Cosmic (9 page)

“Did you invent this dune diving?” asked Hasan. “Because you could make a lot of money from it if you copyright it.”

“My dad used to do it with me. Don’t your dads do it with you?”

“I think he would say it was a distraction,” said Samson Two.

“Mine is too busy,” said Hasan.

“Mine is too focused,” said Max.

I looked at Florida and said, “What about your dad?”

“Of course,” she said, glaring at me. “He does it all the time. Don’t you?”

I’d forgotten that I was her dad.

“You have an enjoyable dad then,” said Hasan. He looked at me like he thought he might be able to buy me.

I just shrugged and took one of the rocket bottles of water out of my backpack and had a sip. Through the plastic, as I was drinking, I could see them all staring at me.

“Did none of you bring water?”

None of them had. I gave them a sip each and said, “I like to come prepared. It’s a dad thing.”

We struggled back up the dune and then dune-dived
down the other side again, carrying the flag victoriously aloft, like a cohort of avenging Night Elves.

On the way back, the sun was behind us. Our shadows bobbed about in front of us like mad puppets, while our backs felt like they were on fire. Monsieur Martinet wanted to carry the flag, so I put the distress flare in my bag.

Sometimes we’d see some of the footprints we’d made on the way out. But mostly they’d been blown away by the wind. Unfortunately, the other thing we couldn’t see was the Possibility Building.

“It must be miles away if we can’t see it,” groaned Florida.

“It’s so big. We should be able to see it from Bootle.”

Samson Two explained that it was because the sun was shining straight at the horizon. “The light is so strong it seems to dissolve things.”

Then Monsieur Martinet shouted, “There it is!” He pointed way over to the left and there it was. It looked much nearer than I had expected. We were all so relieved to see it that we more or less started running. And it took a few minutes for us to realize that Samson One was shouting at us to stop. “Samson Two,” he called, “has something he would like to say.” We all stopped running, but no one stopped looking at the Possibility Building. “It’s about mirages.”

Oh. No. I did remember having quite a bit of trouble with mirages in the Blasted Lands.

Samson Two started to explain how mirages worked—which you probably already know.

Florida said, “What has this got to do with anything?”

“Although you can see the building, it isn’t really there.”

“Of course it’s there,” snapped Monsieur Martinet. “You’re just looking for an excuse to stop walking. Come on, Max. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

“I believe the wisest course of action,” said Samson Two, “would be to wait until nightfall, when the Possibility Building will be easily visible because it is lit up at night.”

“He is a genius,” said Samson One, “so we should listen to him.”

“The Possibility Building,” said Monsieur Martinet, “is easily visible now. I know, because I can see it.” And he jogged off, with Max following him.

Samson Two called after them, “If the building is really there, why is it due north? The only thing we know for certain is that it is due east.”

“How do we know that?” asked Florida.

“Because we followed the shadow of the Possibility Building. The sun rises in the east, so the shadow was pointing west. Now we want to go in the exact opposite direction.”

Hasan said, “I want to go with them. It’s boring here.”

Eddie Xanadu shrugged. “Whatever makes my little boy happy,” he said.

Florida said, “I’m bored too. I’ll come with you.”

They set off.

“How can we stop them?” said Samson One. “They will be exhausted and dehydrated and will probably die.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s their own fault for not listening.”

“That’s true. But all the same, she is your daughter.”

I’d forgotten that. I yelled, “Florida! Come back!”

She glanced round. “Come back, who?” she shouted. I didn’t need the instruction book to know she was testing me. If I said “Princess,” she’d be so pleased she’d come running back. But it seemed like a better idea to just threaten her. I yelled, “Come back now or else.”

“Or else what?”

“This.” They’d all forgotten that I had the distress flare. I pulled it out of my bag and held it over my head. “If you don’t all come back right now, I’ll set this off and the whole trip will be over.”

Florida stared at me. They all stared at me. I said, “Okay, come back now. All of you.”

They came back. They weren’t happy about it, but they came back. Florida was howling. “It’s
boiling
. We’re never gonna get there by standing still. We’re probably going to boil to death. Or die of boredom.”

“I’m sure we’ll find something to pass the time,” I said.

“What about sand angels? Like snow angels.”

I lay on the ground and moved my arms up and down to make the shape of wings. Then I stood up again. It looked nothing like an angel. It looked like a dip in the sand.

“Or we could write funny things in the sand,” I suggested, “in huge letters. Come on, think of something funny.”

Florida took the flag and used the flagpole to write one word, “starving,” in massive letters.

Until then we’d been too busy being blasted by wind and sand to think about food. All of a sudden we couldn’t think of anything else. We put together what food we had.

As emergency supplies for a desert expedition, it wasn’t impressive. Florida had a surprising amount of Haribo. Hasan had a supersize bar of chocolate, which had melted into a kind of goo inside the wrapper. We took turns licking the foil. The goo got sandier every time we passed it round.

Samson Two had two raw eggs. “Protein is very good for the brain,” he said. No one much fancied them, but when he cracked them open they weren’t raw at all. They’d sort of baked in the heat.

Max had a couple of bananas. “Breakfast of champions,” said his dad. They’d baked inside their skins.

It didn’t take long to eat what we had, and people were
starting to get restless again when Eddie Xanadu said, “In fact, I have something that might be helpful.” He unzipped his little bag and took out a thermos flask. Why would anyone need a flask to keep things warm out here? When he unscrewed the lid, a little plume of cool blue mist rose from it. The flask was full of soft, white, chilly ice cream. Everyone sighed and leaned forward. It made you feel cooler just to look at it.

“Of course,” said Samson Two, in a kind of dream, “vacuums can be used to keep things cold as well as warm.” And he started explaining why.

“They also,” smiled Eddie, “keep things creamy. And vanilla-ish.” He took a teaspoon, dug it into the ice cream and handed the first spoonful to Florida, saying, “Ladies first.”

Florida closed her eyes as the ice cream slid down her throat.

I said, “Florida, say thank you.”

“No need to thank me,” said Eddie Xanadu, “but I would be grateful for your vote this evening. If not, no second helpings!”

All the dads immediately started shouting, “That’s not fair,” and, “That’s bribery!”

“Not bribery.” Mr. Xanadu smiled. “Initiative, which, as you say, Monsieur Martinet, is what winners use. Of course,
if you don’t want your children to have any…”

Now all the kids started yelling it wasn’t fair. Eddie Xanadu clasped the thermos to his chest and pretended to look disappointed. “No one wants any?”

“We ALL want some,” growled Florida, “and we’ll all vote for you.”

“It’s so nice to be appreciated,” smiled Eddie.

They carried on pushing and shoving until every last scrap had gone. It was just about to be my turn when Samson Two shouted, “There it is!”

And there it was, straight ahead of us—and not way over to the left at all—the Possibility Building, like a great big lipstick in the corner of the sky.

After a few minutes it suddenly went dark. There was no sunset. It was more like God had put the light out. And then the building seemed brighter and nearer and we all started walking more and more quickly. Then the light around the building seemed to change from yellow to a kind of strange bluey silver and we saw why—rising up behind the building, so that we could only see the edges at first, was the biggest moon that any of us had ever seen. It was so big and fat and round, like a yellow tunnel, you felt that if you kept walking, you would eventually walk through the horizon and into the moon.

For a while we all stood still and watched it, as though
we thought that once it had finished washing the world in a weird blue light it might do some other trick.

As the moon rose higher, the stars came out. The stars of the Gobi Desert are not the same as the stars of Bootle. For one thing, there were a lot more of them—millions of them—in clusters and knots, and they shone as bright as headlights. We mostly walked with our heads in the air—trying to spot shooting stars and pick out constellations all the way back to Infinity Park.

While Dinah Drax was collecting the votes, Samson One came over to me and said, “If it had not been for you, we would still be walking out there. When no one would listen to my son, you made them listen. Without you, perhaps we would be dead.”

“Well, I don’t know about that—” But it was true. I had completed my mission. If we were in-game now, all my reward points would be flooding in to me. My health would be going up. And my wealth. And I’d probably have a few more skills too. It was different in-life. My reward was going to be votes.

Of course they weren’t going to vote for Eddie Xanadu just because he gave them ice cream. They were going to vote for me. Because I saved their lives. All of them.

“Gentlemen,” said Dr. Drax, “the votes from today’s little
excursion are as follows….

“Mr. Xanadu, all four votes. Thank you.”

Even though I’d saved their lives, even though I’d found the flag and given them water, even though they
said
I was a good dad, they still voted for the ice-cream man. Even my own daughter!

Later on I tried this technique on Florida. I said, “What made you vote for Eddie Xanadu and not me?”

She said, “He gave me ice cream and you didn’t.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“That’s what dads are for, isn’t it? Why do you think Father Christmas is called
Father
Christmas? He’s a father, so he gives you presents. Dads give you presents—that’s their job.”

“Isn’t it their job to take care of you—maybe even save your life?”

“That’s not dads, Liam,” she said, flicking through channels on the wall. “That’s emergency services.”

On my fake program for the South Lakeland Outdoor Activity Center, it says, “Day Three—Nature Walk and Tree Recognition.”

On our actual third day in Infinity Park what we really did was: Space Suits, an Introduction.

I remember walking into the Possibility Building, just popping with excitement. I was talking to Florida about my favorite game-and-movie space suits. “Have you ever played Orbiter IV? The space suits in that are just cosmic….”

“Liam,” said Florida, “you are very undadly.”

“What?”

“Dads do not play Orbiter IV. Dads do not say things are ‘cosmic.’ And most of all, dads do not get excited about clothes. When you go clothes shopping, dads don’t say, ‘Great.’ They say, ‘Do we have to?’ Then, when you get
to the shop, the dads all sit together outside the changing rooms, looking bored.”

I said, “Florida, a space suit is not clothes. A space suit is
equipment
. It’ll probably come with an instruction manual and everything. It’s a gadget. All dads love gadgets. This is a dadly occasion, not a girly shopping date.”

The moment she saw us, Dr. Drax said, “Oh, Florida, thank goodness you’re here. Let’s you and I make this session into our own little girly shopping date.”

Then they talked for about ten years about extraterrestrial color coordination. Vehicle Escape Suits are always bright orange, because orange is the most visible color at sea. But Florida was worried that orange would clash with her unfeasibly red hair and Dr. Drax could see her point.

“I totally understand. You’d look like a massive satsuma. On the other hand, a massive satsuma would be very, very visible.”

While this was going on, all the dads were sitting together feeling bored. Florida was right.

Eddie Xanadu smiled at me. He said, “I was thinking—in a way you saved our lives yesterday. You found the flag. You made us listen to Samson Two. You are a good guy, I think. It’s a shame I got all the votes. I hope you have no hard feelings?”

I said, “No, of course there’s no hard feelings,” but I think
he could tell that I meant, Next time, we’ll stake you out, cover you with your own ice cream and leave you to the man-eating ants.

“Good man. Maybe you’ll join me in a little drink.” He pulled out another flask—this one was silver and had his initials written on it in diamonds. “This makes the time go faster,” he said. “Don’t let anyone else see.” He passed it to me behind his newspaper.

I wasn’t sure why no one was supposed to see. Maybe it was because everyone would want some and he only had a little bit. He said, “It’s made from plums. In my own village. Where I grew up. In the autumn time, we have a great fiesta.”

“Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever had plum juice. What’s it like? Ribena or something?”

I took a swig. It didn’t taste like Ribena. It tasted more sort of like being shot through the throat with a laser. All the muscles in my body concertinaed up and then tromboned out. Then my eyes opened so wide that I thought they were going to fall out.

“Good stuff, eh?” smiled Mr. Xanadu. “More?”

I tried to say “No, thanks. Not now. Not ever,” but all that came out was a wheezy little croak, which together with the huge-eyes thing made me feel that I had very possibly been turned into a frog. I managed to gasp the words “Thank you.”

Then Dr. Drax gave us our escape suits and said it was time to try them on. I tried to say okay, ready when you are. Unfortunately my jaw wouldn’t open and close properly. Well, it opened, but it wouldn’t close up again.

Vehicle Escape Suits aren’t really space suits. They’re more sort of wearable lifeboats that you only wear during takeoff and landing, just in case something goes wrong. Something seemed to be going wrong with mine because everyone else got into theirs quite easily but I wasn’t able to work the trousers. I could see the hole where your leg went in, but every time I lifted my leg up, the hole disappeared. I put my hand up and said, “Dear Dr. Drax…” I don’t know why I called her that. “Dear Dr. Drax, my suit doesn’t work.”

“When you say it doesn’t work…?”

“My trousers are malfunctioning.”

“In what way?”

“In a very, very bad way that makes my head have a funny hurt.”

“Mr. Digby,” she said quite sternly, “have you been drinking?”

“Yes! Yes, I have been drinking! You’re right. Would that affect them, do you think? It doesn’t affect my other trousers. If you can’t put them on after drinking, then that is a design flaw. In my humble opinion.”

Eddie Xanadu said he would help me, which he did by holding open the leg of the trousers so I could get my foot inside. I said, “Mr. Eddie Xanadu, you are my shining armor knight. My shining armor knight, that’s what you are.”

“If we may continue…,” snarled Dr. Drax. “The most innovative and useful feature of these suits is this…” She pressed a button on her suit and—slowly at first, but then faster—the suit started to swell up. “The suit is inflatable, as you see…”—hers was still growing—“and if you pull your own cords, like so, yours will do the same.” Everyone pulled like so. Everyone started to swell up. “They will be at full capacity during takeoff and reentry so that instead of being strapped in, you’ll all be packed in snugly together, like huge peas in a flying pod.”

My suit was still growing. I suddenly noticed everyone else standing in a row, very still and serious but also unusually orange, like a police lineup of criminal tangerines. And suddenly I knew I had to bump Eddie Xanadu very hard with my massive orange belly. So I did. Dr. Drax shouted at me. “Mr. Digby,” she shouted, “grow up!” And for some reason this made me feel really, really sad. My mom never told me to grow up. She actually told me to
stop
growing up.

Mr. Xanadu had tried to stay standing up but I’d really bumped him quite hard. He fell into Monsieur Martinet. Monsieur Martinet fell into Samson One, Samson One
crashed into all the children and the next thing I knew everyone—even Dr. Drax—was rolling round the floor like huge orange marbles, all yelling and shouting for help. I did try and help Dr. Drax back onto her feet, but she batted me away.

“Deflate your suits!” she yelled. “Do not try to stand up until you have deflated your suits!”

I thought suit deflation was going to be hilarious. I thought we’d pull the plugs on our suits and then go jetting off around the room like balloons. Sadly it didn’t work like this. We didn’t jet anywhere; we just sort of wilted.

I can see now that I probably should not have tried to make up for the disappointment by running round and round with my arms out making raspberry noises. I can see now that this was hardly dadly behavior, but at the time I sort of expected other people to join in.

Monsieur Martinet snarled, “You’re acting like a child again, Mr. Digby.”

I snapped back at him, “Well, someone has to. And it’s not going to be these so-called children, is it? Look at them. They all look so
cross
. They’re not like kids at all. They’re like unusually small teachers.”

I knew I wasn’t making much sense and for some reason that depressed me even more, so I curled up on the floor and went to sleep.

On reflection, that wasn’t one of my better days. But I think I was right about the children. Hasan fretting all the time about money. Max always making sure he was first. Florida too, going on about color coordination and stuff. They weren’t proper kids. They were like trainee grown-ups.

They’re like kids now though. Now that they’re lost in space.

When I woke up I was in bed. This was so unexpected that at first I thought I’d been abducted by aliens. Especially as someone seemed to be trying to drill a hole in the top of my skull. Then I thought I was probably in Bootle and that the whole Infinity Park thing had been a dream. So I shouted, “Dad!”—which really hurt my head—and then Florida came in and said, “I have had the best afternoon!”

“What happened? Why is this bed so
small
?”

Florida ignored me. “Everyone was really lovely to me. They felt sorry for me because they thought I had a horrible, useless alcoholic dad. You do realize you got totally drunk, don’t you?”

“Drunk? How?”

“Mr. Xanadu’s flask. He said he tried to stop you….”

“He didn’t.”

“Everyone was so nice to me. It was like having three dads. And I’ve got the best space suit. It’s blue. Like the Blue Power Ranger. I look great in it. It’s definitely my color.”

I groaned. “Do we have to?”

“What?”

“Have a girly conversation about clothes and colors and stuff.”

“Space suits aren’t clothes, idiot. Space suits are equipment.”

“Oh really?”

And Florida told me all this amazing stuff about the history of space-suit design. I’ll say that again. Florida Kirby told me about the history of space-suit design. This was actually more unexpected than being abducted by aliens.

She explained that because space is such a hostile environment, the space suit has to be like a kind of mini Earth, like a wearable planet, giving you oxygen and keeping you at a constant temperature when space is freezing or when it’s boiling, shielding you from radiation and keeping you at the right pressure. On Earth the air is pressing down on you all the time, and that’s sort of what keeps you in one piece. But there’s no pressure in space so you have to make your own. Usually that means you have to wear a big suit, like a bag, full of gas, so you’re walking round inside a big bubble of air pressure. It works but it’s clumsy and people are always
looking for something better—like a really tight suit that puts pressure on you just by being too tight. Like a wetsuit but tighter even than that. The trouble is, anything that tight would be really painful and difficult to put on. But Dr. Drax had come up with a solution—literally. Liquid space suits. Space suits that you spray on. Apparently they’re like thick paint, quite sticky at first but then they cool into something hard but supple—like rubber. Florida showed me a photo on her Draxphone. She really did look like a Power Ranger. Apparently, before they spray the paint on, they put these wires all over, with tiny motors in them, which you activate by twitching. Stick-on muscles, in other words, so that you can jump like five feet on Earth—and maybe twenty feet in space. There are also pipes and stuff so that you can wee and so on without taking the suit off—because to take the suit off you need a solvent spray and about an hour. Much too long if you’re really desperate.

Like I said, all this stuff was amazing. But the really amazing thing was that it was Florida who was telling me. Florida Kirby was talking about air pressure and gravity and stuff. I said, “Florida, how do you know all this?”

“That’s what we’ve been talking about all day.”

“Yeah, but how did it go in?”

“I’m not thick, you know. The other dads were amazed that I didn’t know about pressure and gravity already. And
even more amazed when they found out I couldn’t swim.”

“I didn’t know you couldn’t swim.”

“Exactly. That’s what Monsieur Martinet said. He said you were a drunk who took no interest in me. We had to swim in this special pool to show that we could use the suits in weightless conditions. They were really shocked that I couldn’t swim. They said that one of the main functions of being a dad was teaching your kid to swim. They taught me to swim—Samson One explained about buoyancy and stuff and Monsieur Martinet threw me in the deep end. Mr. Xanadu said he’d buy me my own pool if I swam a length. They all said it was a tragedy that a unique child like me should have such a thoughtless father like you.”

“Can I just remind you that I’m not your real dad? I’m just someone who used to sit behind you in Year Six. The person who didn’t bother to teach you to swim, that’s your
real dad
, not me.”

I knew right then that I’d said the wrong thing because she went quiet. Not quiet like Sunday morning. Quiet like Varimathras, Dreadlord of the Plaguelands, uploading a terrible new weapon.

I said, “Florida…”

She said, “Don’t speak to me.”

“I just…”

“Don’t
speak
to me.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“
Don’t
speak to me.”

“I’ve never even met…”

“Don’t speak to
me
!”

“But…”

“Don’t you ever ever ever talk about my dad again. Okay? Not now. Not ever. Never. My dad, let me tell you, is amazing. My dad travels all over the world. That’s why he named us after faraway places. He buys me presents. He calls me Princess. He does
not
forget my birthday!”

She stormed out, slammed my door, then slammed her own door.

Talk to Your Teen
has one thing to say about what to do when your teenage daughter slams a door—leave it slammed. Don’t go near her. Let her calm down. The book made it sound like if you tried to open the door you’d dematerialize or something.

I just sat by myself and watched another repeat of
Celebrity Séance
—the one where Dracula comes on and complains about being misunderstood. “All I ever did was impale people on wooden stakes, which wasn’t that unusual at the time. My negative image was all media spin, et cetera.”

Suddenly Florida’s door banged open again and she yelled
at me, “Excuse me. I’m upset. You’re supposed to come and cheer me up.”

“Errrm, no. By slamming doors, you’re marking off some personal space for yourself and the best thing is for me to respect that need.”

“What are you on about?”

“It’s in this book.” I showed her the bit about banging doors in
Talk to Your Teen
.

She said, “That’d work if you had a TV in your room. But I was getting bored in there.”

“You could always read a book.”

She stared at me. I said, “Joking.”

Then she stared some more. “You really think I’m thick, don’t you?” Her bottom lip was starting to go. “Maybe I am thick.”

I was really scared that she was going to cry. I said, “Florida, don’t cry. I’ve read the bits about when teens cry and it says you have to hug them. Please don’t make me hug you.”

“Well, reassure me then.”