Galactic Adventures

by Tristan Bancks

  ‘No, she’s just gone.’ He stood. ‘I printed off this.’ He handed us each a photo of her. I didn’t think it was a very good one. She was looking up from the ironing, half surprised, half annoyed.

  ‘We’ll be right, though,’ Karl said. He went on for a while after that but I didn’t hear anything else. His voice faded back into the whir and groan of trucks and washing machines. I was six years old and my mum was gone.

  I never went back to my grandfather’s place but, in my mind, I spent most of my childhood lying down in that paddock. I’d already decided that, somehow, I was going into space. That week, Karl and I started building our matchstick rocket plane and, ever since, I’ve been building bigger and better spacecraft.

  The phone rang, interrupting my thought-flow. I let the last of the paint bits crumble from my fingers. Karl answered it and spoke for a minute. I tip-toed across to the door to listen and he called out, ‘Rocket! It’s for you.’

  4. Top Five

  ‘This will be a journey like no other.’ The voice echoes around the spaceport hangar, a massive white dome with 50-metre high ceilings. Galactic 7, Johnston’s latest mothership, towers over me – crisp white with the silver Galactic star on the tailfin. The wheels are taller than me. The nose funnels down to a point as sharp as a nail. Way up on top of it is a smaller rocket plane. I’ve been building spaceships out of old junk as long as I can remember. Now I’m standing under the real thing with nineteen other wannabe space travellers who have survived the first week of space school. I’m the only kid without a parent here for the announcement. The others wish they were me, but I wish I was them.

  There’s a sharp jet of smoke before James Johnston, the billionaire who sold everything to set up a space travel company, rises up through the floor on a white podium. Photographers on the media platform behind us go nuts. Johnston is wearing his trademark white cowboy hat and black flight suit with a silver star on the chest. All the kids and parents are gobsmacked as they watch this small, round platform on a pole rise up and up. Soon the old man stands five metres above us, right next to the cockpit of Galactic 7. He holds onto a railing at the front of the podium. The photographers snap furiously. Johnston raises a knobbly hand. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in person – the guy who came up with the crazy idea of sending kids into orbit.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he says. ‘You have survived the first week of space school.’ Applause and whistling. He coughs loudly and raises a hand for quiet. ‘I have in my phone here the names of the five who will complete the rest of the training. If they make it through the next month, they will spend ten days on my Utopia space colony, the world’s first privately-owned space station.’ Louder applause. Johnston raises a hand for quiet.

  ‘Who here feels that the training has been difficult so far?’

  We all look around to make sure we’re not alone, then most of us put up our hands.

  ‘This week has been a holiday,’ he says. Scott, a chubby, freckle-faced kid from Kissimmee, Florida, my best friend at the spaceport, pulls a face as if to say, ‘Really?’

  ‘You need to be tough, physically and mentally, to go into space. You will be active crew-members. We need to know if something goes wrong up there – and it could – that you are going to help, rather than hinder, our attempts to bring the craft down safely.’

  Most of our smiles have dropped now. My face feels warm. I can feel panic rise in my chest. Marv fusses in my pocket. I give him a squeeze that says, ‘Stay!’ So he stays. He’s an obedient rat. Most of the time.

  ‘With no further ado, the first space tourist . . .’ Everybody hangs on Johnston’s next words.

  ‘. . . is Yada Luang.’ There is a cheer of, ‘Ka! Ka!’ from Yada’s tiny mother, who jumps up and down on the spot, clapping wildly. Yada, from Thailand, taught herself to speak English almost perfectly before she was ten by watching YouTube in a Bangkok library. She screams, ‘Sweet justice!’ then runs out front and does a cartwheel in front of the crowd. Two spaceport workers in silver t-shirts direct her to a podium. She’s harnessed, clipped and then she shoots up into the air until she stands right next to Johnston. The Galactic founder extends his hand, but she reaches over and kisses him on the cheek instead. Everybody claps and whistles.

  ‘Our second space traveller . . .’ Johnston announces.

  Scott leans over and says, ‘If I’m not next, I’ll eat six pellets of your rat’s poop.’ Scott is the only one at space school who knows about Marv. I laugh out loud. Then Johnston announces, ‘Zarif Ejogo.’

  Zarif (Z for short) smiles and nods his head like he already knew he’d be selected. He’s the oldest kid here and he looks like a young Barack Obama – tall and lean with silver glasses. His dad’s Nigerian, his mum’s British. Zarif’s been flying with his dad since he was little and has piloted gliders and planes himself. He takes the whole Space School thing super-seriously.

  Scott hangs his head, knowing he’ll have to eat rat poo.

  ‘I’ll drop a few nuggets by your room later,’ I whisper.

  He punches me.

  ‘Number three,’ Johnston announces, ‘is Rafaella Kiero.’

  I can see Rafaella through the crowd. She nearly falls over. Her mum holds her arm to steady her. Then she steps forward slowly. She is Brazilian, quiet, with a nervous-looking nose like a rabbit’s and pink braces on her teeth. She’s a neat-freak and nuts about astronomy. Two spaceport guys clip her to a podium and beam her up with the others. Her face is bright red. She looks at her feet and holds her glasses on so they don’t slip.

  There are only two places left and seventeen kids standing here on the ground. I’ve been pretty nervous all morning, but something inside has kept telling me that I’ll be selected. Now my chances have slipped from one in four to less than one in eight and my belief is slipping, too.

  Johnston calls out, ‘Number four . . . Scott Garfield.’

  I can’t believe he’s been chosen. I mean, I’m super-happy for the guy, but I saw him in the challenges and, dude, he wasn’t hot. And he doesn’t even want to go. His mother and grandfather are both astronauts and they’re forcing him. They hug and cry all over him. I go to high-five him, but our hands miss. He waddles up and is clipped to a podium and shot up into the air above the crowd and next to Raf. When he makes it to the top he gets into the spirit of things, puts his hands in the air and does a little dance, shaking his belly around and making everyone laugh.

  ‘Scott!’ his mum barks from the ground. Scott stops dancing.

  ‘Finally,’ Johnston says, ‘number five.’

  These words hit me like a slap. In five days’ time I’ll either be in space or back home eating smelly eggs and ironing old-people’s hankies. The odds of me being chosen are now one in sixteen. My panic’s turning to anger. I’m angry that I didn’t try harder. Angry at the others who have made it. And I’m angry at those who haven’t made it, because I’m one of them. I’m angry at James Johnston for not choosing me and for being such a smarmy old I’ve-been-to-space-36-times idiot. But, mostly, I’m scared to go home, back to my life. I don’t want to live a regular, boring life. I can’t. I need this.

  But in my mind, I’m already in the dorms, packing my space bag, catching a space taxi and flying my space-butt home, humiliated. I feel tears jab the back of my lids. My heart is going mad. My forehead and palms are slippery with sweat. My breathing is kind of tight and wheezy. I’m certain, now, that my dream’s over and I have to get out of here. I turn and push through the crowd, heading for the exit, as Johnston drags out the final announcement.

  ‘This is a milestone, not only in space and aviation history—’

  I mutter bad things to myself.

  ‘—but in the history of childhood,’ he says. ‘In a month’s time, these people will be locked and loaded into the rocket plane sitting up on Galactic 7’s back and sent soaring upward at
speeds you cannot even imagine.’

  I push past a security guy and shove open the exit door.

  ‘The final space tourist to join our group will—’

  I let the heavy hangar door bang shut behind me. I grab an electric scooter from the rack, a green one, hit the thumb-throttle and hammer up the path around the edge of the vast courtyard to the dorms.

  5. The Right Stuff

  Back in our room I clutch a brown paper bag to my lips and breathe in and out, in and out, trying not to panic. The bag fills and collapses, fills and collapses. The doctor told me to do this whenever I have a panic attack. Breathing carbon dioxide back into my lungs stops me from hyperventilating. I do this for a couple of minutes, in and out, in and out, until my face stops tingling, my shoulders drop, my heart slows down.

  I screw up the bag and chuck it into my old hard brown suitcase. I bend down and scoop my clothes out of my drawer and throw them in to the bag. I slam the lid, sit on it, clip the bag shut.

  I look around at the bright white room where I’ve spent the past seven nights. There are five hexagonal sleep capsules, about two metres deep, set into the wall. The wall looks a bit like honeycomb. Each capsule has a light for reading and a table that folds out. There is one capsule down at floor level, three in the middle row at eye level, and one up top. I’ve been sleeping up top.

  I can still hear James Johnston’s muffled voice drifting across the courtyard from the hangar where he’s making the final announcement. There’s loud applause and that makes me feel even worse.

  I climb up to my sleep capsule to check if I’ve left anything. Marv, the rat, is up there, sitting on his back two feet, licking his paws and using the spit to comb his hair.

  ‘How’d you get up here?’ I say. He doesn’t answer. I didn’t even notice him leave my pocket. I peel the picture of my mum off the capsule wall and slide it back into my wallet. ‘We gotta go home, Marvino.’

  I swear he shakes his head.

  ‘C’mon, man,’ I say. But Marv turns and runs up to the other end of the capsule.

  I found Marv six months ago inside a washing machine at the laundry. He must have crawled in when the washer was being loaded. I only discovered him after the load had finished, lying under an old green woollen sock. His fur was all wet and spiky, his legs were spread and his tongue was hanging out like he was playing dead, but I picked him up and he was still alive. Just. I took him upstairs and gave him some water and small blobs of peanut butter and, over the next few days, I got him healthy again. We’ve been stuck together like glue ever since. Back then I thought Marv would bring me good luck. But now I know that he’s no good luck charm.

  As I climb up into the capsule to catch him, I hear footsteps in the hall. Probably security coming to escort me to the gate. I slip inside my sleep capsule, partly to grab Marv, but partly to extend my stay by just a few minutes. I can’t go home. I lie flat on the mattress.

  ‘Dash?’ a voice says. It’s Madeleine Standish, my guardian at the spaceport. Madeleine looks a bit like my mum did so I liked her as soon as I met her. I’m going to miss Maddie. I don’t say anything. I lie there, quietly, in the capsule, listening. Marv runs up my back to the top of my head. He clings on with claws like tiny knives. It hurts and I want to scream and rip the rat off my head, but I don’t dare make a sound.

  ‘Where is he?’ she hisses. ‘Dash?’ She leaves the dorm. ‘Where are you? You were selected and you weren’t there to see it!’

  Her heels click up the hall, away from the room. My mouth drops open. I can’t close it. Even Marv stands still. I haul myself up and peel him off my head.

  ‘I’m in?’ I say, looking into his shiny brown eyes. ‘I’m in!’ I say even louder. I feel this blast of adrenaline shoot through me. I wriggle to the end of my bed, leap the couple of metres down to the floor and roll on the ground. I slip Marv into my pocket. ‘Madeleine!’ I run to the door and up the hall. ‘Maddie!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘I’m in!’ I scream.

  ‘I know!’ She rounds the corner and slams straight into me, squishing Marv in my pocket. He squeaks.

  ‘Come! Everybody’s waiting.’

  Madeleine puts a hand on my back and rushes me out of the glass door and into the courtyard. We both jump on scooters. She gets a yellow one. I get red this time. We speed down the path that runs around the huge rectangle of lush green grass at the centre of the spaceport. I have a smile on my face that’s seven metres wide.

  Maddie looks funny scooting in high heels, but it’s the way everybody gets around the port. We sweep past the bronze statue of Dennis Tito, the world’s first-ever space tourist (a regular human, not a trained astronaut), in the middle of the courtyard. Maybe someday there’ll be a statue of me next to it. Dash Campbell: first kid in space. I skid to a stop. We rack our scooters and hurry through the open door of the hangar. The security guard waves us in.

  As soon as I enter the room there is massive applause. People shout, ‘There he is!’ and ‘Where were you?’ I feel half-good and half like a complete snapperhead for running away. The other four kids and James Johnston still stand high above the crowd on their small round platforms supported by thick white poles. The press in the gallery above flash wildly and call for me to look up. I wave a hand, blinded by the bank of camera flashes.

  When I make it to the front of the crowd, where Galactic 7 is hunched, two spaceport staff members harness me to a platform and hoist me into the air, just like the others. And there I stand, looking down at the people who are cheering and the kids who missed out. My knees are shaking and I feel sicker than I did on the centrifuge this morning. Johnston nods at me, then turns to the crowd and holds both hands up to hush them.

  ‘For those who have made it through, let me say this – you are on the verge of discovering things about yourself that you never suspected. But you only go into space if you can prove you have the Right Stuff. If just one of you is fit enough, then just one of you goes. Okay? Your month of training will culminate in a skydiving challenge that will push you to the very edge of yourselves. Remember, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.’

  My stomach tightens into a fist. Skydiving? Can they really make kids skydive?

  ‘Then, on February 27, you will have the chance to make history.’

  Feb 27? My birthday. We’re going up on my birthday.

  ‘Now, before we whisk our young space travellers away, are there any questions from our friends in the media?’

  I look across to the press gallery. It’s an open metal platform, where over a hundred photographers and journalists from around the world stand with their long lenses and notepads ready. A bunch of hands shoot into the air. James Johnston points to somebody. ‘Yes, you, in the red glasses.’

  ‘I’d like to know, from each of you, what is it that drives you to want to go into space? Are you really prepared to put your lives on the line for this?’

  For half an hour they slam us with questions. ‘What do you expect training to be like?’ ‘Astronauts say it’s not safe, but what do you say?’ ‘Many protestors believe that, within the next month, they will shut the program down. How will you feel if this happens?’

  The questions are annoying and I’m pretty glad when the session’s over. I mean, how are we supposed to know the answers? When they finally let us down off the podium Madeleine says, ‘It’s time for you to meet Chuck Palatnik.’

  I frown. ‘Who’s Chuck Palatnik?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Can I just go and call home?’

  ‘See you in the restaurant in five,’ she says. ‘The others will be saying goodbye to their parents.’

  I slip out of the hangar, grab a scooter from the rack and fly right across the lawn to the spaceport foyer. You’re not really allowed to scoot on the grass, but I’m too psyched to care. My body zings
with electricity. I dump the scooter, run in through the revolving glass door. There are about 50 people in there, lots of onlookers, but about ten wearing flight suits, ready to go. I dodge a few people looking at departure screens. I tread on a man’s toe and apologise. Then I plonk myself down on a chair in one of the Skype booths next to a skinny guy in a flight suit. I punch letters on the keyboard and wait a few seconds while it rings. My stepdad Karl’s face flips up on-screen.

  ‘Rocket!’ he says.

  ‘I’m in!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They told us a minute ago. I’m in!’

  ‘Well, how long do you have to stay?’ he says. ‘When are you coming home?’ I can hear clothes dryers spinning in the background. I’m so happy that I’m not there. He’s sweating from the heat of the machines. There’s a mug on the desk in front of him and I can almost smell the powdered pea-and-ham soup inside.

  ‘A month. Then ten days on Utopia.’ I feel stupid even saying it. That makes it real and it can’t be. Dreams aren’t supposed to come true, are they? ‘They reckon it’s gonna be hardcore, the training and stuff.’

  ‘Well, do you think you can do it – being there by yourself?’

  ‘Are you kidding? Course I can.’

  ‘Are you sure? Maybe—’

  ‘I’ll be right. I can’t believe I made it! Can you? And the lady, Madeleine, the one you talked to on the phone, she’s—’

  The others file past behind me, heading for the restaurant.

  ‘Dash!’ says Madeleine.

  ‘I’ve got to go. They said they’ll call you later and organise more forms and stuff. Are you all right?’

  He nods. ‘Yeah, I’m right.’ But I know that he hasn’t been right for a while. Years, maybe. All he ever does is work. He’s got to get a life.

  ‘Dash, we need you!’

  I feel bad hanging up. ‘Love you,’ I whisper, then I cough.