Taking Off

by Jenny Moss

  “You don’t want to hurt him.”

  It was more than that, wasn’t it? “No. I don’t.”

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded.

  “Well,” he said, “let’s not think about it right now. We’re here for the launch, which you really want to see. Let’s just have fun. We’ll put us on hold.”

  Us, I thought. Was there an us?

  “I’ll pull back,” Tommy went on, “I promise. No more pressure from me. You just have fun. Okay?”

  “That’d be nice.”

  “It’s good to see you smile again.”

  “Mind if I turn on the TV? I can’t think to read.”

  “Sure. Sure.”

  We turned off the lights, got in our beds, and watched show after show. TV was comforting. Those nagging voices inside my head were drowned out by funny bits, canned laughter, and cheesy melodrama. It was great.

  The late news came on, and there was Christa in an old interview. I got closer to the TV, still sitting on the bed. She was saying, with that bright smile on her face, “I touch the future. I teach. And I really appreciate that sentiment. And that’s going to go with me.”

  “You are so cute,” said Tommy.

  I looked back, laughing, a little embarrassed. I pointed toward the TV. “She’s just so …” I shrugged.

  “I can see, actually.”

  “See what?”

  “Why meeting her would inspire you to come all this way. She’s got something special. I can see why NASA selected her.”

  “I know, right?”

  “How many teachers did they say applied?”

  “There were eleven thousand.” I shook my head and then kind of squealed. “And she’s going to launch into outer space tomorrow. We hope.”

  “Man, I’d do that.”

  “You would?” I asked.

  “Oh, in a minute. Sign me up now.”

  I clapped my hands, not able to contain my excitement. “They’d better launch tomorrow. I have to see this.”

  He was giving me such a look.

  “What?” I asked, smiling.

  He had that smile. “Nothing.”

  I looked away, pleased, but not wanting to think about anything confusing. I didn’t want to let go of my happiness. I turned off the TV and lay in my bed, my bad mood replaced with excitement. Tommy picked up a book to read, but I just tried not to squeal in happiness again.

  CHAPTER 34

  The next morning, I woke to the smell of day-old cigarette smoke. I lay in bed looking at the thin curtains bathed in light. I shot up. What time was it?

  “Seven thirty!” I screamed to the two sleeping forms. “Seven thirty.” I yanked open the curtains.

  “Whoa. Whoa,” said Dad, looking up from the cot.

  “Dad! Launch is at 9:38!” I grabbed my jeans. “We’re supposed to be there two hours before. And it’s already 7:30!”

  He squinted at me. “You’re sure liftoff’s not 9:39?”

  “Oh,” said Tommy, sitting up in bed, his hair tousled around his head. I didn’t understand why boys looked so good in the morning.

  “Get up!” I yelled, as I disappeared into the bathroom to throw on my clothes. “I’m not missing this!” I yelled through the door.

  Dad was gone when I came back out. Before I could scream, Tommy told me he was off to get coffee and would meet us at the car. We got out of there in twenty minutes, which was doubly surprising considering the layers of clothes we had to put on. It was freezing.

  Dad was scraping the ice off the windows when we came down the stairs. “The waitress at the diner said it was twenty-five degrees.” We started helping him. “She said it was record-breaking temperatures.”

  “No way are they going to launch today,” said Tommy.

  I stopped scraping, my driver’s license in midair. “They have to.”

  I hadn’t come all this way for nothing. But looking at Tommy and thinking of our time together riding in the Love Bus, roaming Disney World, watching the sunrise, talking about our lives, I knew it hadn’t been for nothing. Still, I had to see this.

  “They’ll launch,” said Dad, as we piled in the car. “The world is watching.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief when the car started up. Go, Beatmobile, go.

  “We’ll never make it,” I said.

  “We’ll be there in thirty,” said Dad.

  And we were. The traffic wasn’t nearly as crowded as the day before. So many people had gone home after yesterday’s aborted launch.

  I slapped my forehead when we were parking. “We forgot to check out of the motel.”

  Dad shrugged. “We’ll be back in time.” He was always so optimistic—and often wrong.

  Fewer people were here today. But there were still tripod photographers, excited kids, and many, many blankets. Everyone looked a little weary. It was very cold, much colder than the day before. Even with gloves on, my hands were freezing. I pushed them into my pockets. “This is crazy weather.”

  Dad glanced around. “Only the diehard fans are left. But NASA’s going to do it today, Annie. I just know it.”

  “What are we going to do without NASA Boy?” I asked.

  Tommy laughed. “That kid? He was great.”

  “I think he’s going to be an astronaut one day.”

  “He’ll probably head up NASA.”

  Because there were fewer people, it was easier for me to make my way down to the amateur photographers lined up at the edge of the water. I asked one of them if I could look through the lens.

  When I peeked through, I could see the shuttle so much better. It looked beautiful and proud on the pad, the gleaming white orbiter, two booster rockets, and the rust orange tank on the orbiter’s belly.

  “Why are we delayed?” I asked two photographers talking about it.

  “There’s ice all over the pad, thick stalactites hanging down. If the icicles break during liftoff, they could hit the spacecraft and damage it.”

  “Do you think we won’t go?” Surely we wouldn’t scrub again today. And then I realized I’d said “we” instead of “they.” I was becoming a part of this.

  “NASA’s hoping it’ll melt; hence the delay.”

  More delay.

  “This is stressful,” I told Tommy. “How are the astronauts able to have the patience for this?”

  “They must really want to go,” he said, with a grin.

  The original liftoff time came and went. I climbed into one of our cold sleeping bags and looked up at the deep blue winter sky. Dad was still talking to some of the photographers. Tommy sat down on a blanket beside me. “Your teeth are chattering.”

  I nodded.

  “If you keep moving, you won’t be so cold.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not getting up.” I had stopped listening to the chatter on the loudspeaker. “I just want to hear the words ‘ten, nine, eight, et cetera, et cetera.’ ” I closed my eyes. “Wake me then.”

  “It could be a while. You’ll turn into an icicle.”

  “Is she an icicle?” asked a voice.

  I looked up into the eyes of a little girl wearing a thick pink coat and carrying a Cabbage Patch doll under one arm and a book under the other.

  “She will be,” said Tommy, “unless she listens to me.”

  “Oh-ho!” I exclaimed. “Why should I listen to you?”

  He brushed my hair out of my eyes, smiling at me, not saying anything.

  “Your fingers are cold,” I told him. “I should have knitted you gloves too.”

  “Is she your wife?” asked the girl.

  I laughed.

  “Yes, she is,” said Tommy. “Isn’t she pretty?”

  The girl looked at me silently with large brown eyes. Then she held out her book to Tommy. “Will you read this to me?” He took it, and she sat down on one of our sleeping bags on the other side of me.

  He smiled at her, charming her as much as he did the older girls, I was sure. “Where are your mom and dad?�
��

  “Right there,” the girl said, pointing behind us. I took her word for it because I was too lazy to sit up and look. But Tommy waved at someone.

  The girl reached over me and tapped the book. “It’s called The Stars.”

  “I haven’t read this one,” said Tommy, opening it to the first page. “But it looks like one I’d like.”

  “You can’t have it.” The girl reached over me and took the book back from him.

  “No, I didn’t mean—,” Tommy began.

  “It’s about the stars and the planets,” she said in a singsongy voice, “and the sky.” She flipped a few pages and showed us a picture of a constellation. “See.” She put the book down and looked at me. “Why are you in that sleeping bag?”

  “To keep warm.”

  “My coat is really warm. Really, really warm.” She picked up her book—“Bye”—and ran off.

  I looked at him. “You were good with her.”

  “I used to read to my sister. About rocks.”

  “Rocks?” I asked. “Rocks?”

  “She’s always loved rocks.” He grinned. “You can’t help what you love.”

  Finally, the countdown picked up again. The new launch time was 11:38. People cheered.

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “They’ve fooled me too many times. I’m not getting up.”

  Tommy lay down.

  “You’ll get cold too,” I told him.

  He hugged me and my sleeping bag, and I let him, glad Dad was still down by the water. “Have some of my body heat,” Tommy said.

  I closed my eyes, feeling toasty warm in the sleeping bag with Tommy’s arm around me. My exposed nose and cheeks were still cold, but it was a good cold feeling, not a bad one.

  Tommy was quiet then. I listened to all the voices around us: two sisters laughing about a Christmas long ago, the squeals and shouts of kids running around, a couple sharing binoculars and talking about other launches they’d seen. I drifted in and out, snatches of words tangled up with dreams.

  Tommy woke me.

  I sat up quickly. “What? What?”

  “They’re picking up the count!”

  “Get up there, Annie,” said Dad.

  “No fooling, right?” The crowd was clapping. I jumped out of the sleeping bag, blinking awake. “Are we going to do it?”

  Tommy side-hugged me. “They’re going to launch, Annie.”

  Excitement squeezed my stomach. “They’re going to launch,” I repeated, gazing across the water at the shuttle that appeared so small and vulnerable. “I wonder what Christa is thinking.”

  “NASA could still stop the clock,” Dad teased.

  “Not a chance,” I said, hitting his arm. “We’re going! Eeee.”

  The crowd was buzzing with excitement. We all had launch fever. After all the delays, it was going to happen.

  “T MINUS SEVEN MINUTES THIRTY SECONDS, AND THE GROUND LAUNCH SEQUENCER HAS STARTED RETRACTING THE ORBITER CREW ACCESS ARM. THIS IS THE WALKWAY USED BY ASTRONAUTS TO CLIMB INTO THE VEHICLE.”

  Someone in launch control said, “Let’s go for orbiter APU start,” and one of the crew responded with, “… performed APU start.”

  “All right!” yelled out someone in the crowd.

  “APU start must be good,” I said to Tommy.

  He smiled. “Thank you, Annie.”

  “Thank you? I had nothing to do with APU start,” I teased.

  “That means auxiliary power unit,” the woman beside me said excitedly. “The APUs provide hydraulic power for all sorts of things, like the elevons, the main engine gimballing, the landing gear.” She pulled her hat tighter down on her head.

  “Oh, thanks,” I said, looking back at the shuttle.

  “I mean thanks for this trip,” Tommy said, as if the woman hadn’t spoken. He was looking into my eyes so intensely I forgot the shuttle for a second. “It was just what I needed.”

  “It was?”

  He nodded.

  “You’ll need to thank Christa McAuliffe,” I said, smiling, so giddy.

  “THE SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER AND EXTERNAL SAFE AND ARM DEVICES HAVE BEEN ARMED … T MINUS FOUR MINUTES AND COUNTING. THE FLIGHT CREW HAS BEEN REMINDED TO CLOSE THEIR AIRTIGHT VISORS ON THEIR LAUNCH AND ENTRY HELMETS.”

  “You want the binoculars?” Dad asked.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed, taking them. I looked through them, adjusting the eyepieces, thinking how great this was. The shuttle looked a bit bigger. It wasn’t like looking through the telescope, but it did make me feel like the pad was closer.

  I was ecstatic, so proud of my little coward self that I got myself here to see the launch.

  “T MINUS THIRTY SECONDS AND WE’VE HAD A GO FOR AUTO-SEQUENCE START.”

  “A go!” shouted a kid, her ponytail bobbing as she jumped up and down.

  Yells of excitement burst here and there from the crowd. Many started counting down with the clock:

  “T MINUS TEN … NINE … EIGHT … SEVEN … SIX … WE HAVE MAIN ENGINE START …”

  A white cloud of smoke puffed up from the pad. Dad threw an arm around my neck.

  “… FOUR … THREE … TWO … ONE … AND LIFTOFF. LIFTOFF OF THE TWENTY-FIFTH SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION, AND IT HAS CLEARED THE TOWER.”

  Out of a white cloud, out of hope, a dream rises …, I thought.

  The crowd erupted in cheers, whistles, and applause.

  “Ya-hoooooo!” a kid screamed.

  I lowered the binoculars, wanting to see this with the naked eye.

  “Look at her go,” said Tommy. “Wow. Wow.” I felt him grab my arm, but I couldn’t look away from the shuttle climbing in the sky.

  “What a sight!” Dad yelled.

  “Man, man, man!” came a cry from behind me.

  I felt goose bumps crawl up and down my arms as the shuttle rose into the rich blue sky, a column of brilliant fire pushing it along, leaving a white tube of smoke trailing. A delayed rumble like a contained but crackling bonfire flew across the water to us. The sound was powerful, exciting. I could feel it in my chest, like it was tearing through me.

  It was unbelievable. There were people in that shuttle, pulling away from Earth, blasting toward space. And what a complex, amazing achievement of metal, wires, computers, engines … all of it put together to create this vehicle that could fly like that. Like that.

  I laughed out loud, wiping tears from my eyes. She was doing it. The teacher was flying. Look. At. Her. Go. Oh, Christa.

  “CHALLENGER, GO AT THROTTLE UP.”

  “Roger, go at throttle up,” replied another voice.

  “That’s Dick Scobee, the commander,” said a woman to her daughter, standing behind her with her arms around her neck.

  It had only been a minute since liftoff and already the shuttle was so high up. I could only see the white column of smoke the shuttle was leaving behind as it rose over the Atlantic, higher and higher, and pulled farther away from us.

  “Hey, what was that?” said a man behind me, pointing at the sky, at the same time a woman let out a high-pitched scream. But others were clapping and cheering. A man yelled out, “No, no, no!” All I could see was a big billowing cloud of white smoke.

  “What is that, Dad?” I asked, grabbing his coat.

  “Maybe booster separation,” he said. “But something doesn’t look right.”

  I whipped my head around to look at him. “What?”

  He was looking up, silently shaking his head.

  I looked over at Tommy. He met my eyes. He looked as confused as I felt.

  The public-affairs officer announced the shuttle’s position:

  “ONE MINUTE, FIFTEEN SECONDS, VELOCITY TWENTY-NINE HUNDRED FEET PER SECOND. ALTITUDE NINE NAUTICAL MILES. DOWNRANGE DISTANCE SEVEN NAUTICAL MILES.”

  “That’s not right,” said the man.

  “Where’s the shuttle?” someone asked.

  “I think that’s it! There!”

  “But there are two …”

  The little girl with the book of s
tars pointed. “What are those, Momma?”

  “I think … those are the booster rockets, sweetie.”

  And then it was quiet, no one was talking, the sky was silent.

  “FLIGHT CONTROLLERS HERE LOOKING VERY CAREFULLY AT THE SITUATION. OBVIOUSLY A MAJOR MALFUNCTION.”

  The voice was so calm, as if this were commonplace and there was nothing to worry about. A chill crept through me, heavy and bleak.

  “WE HAVE NO DOWNLINK.”

  “It’s gone,” said the man in front of me. “It’s gone,” he said again as if to convince himself.

  I looked at the sky once more. My eyes hurt.

  Christa.

  For the first time, I understood. Shock. The faces around me were frozen, no sadness pulling at the eyes, no anger tightening the mouth … just shock.

  Then hands were over eyes, on cheeks, at throats, on arms close by as people stared into the sky. A woman beside me fell to the ground, still looking up. I heard crying, then realized it was me.

  “WE HAVE A REPORT FROM THE FLIGHT DYNAMICS OFFICER THAT THE VEHICLE HAS EXPLODED. THE FLIGHT DIRECTOR CONFIRMS THAT. WE ARE LOOKING AT CHECKING WITH THE RECOVERY FORCES TO SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE AT THIS POINT.”

  I looked at Tommy. “Annie,” he said, wiping my tears away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Dad was looking up, his face weary.

  I grabbed his arm. “Daddy?”

  He threw his arm around me and pulled me close. I looked back up at the cold blue sky that couldn’t be more beautiful, and the debris falling, leaving white sad strands in their wake, like a twisted fireworks display.

  A sick sense of dread hit me, settling deep, but at its darkest place was fear.

  “Daddy’s here, baby.”

  CHAPTER 35

  I stayed huddled into my dad. I couldn’t stop crying.

  Another announcement came on:

  “WE WILL REPORT MORE AS WE HAVE INFORMATION AVAILABLE. AGAIN, TO REPEAT, WE HAVE A REPORT RELAYED THROUGH THE FLIGHT DYNAMICS OFFICER THAT THE VEHICLE HAS EXPLODED. WE ARE NOW LOOKING AT ALL THE CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS AND AWAITING WORD FROM ANY RECOVERY FORCES IN THE DOWNRANGE FIELD.”