Mike Stellar (9 page)

She paced the aisles to make sure no one was cheating and she seemed to pause for an extended amount of time by my desk. I hurriedly began working on my quiz.

2150—Venus Aldrin hired by the Project

2157—Venus Aldrin creates Search and Rescue Department after third-generation Mercury probe is lost

2162—Venus Aldrin eats a sandwich

2163—Venus Aldrin takes a nap

Finally I heard Mrs. H’s green shoes click forward to Larc’s desk. She leaned over to Larc and said, “I know this is probably very simple for you, honey, but just play along. I’ll add something challenging to your presentation assignment.”

Honey?

“Okay, Aunt Beebo. I’m excited to see what you’ve chosen for me to research!” Larc whispered enthusiastically.

Aunt Beebo?

Oh, holy mother of donkeys. Mrs. Halebopp was Larc’s aunt!

I practically fell out of my desk. Mrs. H turned around and looked at me with a grimace.

“I, uh …” I swallowed. “I’m feeling very, suddenly,
tremendously like I’m going to spew chunks. Please, may I be excused?”

Mrs. H grunted. “It’s coming out of your quiz time.”

“Fine.” I scrambled to my feet and bolted out the door. I saw a men’s restroom and staggered inside. At the sinks I splashed cold water on my face and looked into the mirror.

I ducked into a stall at the farthest end of the rest-room and plucked the peapod from my pocket. “Mrs. H is Larc’s aunt,” I said to myself in disbelief. “I have
got
to talk to Stinky.”

“That is not
just fishy, Mike. That is
funkified
fishy.”

Stinky’s voice was crackly through the peapod as I relayed all the morning’s craziness.

“Am I a nutbar to think something bizarre is going on? Am I turning into a conspiracy freak or something?”

“It definitely sounds like something weird is happening, Mike. I’m not sure about the escape pod, but the Mrs. H thing is definitely bizarro. And that Sugar Bear guy?
He’s
the nutbar.”

“I know! I don’t know what that guy is up to. And Mrs. H! She doesn’t even work at the Project and suddenly she’s a teacher on board
my
ship? She has a mystery niece who’s our age but never came to school? That’s deep-sea fishy.”

“Do you think you can find out what’s up with her?” Stinky asked.

“Who? Mrs. H? How can I find anything out? Good grief, at this point she probably has my brain waves downloading into her handheld.”

Stinky made an exasperated noise that sounded like a balloon deflating. “You’re the one on the ship with her, doof. What am
I
supposed to do?”

“Dude. That’s exactly right.
I’m on a ship.
How am I supposed to snoop around and find out why Mrs. H is here? It’s not like I can fake my eyeball scan and bust into her apartment or anything.” But as I said that, I wondered if finding out more about Mrs. H would be as hard as I thought.

“What if you ask the kids at school if they’ve ever heard of this Larc girl, Stink? She had to have left her house at some point,” I said. “Maybe kids at the library know her or something.”

“I’ll ask around, but I can’t promise I’ll come up with anything,” Stinky said unconvincingly. “And I’m not talking to any
teachers
, that’s for sure.” He paused. “What’s Larc’s last name, anyway?”

“I don’t know, man. Probably Halebopp. I mean, the girl is on the ship with her dad, who’s pretty tall and ugly, so he’s probably Mrs. H’s brother.” I shivered to even think about that vile woman having relatives.

“What about Larc’s mom?” Stinky asked.

“She said she doesn’t have a mom.”

We were both quiet for a few seconds and suddenly it was as if angels from Uranus had sent me a vision. I let out a bwa-ha-ha-ha-I-have-a-plan laugh. “I have a brilliant idea, Stinky!”

“What?” he asked slowly.

“Detention!”

“What do you mean ‘detention’?”

“You can cause trouble in class—throw a flashnobang or something. That’ll get you a detention for sure. Then, if you get lucky, you’ll have to e-file papers and stuff in Mrs. H’s old office. You’ll be able to snoop around—in the lion’s den!” I was suddenly very excited (and a little bit jealous) about Stinky’s new top-secret mission.

Stinky was more skeptical. “But why would Mrs. H have anything about Larc in her office?”

“I’m not talking about Larc, man. I’m talking about Mrs. H. Maybe you can find out what she’s doing on the ship.”

“I don’t know, Mike,” Stinky said, and I thought I could actually hear him shaking his head. “Detention? The substitute teacher is almost as pure evil as Mrs. H. And if I get another detention, my mom is going to fry my—”

“I don’t think it could hurt to see what’s there.” I pouted.

“Fine. But don’t get mad when I can’t find anything. Seriously, Mike, if there really is some kind of conspiracy going on, you can’t expect to find clues just laying around in people’s abandoned hard drives.”

“Mother of donkeys, Stinky, do you want to help me or not?”

Neither one of us said anything for a while. “Mother of donkeys” had been one of Hubble’s favorite phrases, and since he’d disappeared, things could get a little awkward when one of us accidentally uttered it.

Finally Stinky spoke up.

“What does Nita think about all of this? Surely she’s noticed your parents acting weird. Did you tell her about the escape pod? I guess she probably doesn’t know about Mrs. H yet.”

“Oh,
man,”
I said loudly, and grimaced, trying to keep my voice lower. “I totally forgot to tell you. Nita isn’t even here!”

“What?!”

“She didn’t pass the security clearance. She’s moving in with Gram.”

Stinky made a
sheeeeew
noise and said, “Mike, that is one important detail you left out.”

I didn’t say anything, because there was another important detail I’d left out, too.

Stinky continued. “Maybe I should find her and tell her about everything.”

I bit my lip and then just started talking before I chickened out. “The thing is, Stink, she was talking really strangely when I saw her last.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you go talk to her, she may just upset you.”

“What are you babbling about, boogermunch? Out with it.”

As quickly as I could, I mumbled, “Whenshehugged megoodbyeshetoldmetohelpherfindHubble.”

“What?” Stinky’s voice faded into a kind of whisper. “Hubble?”

“I know, man. She told me to watch out for anything weird and to help her try to find him.”

“Well, but … that’s impossible. Isn’t it?” Stinky’s voice sounded like it had the only time he’d gotten punched in the stomach. (Marcy Fartsy, fourth grade.) It had been really hard for him to lose his older brother, and even harder to know that his best friend’s parents might be the reason. Stinky and I had made it through all the weirdness because Hubble had been like a brother to me, too. Hubble had been my go-to guy for questions and advice and everything. Losing him had hurt me almost as much as it had hurt Stinky. Our shared hurt is what had kept our friendship from becoming strained when Hubble vanished.

“So what is Nita talking about?” Stinky asked. “Do you think she knows something?”

“I can’t imagine she’d know anything more than we do.”

“I don’t know, Mike. I bet she does.” Stinky’s voice was stronger now; he sounded more like himself. “I’m going to have to call her.”

I made an exasperated noise.

“Look, I know that nowadays you and Nita want to eat each other for lunch,” Stinky sighed, “but don’t you think, maybe, possibly, she’d want to know that you guys made it safely to the ship?”

“I guess….”

“Shut it.” Stinky switched to his lawyery voice, so I knew he wanted to make a point. “You don’t think that after twenty-four hours with your gram out there in Old Lady-ville, Nita’ll be ready for a little news? You don’t think she’s tired of cooking biscuits and knitting and doing whatever else grandmas do all day?”

“What are you talking about, Stink? My gram’s a police officer. You know that.”

“Oh. Right. But you get my point, don’t you?”

“Well, I’m not gonna. I’m not even supposed to have this peapod. Something about it interfering with the ship’s instruments,” I said. “But if you feel like you have to, find Nita. Tell her we’re all skipping down the hallways and eating chocolate truffles all day. And that I have my own bathroom.”

“Is her number still the same? I have it in one of Hubble’s old handhelds….”

“I guess it should be the same,” I said.

“When do we rendezvous next?” Stinky asked.

I snorted, “‘Rendezvous’?”

He ignored me. “Want to say this time tomorrow?”

“Make it lunchtime. Then I won’t have to sneak out of class.”

“Right. Well. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then,” Stinky said.

“Okay, Stink. Good luck with the detention.” I snickered.

“Good luck to you, too. And if Mrs. Halebopp tries to eat you, Mike, go for her black eyeballs. Just jab at ’em with your fingers. That’s what you’re supposed to do with an alligator.”

“It is not.”

“Hey, it’s one of the last things Hubble ever taught me. He saw it on the Extinct Animal Channel.”

I laughed. “He was such a dork. Just like you.” I paused suddenly, wondering if I shouldn’t have said that. But Stinky was laughing, too.

“Bye, Mike.”

“Bye, Stink.”

I slipped the peapod back in my pocket and prepared to head back to class. Then I had a thought.
When would I have a better time to sneak back to the hallway to try and get a look at the escape pod again? Now was the perfect opportunity.

My heart pounded. My palms started sweating. I felt like I was about to go on a secret CIA operation. My mission was to discover all I could about the escape pod, and to do it before Mrs. H sent someone to find me. My conversation with Stinky had emboldened me. I was a new Mike. A Mike with a mission (instead of a Mike with a nagging curiosity that often got him grounded). I was going to find out the truth about what was going on…. I had nerves of steel. Nerves of steel!

I headed out
of the bathroom with my collar up and my chin tucked down. I was embracing my new CIA self. I was preparing for my “infiltrate weird hallway” mission. I was crashing headlong into a kid in front of me.

I stepped off the kid’s heels and looked up. I had exited the bathroom into a throng of kids from my class. They thundered past me toward some unknown destination. A couple of kids glanced at me and whispered to their friends, then hurried away as if I had sprouted oozing sores or something. Awesome.

“Lunchtime!” Larc hollered at me from the doorway of the classroom. I sighed and smoothed my collar back down. Larc came up and linked her arm with mine. So much for infiltrating the weird. The weird was now infiltrating me.

“Don’t mind the lemmings. Just get out of their way. I’ll help you make it to the cafeteria without being stomped to death.” She started to lead me away from the spot my feet had frozen to. “You weren’t really vomiting in there, were you, Michael?”

I yanked my arm away from her. “None of your business. And don’t call me Michael.” So much for cozying up.

“Well, I hope you weren’t, because we’re having cheeseburgers for lunch today. Real meat.” She smacked her lips and widened her eyes like she was some kind of starved animal. “There’s only two weeks’ worth of real meat on the ship and then it’ll all be soy patties. I hope you’re feeling carnivorous.” She walked backward so she could look at me and talk at the same time.

“Why don’t you turn around?” I said snarkily. “You’re going to fall on your butt.”

“Mr. Stellar!”

Argh.

“Nice of you to finally rejoin us.”

“What? Was I gone very long?” I spluttered, playing dumb.

“One-hour detention after class to think about it.”

I looked up at the metal bulk of the ship’s ceiling and exhaled slowly so I wouldn’t say something I’d truly regret.

“Tough luck, Mr. Stellar,” Larc said, turning around and walking by my side. “Detention on the first day of class. I bet your parents are going to be cah-raaazy mad at you.” She screamed the “raaazy” part like she was an opera singer.