See You in the Cosmos
Page 20
Lander Civet isn’t here yet, he’s not coming until tomorrow, but I met a bunch of other people from CivSpace and they said they heard about me, and they asked to see my Golden iPod. I met some scientists from NASA also, and I met Dr. Judith Bloomington and . . . um . . .
Anyway . . . We watched them test-fire the rocket thrusters, and then we said see you tomorrow to Scott and we had dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. Ronnie told me that his prospective client in Detroit heard about my Golden iPod and he’s a big fan of CivSpace too, he even wants to live on Mars one day. I told Ronnie, That’s great news, does that mean that he wants you to be his agent and what if you leave with that client and your other ones and start your own sports agency like in that one movie starring Tom Cruise?
Ronnie laughed and said unfortunately real life doesn’t always work like that. He said the kid’s mom and dad have to do what’s best for their family, and so does he, that’s why he referred them to one of his co-workers. Terra said that’s too bad, and Ronnie said it is what it is, and I finished my fish and chips and Terra said how about let’s go for a walk and get ice cream along the way, she has something she wants to talk to me about. So we got the check and Ronnie went back to our room to make some phone calls, and Terra and me took Carl Sagan for a walk on the beach.
This was the first time Carl Sagan has ever seen the ocean up close. He kept crying at the water at first, he didn’t like it probably because it reminded him of taking a bath. But then after a while he didn’t really care. The sky was getting dark and there were some people out but not as many as Venice Beach, and the water was warm and darker than the sky. The three of us stood in the shallow part and we let the waves come over our feet, and we ate our ice cream and listened to the peacefulness.
Then I asked Terra, What are you thinking about? and she said, A lot of things. I said, Can you tell me some of those things? and she hugged me to her side and crumpled up the ice cream wrapper, and she put it in her pocket. I crumpled up my wrapper too and put it in my own pocket, and I told Terra, Ronnie said that being an adult means taking responsibility for your actions, so I’m glad we’re both doing that. Terra laughed and she said that sometimes it means taking responsibility even for the things you’re not responsible for, and also, don’t worry about being an adult just yet. She said that I have a good brother, and I said I have a good Terra too, and she said I can tell people she’s my half sister as much as I want, she’s totally proud to be my half sister.
I asked Terra what’s going to happen after this? What’s going to happen after the launch? Is she going to come live in Rockview with me and Ronnie and my mom when my mom gets out of her behavioral health hospital? Terra said that I’m a sweetheart but she can’t stay with us, and I said, Why not? I told her we have restaurants in Rockview too so she can have her same job, and I know she doesn’t have friends here but I’ll be her friend, and every day when I’m back from my school and Ronnie’s back from his work and she’s back from her restaurant we can all make dinner and watch Contact together and look at the stars but not from any roofs, I’ve learned my lesson.
Terra hugged me and told me she’s sorry, she knows she swore we’d stick together. Terra said she’s definitely going to come visit but that I inspired her. She said that like how there’s rockets and astronomy for me, there’s something for her, she just doesn’t know what it is yet. She said she wants to figure that out, but first she wants to go back home and spend some time with her mom and Howard. She asked me do I understand why, and I said I do, life is four-dimensional, and Terra laughed again.
We threw away our ice cream wrappers and walked back to the hotel, and by then the sky was completely dark and the wind was warm but nice, and when we got back to our room Ronnie was on his laptop again. I asked him, How did your calls go? and he said they went great, he talked to some of his old coaches from college and he’s going to meet a few of their players when we get back to Colorado. Then Ronnie got up to make some coffee and Terra went to take a shower, and I came out on the balcony with Carl Sagan.
I tried to see the launch site from here but I couldn’t, so I went to the live stream on my new phone and I held it up to where the site would be if there weren’t any houses blocking the way. The rocket was lit up on the screen and standing straight and tall by itself, and I thought about how one day there’s going to be another big rocket, one that I made with help from a lot of my friends, and this Golden iPod is going to be on it.
And it’s going to launch into the sky and leave our stratosphere and go past our moon and Mars and the asteroid belt and outer planets and Pluto and into deep space, and maybe you’re going to find it.
And I wonder what’ll happen when you DO find it. I wonder what you’re going to think when you listen to these recordings, when you hear the sounds of a boy from planet Earth trying to be brave and a boy trying to find the truth, and a boy who loves his family and friends and his dog that he named after his hero.
Because I realized what Zed meant when he said, You already have it. And I agree.
<< END OF RECORDINGS >>
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel has very much been a rocket of its own—launch could not have been possible without the help of a good number of friends. Deepest thanks to all my fellow wanderers, including: Jessica Craig, for her unwavering support and belief in me. Jess Dandino Garrison and Anthea Townsend, for guiding me through unfamiliar territory, and for helping peel open the layers to find what the book was really about. John Hering, for generosity, friendship, and a space to write by the beach in California. Maria Cardona, Marina Penalva, Leticia Vila-Sanjuán, Anna Soler-Pont, and the rest of the Pontas team, for helping seed this story around the globe. Drake Baer and Ian Alas, for advice on early drafts and in life. Bethany Sumner, for stories from a different time and place. Jess Frisina, Pamela Safronoff, and Sarah Sallen, for insights into social work and Child Protective Services. Gratitude also to Courtney Balestier, Amanda Natividad, Mikaela Akerman, Robin Sloan, Dan Safronoff, Jason Roos, Andrew Horng, and the truly stellar teams at Penguin Young Readers (on both sides of the Atlantic!).
Last but never least, thank you to Kickstarter, and to all the backers of my previous novel, These Days. I would not be here without you.
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