Squishy Taylor in Zero Gravity

by Ailsa Wild

  ‘Hi there,’ says a voice behind us. We jump. It’s Pyjama Man, but he’s not wearing pyjamas anymore. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, like Dad wears.

  I gulp. Busted.

  ‘Um, hello,’ Jessie says to Pyjama Man, who’s carrying a glass of fizzy water with a slice of lemon in it.

  Vee pinches me and whispers, ‘Don’t look so guilty.’

  ‘Hi!’ I say brightly, doing my smile-and-look-them-in-the-eye thing. Mum would be proud.

  ‘I’ve never seen you kids here before,’ he says. ‘What are you up to?’

  My heart beats faster. Quickly! Make something up. ‘Um, we’re visiting our, um, cousin,’ I say. ‘He lives downstairs.’

  ‘Actually, we should probably check how he’s going,’ Jessie says, and turns towards the door.

  Pyjama Man sits on a wooden chair and leans back with a sigh. I’m following Jessie, but Vee doesn’t move.

  ‘Why were you wearing pyjamas?’ she asks him. I stop to see what he says.

  He looks confused, then laughs. ‘Oh, you mean my scrubs? They’re my nursing uniform.’

  Scrubs? Nursing uniform? Then I imagine him with a white face-mask standing next to a hospital bed. He’s right. Nurses wear pyjamas. I’ve seen it on TV.

  The man sips his fizzy water while Vee stares at him. Then he asks, ‘Is your cousin that cute kid who lives on the fifth floor?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Vee.

  ‘No,’ Jessie says, at the same time.

  The man raises his eyebrows. Jessie and Vee look horribly guilty.

  Squishy Taylor to the rescue. ‘Our cousin does live on the fifth floor,’ I say, ‘but he’s not cute, he’s gross.’

  We have to get out of here before Pyjama Man asks any more tricky questions.

  I grab Vee’s hand and pull her out the door. We tumble down the stairs and head for home.

  Vee looks a bit disappointed. ‘We didn’t see the rocket,’ she says.

  I don’t really mind. ‘That’s OK,’ I say. ‘Now we know the way to the roof for next time.’

  That evening, Jessie interrupts my skype with Mum on the couch.

  ‘Sorry, Devika, I need Squishy,’ she says, pulling at my shoulder.

  ‘Bye, Mum!’ I call.

  Jessie tugs me into our room. The sparks have started again – showering off the roof across the road. We huddle around Vee, who’s already watching at the window.

  ‘We need to get up there now,’ Vee says, ‘while she’s making the sparks.’

  I nod. And then shake my head. ‘Dad and Alice will never let us.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Jessie says. ‘And you know what? We don’t actually need to be there to find things out. What do we already know about her?’

  Jessie gets her notebook and coloured pens (in perfect rainbow order) and we sprawl on our bedroom floor together. I lean my chin on my elbows, watching her write.

  • She makes sparks.

  • The sparks happen between dinnertime and 10 o’clock.

  • She hides what she’s doing.

  ‘She’s a spacewoman,’ I say.

  Jessie groans. ‘Squishy, she’s not a spacewoman.’

  I grin. ‘OK, maybe an alien.’

  Jessie hits my shoulder with her pen.

  ‘Ow,’ I say and then get serious. ‘But she was wearing an astronaut’s helmet that first night, wasn’t she, Vee?’

  Vee nods, so Jessie writes:

  • She wears a form of protective helmet.

  This is the thing about Jessie. Just when you think she’s fun, she starts using boring grown-up words.

  ‘What else?’ Jessie asks.

  ‘I wish we could get out while she’s working,’ I say, looking over at the sparks flying in the night.

  But between dinner and 10 o’clock is the hardest time to sneak away from Dad and Alice.

  On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we keep a close eye on the building whenever we can. Jessie scans the tele-pad every night before bed. Once it’s dark, the camera app doesn’t really record very much. Jessie scrolls through the footage she’s taken from dawn till dark every day.

  Spacewoman never leaves the building.

  We see Pyjama Man lots of times, going in and out in his pyjamas. But we never see a red-headed spacewoman. Even on the weekend. And yet some nights we still see sparks on the roof.

  Every day it gets creepier and creepier. We have to find out what she’s doing.

  It’s not until Monday night that Dad and Alice go to bed early enough for us to sneak out.

  ‘Shh,’ I say with my ear against our bedroom door. ‘I think they’re in bed.’ We wait a few more minutes and then crack open the door.

  My schoolbag is on the kitchen floor. I take a big step over it and Jessie follows. Behind me there’s a noise. I turn to see Vee, who has tripped on the schoolbag. She bumps into the bench and knocks the wok sideways into a teacup, which falls and smashes on the tiles.

  Three seconds of horror later, Alice flicks on the light. ‘What is going on?’

  ‘Um, we were just –’ I start.

  But Alice doesn’t let me finish. ‘Squishy Taylor, why are you even talking right now?’

  ‘You asked us a question,’ I say. Which is a perfectly reasonable answer.

  Sometimes Alice can be really sarcastic. ‘Well, I’m sorry for confusing you,’ she says in a super-mean voice. Then she snaps, ‘What I meant was, go to bed. This very second.’

  ‘Well you should have said that,’ I say sulkily.

  ‘Stop talking right now, Squishy,’ Alice says, gripping my shoulder with sharp fingers and pointing me at the bedroom.

  Why is she being horrible to me and not the others? But I realise, as soon as I’ve turned around, that they’ve already gone to bed. I guess they already know how mean their mum is.

  I bite down on all the things I want to shout at Alice and scramble into my bunk.

  She practically slams the door.

  ‘No point trying to sneak out again tonight,’ Vee whispers.

  I can still feel Alice’s fingers where they held my shoulder. I know we were officially in the wrong, but I’m mad at her for aiming all her anger at me.

  Jessie whispers, ‘The problem is that Mum and Tom are too wide awake, when we need them to be asleep.’

  Vee starts talking and I can hear a grin in her voice. ‘We should tire them out so they go to bed really early.’

  We make a new plan. Alice is going to hate it. It’s genius.

  The next night, we drag out going to bed as late as we possibly can. I brush my teeth for about half an hour. Vee spills milk in her bunk and needs to have her sheets changed. Jessie claims she forgot to practise violin and Alice lets her stay up. (They’d probably let her practise violin at three in the morning if she wanted to.)

  Then, just before finally going to bed, I sneak a huge slop of red cordial into Baby’s sippy-cup and hand it over. He grabs it with his fat little hands and starts slurping.

  By the time they kiss us goodnight, it’s ages after bedtime. And that’s only the beginning.

  Vee is first. Twenty minutes after Dad and Alice’s bedroom door closes, she scrambles down. We listen to her whine, ‘Muuuum, I’m still awaaaake.’

  Alice grumbles, but brings her back to bed.

  We let ourselves go to sleep because Jessie has set an alarm.

  I wake up to hear Jessie screaming, ‘Eeeeeeek! Spider, spider! Help!’

  A minute later, Dad flicks on the light.

  ‘There! Spider! Eeeek!’ says Jessie. Dad goes chasing round the room with a plastic container, but he can’t find the ‘spider’.

  Jessie is actually a really good actor. She makes him crawl under the bed and pull back all her blankets and shake them before she finally agrees to go back to bed. When Dad leaves, we high-five each other over the edge of our beds, giggling quietly.

  Mine is the best job. At four in the morning, the alarm goes off. It’s still dark, and I tiptoe as quietly as I ca
n to the kitchen for a cup of warm water. I take the cup into Dad and Alice’s room where Baby is in his cot by the door. This is the trickiest part. Can I wake up Baby, without being caught?

  I pull back his blankets, pour the water all over his nappy and legs, give his tummy a little wobble for good measure, and then hurry out of the room.

  I wait. Did it work?

  ‘Waaaaaaah!’

  Brilliant. Now he’ll be awake until breakfast time. Job done. Dad and Alice will go to bed super early tomorrow and we can finally get a proper look at Spacewoman’s rocket. I slip back to sleep.

  We were totally right. Alice and Dad go to bed at 8.38, which is pretty much a record.

  We pull on coats and shoes and tiptoe out the door to the lift. We have to get across the road without being noticed by a grown-up who thinks they can tell us what to do. It’s all about looking confident, like we know exactly where we’re going. But not so confident that people think we’re hooligans. (An old lady called us hooligans one time when we were having too much fun on the tram.)

  It’s not far. Just up to the lights and across the road. No-one pays us any attention. We pause at the front steps of Spacewoman’s apartment building. We can’t open the front door ourselves.

  ‘Now we wait,’ I say. ‘Someone will go in soon.’

  But nobody comes.

  We stand by the door for ages. It’s hard to look confident but not like a hooligan when you’re just hanging around on the footpath way after bedtime. A couple go past and make stern faces, as though we’re doing something naughty. If it were daytime we could play hopscotch and no-one would even notice us.

  A man walks towards us. I think maybe this is our chance, he’s about to go through the front door. But he doesn’t. He stops in front of us.

  ‘You kids all right?’ he asks.

  ‘We’re fine,’ I say.

  He looks at us, waiting for me to say something else. I glance at Jessie. She looks so guilty, it’s like she just killed a puppy.

  ‘We’re just waiting for our … um … cousin,’ Vee says. ‘He lives up there.’

  The man shrugs. ‘OK. Long as you’re not in trouble?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ I say again.

  He walks away slowly, and checks us a couple of times over his shoulder.

  ‘We’ve gotta get inside,’ Vee says.

  ‘But how?’ I ask.

  Jessie comes to the rescue. ‘I’ve got a plan,’ she says. ‘Let’s hope this works.’ I watch her step up and press the buzzer.

  ‘Who are you calling?’ I ask.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice comes out of the speaker.

  ‘Hey,’ Jessie says. ‘My name’s Jessie, I’m one of the kids you met on the roof the other day?’

  ‘Ye-es?’ the man says, uncertainly.

  ‘Pyjama Man?’ I whisper, and Jessie puts her finger to her lips and nods.

  ‘Remember how we were visiting our cousin last time?’ Jessie asks. ‘Well, it’s his birthday today. We really want to surprise him before bedtime. Please can you let us in?’

  ‘Um, I guess so.’

  There’s a pause and then the door pings. We’re inside.

  ‘Jessie you’re a genius!’ I say, high-fiving her in the foyer.

  ‘That was awesome. How did you know his number?’ Vee asks.

  Jessie smirks. ‘I was looking when he unlocked his door. It just stayed in my memory. I kind of forgot about it until now.’

  We ride the lift up to the ninth floor and then jog up the fire-escape stairs.

  I turn back to the others as I reach the rooftop access door. ‘Now shhhh, Spacewoman is probably there already.’

  ‘She’s not a spacewoman,’ Jessie hisses.

  I push open the door and tiptoe out onto the roof with the others behind me. We have to be super careful. Spacewoman only works at night and never leaves her building. She is officially really creepy and might be an alien. Who knows what she does to kids who spy on her? I start to feel a bit scared, as well as excited.

  There’s a light on over by Spacewoman’s rocket, but no sparks. She’s probably there, working away, getting ready to fly into space. We creep over towards her fence. Yes! The gate is unlocked. And the rocket is uncovered.

  Jessie gasps and I grin in the dark.

  It is a rocket. A real-life metal rocket, taller than my dad.

  Vee is squeezing my arm and I’ve got my face pressed up against the wires.

  ‘Is Spacewoman there?’ Vee whispers.

  I can’t see her.

  There’s a lamp on, over a bench with some tools on it. Next to the rocket is a cylinder, which looks like a massive oxygen tank. The space helmet is resting on the bench. It’s dark green with a tinted window. But there’s no Spacewoman.

  ‘I don’t think she’s there,’ I say, inching closer to the gate. Vee and Jessie stay close beside me.

  Without the wire in front of it, the rocket is beautiful. The silvery metal shines in the city lights. I can’t help walking towards it to take a closer look.

  ‘Squishy, what are you doing?’ Jessie whispers.

  ‘Squishy, she’ll catch you,’ Vee hisses. I can hear her nervousness.

  I peep around the back of the rocket.

  ‘It’s OK, she’s not here,’ I call.

  I wonder where she is. Then I turn and look at the rocket again. It’s just perfect for riding out into another galaxy, though it’s not quite finished. The three fins bend out at the base beautifully. It has a door with four little steps going up to it, and the rocket is covered all around in a skin of shining curved metal. But a strip of the covering along the bottom is missing. You can still see the skeleton frame.

  I realise something as Jessie and Vee join me.

  ‘This rocket is wrong,’ I say.

  Jessie is nodding, and opens her mouth like she’s about to speak.

  But Vee grabs us both at once. ‘Shhh,’ she says. ‘The door –’

  The door to the roof creaks open and we see a rectangle of light appear on the concrete. Then a human shadow moves in the light.

  Spacewoman is back.

  Spacewoman is coming, but I know exactly what to do.

  ‘Quick! Get in,’ I whisper and lead the way up into the rocket.

  We crouch together inside the rocket and hold our breath. Because of the missing strip, if she looks closely she’ll see us. Luckily it’s still pretty dark on the roof. I cross my fingers. Spacewoman comes towards us, but doesn’t say anything. She starts moving things around on the bench.

  As soon as I know she hasn’t seen us, I’m back to noticing how wrong this rocket is.

  ‘It’s way too small,’ I mouth to Jessie, who’s squished in next to me. We still have to be so quiet, because Spacewoman is barely two metres away.

  ‘And there’s no room for the engine,’ Vee whispers. I realise she’s right. There’s barely room for three kids.

  Jessie has a tiny smirk on her face. I can just see it in the dark. ‘And doesn’t this metal look kind of familiar?’

  It does look familiar. But I can’t remember where I’ve seen it before.

  ‘Shhh.’ Vee grabs me again.

  Spacewoman lifts up a sheet of metal and pushes it so it covers the frame of the spaceship. She’s filling in the last strip. It’s so close to where my knees are! She pulls on her space helmet, lifts a long metal tube from beside the oxygen tank and fiddles with something. Then there’s a pop and a hiss. A blue-white flame bursts from the tube.

  That’s not a space helmet or an oxygen tank.

  ‘She’s welding,’ Jessie whispers.

  ‘What’s welding?’ Vee asks.

  I know the answer to that, but Spacewoman is too close for me to speak out loud. Welding is joining metal by melting it. With a really hot flame.

  The flame comes closer and closer towards my knee. We try to shift away from it, but there’s no room. The flame is so close that I can feel the heat. Sparks start to fly off the rocket. I can’t stay here anym
ore. I don’t care that Spacewoman will find out we’re here.

  Better busted than dead.

  ‘STOP!’ I shout.

  Spacewoman screams and leaps backwards. She drags the flame-tube with her. The oxygen tank falls over with a massive bang. Spacewoman tumbles backwards onto the ground and lets the flame-tube go. Fire is shooting out of the tube sideways towards the wooden workbench.

  We hurry out of the rocket.

  Spacewoman is gasping and struggling to stand up and get hold of the fire-tube. The flame is worming everywhere. Her helmet looks really heavy and I can tell she needs help. I run towards her.

  ‘Squishy, no!’ calls Jessie.

  Spacewoman says, ‘Stop, stay clear.’

  She doesn’t know how super strong I am. I reach my hand out to help her up.

  And the fire twists and shoots straight at my wrist.

  I stare as the flame hits my skin but I can’t feel anything. There’s just this hissing silence. Then I scream. Spacewoman screams. Vee screams.

  And Jessie turns off the fire. She’s crouching by a twisty knob at the tank. ‘Are you OK, Squishy?’

  The burning feeling starts. It stings so horribly.

  ‘Ow, ow, ow!’ I want to clutch my wrist, but I’m scared to touch it. I feel panicky and it hurts.

  Spacewoman has suddenly got over her fright. She whips off her helmet, lifts me up and runs me over to the wall at the edge of the building. There’s a tap coming out at hip height. She drops me to my feet and turns the tap on full bore and shoves my arm under it.

  I’m crying.

  Jessie and Vee run up beside us. I don’t even try to stop crying.

  ‘What were you kids doing?’ asks Spacewoman, easing the tap so the water runs more softly.

  ‘Is it really bad, Squishy?’ Vee asks.

  Jessie has turned into the responsible older sister all of a sudden. ‘Vee, go get Mum, quickly. I’ll stay with Squishy.’

  ‘OK.’ Vee doesn’t even pause. She sprints for the door.

  As the door closes behind Vee, I realise something. I don’t want her to get Alice. I want Dad. All I want is a big cuddle on his knee. And Alice was so horrible last night. But it’s too late.