hundred feet high. At the top you could feel it swaying in the wind. And you could hear the wind rolling in and out of the pipes and engines, sobbing and sighing and generally sounding miserable.

As the Responsible Adult, I had to do all the last-minute checks. All the way through, Samson Two kept spouting space facts. I suppose it was his way of coping. “Do you know,” he said, “that exposure to weightlessness makes you grow? Because there’s less pressure on your spinal column, it relaxes and that makes you taller.”

Just what I need, I thought. A few more inches. I said, “We could have a ‘See How I Grow’ chart, just to see if it’s true. A kind of experiment.” I made them all line up so I could mark their heights on the back of the safety door. Just to take their minds off things.

Max suddenly said, “I’m not frightened. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Also, only the strong survive. And I am strong.”

“Yes, but I’m not strong,” said Hasan. “Does that mean I
won’t survive? Where’s my daddy? I want my daddy.”

Florida said, “Your dad’s probably in jail by now,” which didn’t help.

The stress tester had changed from pink to scarlet. The message read, “See Doctor Immediately.”

I said, “We’re all worried about takeoff. Let’s stop thinking about it. Let’s think about inflating our escape suits. In fact, let’s do it.”

It hadn’t just been the electric Ribena. I was right. It was distractingly funny. The kids all sat in their places. I made sure they were strapped in. Made sure the suits were on properly. Made sure they all remembered where the inflation buttons were. Then got into my own place and shouted, “Three, two, one…”

The suits began to hiss and grow, and we all swelled up like giggling tangerines again. The suits expanded into every corner of the module, with just our heads sticking out. Then the countdown started:

“Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…”

“I need a wee,” said Hasan.

“Then do one. You’ve got your special suit on, don’t forget.”

“Pete Conrad wet himself just before
Gemini 5
took off,” said Florida.

No one else heard her say this because there was a sound like mountains snoring. Everything shook like the worst
earthquake film you’ve ever seen. Our stomachs dropped to the floor. The rest of ourselves dropped to the floor. And suddenly it felt like there really
was
a Giant Invisible Dad, but he was furious and he was crushing us between the palms of his hands. And we could do nothing because our arms wouldn’t move. We couldn’t shout. Because our faces wouldn’t work.

And I remember thinking, If this is what it takes to get us up there, what is it going to take to get us down again?

Imagine you’ve scrunched up a piece of paper in one hand, then you open your hand and the paper opens up like a flower. That’s what takeoff feels like.

But soon we began to level off. Florida said, “Are we there yet?”

Then Max said, “Are we there yet?”

And soon they were all saying, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

I tried to shush them in case there was an important message from DraxControl. Then there was a
ding dong
sound in my headset and a nice reassuring voice in my ear said, “Hello, Mr. Digby. My name is Li. I’m your flight controller for today.”

“Nice to meet you, Li.”

“You too. Any questions, just ask me. Right now you can relax. If you like, you can deflate your takeoff outfits and
enjoy the weightless environment.”

I said, “Crew, you may now deflate your escape suits.” They all yelled, “Yay!” and I felt not just dadly but actually captainish.

We started to float around the cabin, propelled by the air from the deflating suits. In zero gravity we really were like a family of novelty balloons.

Last time we were weightless it had only lasted a couple of minutes. So this time we bobbed about enjoying it, waiting for it to stop. But it didn’t stop. Max did ask me if it was time to start our first task. I said, “Soon.” I was too happy being a balloon to bother being the grown-up just then.

A few minutes later the reassuring voice spoke in my ear again. “Mr. Digby,” it said, “we have a glitch. The release for the protective shield hasn’t worked. There is an override button on the multifunctional display. It’s a black button, in the top right-hand corner. Can you see it?”

I could.

“If you could press that when I tell you.”

This was completely cosmic. Something had gone wrong and I was putting it right. I didn’t mention it to the others. I didn’t want to panic them. The voice said, “Now.” I pressed the button.

There was a sound like a door shutting somewhere far
away. The capsule rocked a little bit. Then everything went bright.

Our protective outer panels had blown away. Now we had windows. We could see the rejected panels tumbling away from us into space.

“Great job, Mr. Digby,” Li’s voice crackled in my ear.

“Every mission has one glitch. You’ve just had yours. Now take it easy and enjoy the view.”

The view by the way was Earth.

Not all of it, not to start with. Less than a quarter of it. We were still so close that that quarter filled the window. Because we were high up, I thought we’d be looking down. But really it felt more like looking up. And all we could see was blue. It was completely the bluest ever blue, except for bands of cloud and veins of green on the surface of the sea. We were looking at the southern Pacific.

Max was thrilled by the rejected safety panels. “Look at them go!” he yelled. “They’re like torpedoes!”

I said, “I did that.”

“What?”

“When DraxControl tried it, it didn’t work. I had to press a special button.”

“Did you really,” said Florida, adding, “Dad?”

“Next time,” growled Max, “it’s my turn.”

“No,” said Hasan, “next time it’s my turn.”

In their heads we were an X-Wing Fighter and the Earth was the Death Star. In all our heads the whole thing was so cosmic it had to be a game.

I discovered that if I pushed my feet against the wall, I could flit clear across the cabin, spin round and kick off again from the opposite wall, like Spider-man flying around New York. Then Florida popped up in front of me, making a buzzing sound with her mouth, and miming a few passes with an imaginary lightsaber.

Looking back on it, I should have focused more on being dadly at this point. Because that’s when DraxControl came on, asking for us to move on to our task. “You have a two-minute window to complete the task. Please commence now.”

All we had to do was press the right buttons in the right order, then we’d be set for the trip home. Hasan and Max were still arguing about it. Samson Two put his hand up and said, “Please, sir, I’d also like to press the button,” which was enough to get both Hasan and Max shouting at him. Maybe I should have just done it myself, but I was loving being a floaty Super Mario Matrix Jedi Power Ranger. Which is why I said, “Let’s settle it with light-sabers!” and took a buzzing swipe at them. They ducked and then bobbed up again, looking a bit confused. I realize now that they’d probably never seen
Star Wars
. They’d
definitely never seen a dad trying to make a crucial life-or-death decision with an imaginary lightsaber.

I shouted, “LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER.”

Florida thought this was hilarious and shouted, “You are NOT my father.”

“And you are not Luke.”

We were buzzing and laughing and laughing and buzzing. Then Max noticed Hasan was closing in on the buttons. He yelled, “Hey! He’s cheating!” and went after him. Samson Two dived in underneath them. Next thing, they were pulling and shoving each other in front of the multifunctional displays.

And the next thing after that: a long screeching noise. Then a jolt, as though we’d been caught on a bungee. Then we spun round. And round. And round. And over and round. Fast. And random. Like the cage of the Cosmic.

And a light strobed off and on and off like blue lightning.

And somewhere in the middle of it the voice of DraxControl was shouting in my ear.

Then it stopped.

Then it shouted.

Then it stopped again.

The Earth vanished.

And then came back.

Then vanished.

And then came back.

And then we stopped rolling.

And Earth was gone.

No one said a word.

We drifted over to the window and pressed our faces against the glass, looking for some sign of it.

It was very quiet. And very dark. And very, very scary.

It didn’t take Samson Two long to work out what had happened. The buttons had been pressed in the wrong order. The
Dandelion
’s protective cover had blown off and its silvery sails had popped out. But it had not separated from the command module.

The solar sails had opened unexpectedly—that was the metallic screeching noise—and immediately picked up a gust of solar wind. The sails were designed to push the
Dandelion
gently forward. But our command module was still stuck to the top of the
Dandelion
. Instead of gliding off nicely toward the moon’s orbit, the
Dandelion
had gone spinning over on its side and pulled us off course. The sails weren’t acting like sails on a ship; they were more like the sails on a windmill, spinning us round and round. And it was taking us with it.

We couldn’t see the Earth out of the window. But we
did see a thing that looked like a satellite dish go by, and something like an aerial. Our satellite dish. And our aerial. Which was when I realized I couldn’t hear DraxControl in my earpiece anymore. All our communications equipment had snapped off.

They all started yelling and blaming each other and pushing and shoving. Pushing and shoving under weightless conditions is more long-winded than it is on Earth. You push someone and it takes them a few minutes to get back to you with a shove.

I was going to join in when I noticed a message window flashing on the monitor. A message. Maybe we’d be all right after all.

The message was “Permanent Fatal Errors.”

I could still hear them fighting and shouting behind me. I was going to yell too—something like, “We are now completely doomed and it’s totally all your fault!” But when I turned to face them they were all looking at me. Like I would know something.

Like I would know what to do.

Like I was their dad.

Like the end would never come as long as I was there.

“Is there a message?” said Samson Two.

“Yes.”

“What does it say?”

I could’ve told him, “The message is ‘Permanent Fatal Errors’. So we’re dead. And by the way, I’m not a dad. I’m a kid. So stop looking at me like that.”

These children—Hasan, Samson Two, Max—their dads weren’t looking out for them at all. Their dads made them do all this stuff to make them cleverer or richer or more successful. And then they’d been packed off to Doom in Space. But still they thought someone, somewhere would be looking out for them.

In the circumstances, it felt like that should be me.

I thought, okay, you lot are my mission. I am Engaged. I turned off the monitor and said, “Everything’s going to be okay. We just need to find Earth and then we’ll go back home.”

Florida hadn’t noticed till then. Now she screamed, “Ohmygod, the Earth has gone! What have you done with the Earthyouidiot!?”

“It hasn’t gone. It’s just not very visible at the moment. Don’t worry, it’ll turn up.”

“How do you know?” said Samson Two. “What if it doesn’t?”

“Because all my…all Florida’s stuff is there: the Playmobil Viking ship, the slightly leaky Super Soaker, the ‘It’s Your Solar System’ glow-in-the-dark mobile…”

I don’t know what made me start listing stuff. But it
worked. It reminded them about the Earth. How real and big it was. It made them see it in their heads and they started adding things to the list until they calmed down and finally went to sleep.

The bright blue sleeping bags are attached to the wall. Hanging there, with their heads lolling, the children look like they’re sleeping in a row of Christmas stockings. And I’m the only one awake, like I’m Father Christmas or their guardian angel or something.

And just now the cabin suddenly filled with light. It came flooding in like water. Sunlight.

The thing is, if there is all this sunlight coming in, which wasn’t coming in before, that means that until now the sun was behind something. And that can only be the Earth. Can’t it?

The Earth—I still can’t see it, but now I know it’s there.

I closed the filter on the observation window. I didn’t want the kids to wake up yet.

There’s a hatch in the floor just in front of the multifunctional displays, the hatch that leads to the
Dandelion
module. I thought I’d go down there and look through the
Dandelion
’s windows. I might even be able to see the Earth from there.

I fiddled with the catch. It was simple enough. It was only
when it was actually moving I suddenly thought, What if it doesn’t lead to the
Dandelion
? What if it goes straight to the outside, to the wastes of space? If it does, we’ll all be sucked out by the pressure differential and our heads will explode.

Luckily that didn’t happen.

Inside the
Dandelion
it was surprisingly unrockety. Three rows of seats, two massive windows. It really was like being inside an unusually spacious ice-cream van. The good news was there was a lot—cupboards full—of food and drinks.

The bad news was that—even with those massive windows—you still couldn’t see the Earth.

There was a massive thing between us and the sun, but it wasn’t the Earth.

Something moved behind me.

Florida. She had come down into the ice-cream van. Then “Oh. My. God,” she said, pointing out of the window. “Do you know what that is?”

I nodded and said, “I think I may have seen it before.”

“That,” said Florida, “is themoonyouidiot.”