by Ibi Zoboi
Dutton Children’s Books
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
Copyright © 2019 by Ibi Zoboi
Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Anthony Piper
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CIP Data is available.
Ebook ISBN 9780399187377
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For Pascale, my inner space cadet,
and the others out there, with our heads in the clouds
and our eyes on the stars—boundless imagination
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER
1
These clouds are a concrete wall! The airplane won’t push past the gray and blue to reach the endless black called outer space. So I have to take control.
I press my back against the seat, push up my glasses, close my eyes, and pretend the plane is aiming for the stars and planets and the very edge of our galaxy. The seatback in front of me is the control board, and I press button after button as the plane blasts through the concrete sky and becomes the Mothership Uhura. It’s star date 06.23.1984 and I’m now E-Grace Starfleet, space cadet, on a mission to rescue the great and wise Captain Fleet!
“I’m coming for you, Captain Fleet!” I whisper to myself.
The clouds part as the Uhura achieves Earth’s orbit. Then, in just a few milliseconds, I calculate the hyperspace jump all the way out to Andromeda. This part sometimes makes me queasy because warp speed forces time and space to squeeze my whole body—along with this morning’s breakfast rolling around in my belly—into an opening smaller than the eye of a needle. I’ve never thrown up while on the Mothership Uhura. Until now.
Someone touches my shoulder, and I blink right back into the present, back onto this American Airlines Boeing 727, headed for New York City.
“Are you all right, honey?” the stewardess asks. “You look a little sick.”
I shake my head because my stomach is a whirling black hole ready to spew out long lost spacecraft and missing astronauts. The stewardess hands me a bag just in time and up come Momma’s grits and cheese and ham and eggs.
There’s nothing more human than throwing up.
Suddenly, I don’t feel like Space Cadet E-Grace Starfleet anymore. Even in this airplane that’s supposed to be “something special in the air,” I’m just regular ol’ Ebony-Grace Norfleet Freeman, rising seventh-grader from Huntsville, Alabama. There’s nothing out-of-this-world about a too-stiff white shirt, ugly pleated skirt, lace-trimmed socks, a greasy press ’n’ curl, big ol’ glasses, and a tummy that feels like volcanic explosions on the surface of Mars.
I lean against the window to look out at the concrete sky, so incredibly close to outer space. The white lady across the aisle thinks I don’t notice her watching me out of the corner of her eye as she lights a cigarette. Maybe she thinks it will settle my stomach. I take off my glasses, place them on my lap, and close my eyes again.
When has the brave and powerful Captain Fleet ever needed saving? Never ever. Not when the Sonic King threatened to destroy the Uhura with a single meteor. Not when his evil little minions, the Funkazoids, led Captain Fleet on a wild-goose chase all over Planet Boom Box. And not even when Momma made Granddaddy promise to “stop filling her head with crazy stories since she’ll be in junior high school soon!”
But now I am the farthest I’ve ever been from Captain Fleet in my whole entire life. He has no one to help him when he faces the evil Sonic King. He is all alone as I make my way to New York City.
“Of course the Sonic King took the opportunity to capture the great and wise Captain Fleet once and for all,” I whisper to myself.
This is where Granddaddy’s stories ended before I left for a whole week in New York City. And maybe this is where they’ll end forever since I am becoming a young lady and it is “time to do away with comic books and childish stories,” as Momma said before I left.
But Granddaddy doesn’t always keep his promises to Momma.
“Promise me I won’t be gone for too long, Granddaddy,” I had told him before I left.
“And promise me E-Grace Starfleet will rescue that old Captain Fleet from the hands of the evil Sonic King,” he’d replied.
Granddaddy may not always keep his promises to Momma, but we always keep our promises to each other.
“I’m coming for you, Captain Fleet,” I say aloud. I don’t even care if the white lady across the aisle looks at me sideways.
Slowly, the clouds begin to part and reveal New York City’s skyscrapers—the Twin Towers, the Empire State Building, and the Chrysler Building. Somewhere on those streets, John Lennon got shot. A lot of people get shot in New York City. Back in Huntsville, I would always run to the TV whenever I heard Pam Carleton and Robert Lane start their Nightcast Weekend News report on Channel 48 with all the very bad, terrible, and awful things happening in New York City. And I’d think of Daddy. But Momma always sent me out of the room before the news report finished. She does that almost every time the news talks about New York City.
“I don’t want you hearing about all that sinning going on up there in that town. You can come back down when Reverend Swaggart is on,” she’d say with her hard-candy voice.
“No, thank you, Momma,” I’d say as I stomped back up to my room. Hearing about sin in New York City was way more fun than listening to Jimmy Swaggart sing sad songs about Baby Jesus.
I put my glasses back on, tighten my seat belt, and search all
around my mind—my “imagination location,” as Granddaddy calls it—for a new name for this planet, a funky one with lots of soul, as Granddaddy would insist. Planet No Joke City echoes in my mind as if it was coming straight from Granddaddy himself. Ain’t nothing funny about No Joke City!
I let out a deep, ringing laugh just like my granddaddy’s.
It’s not until the stewardess comes over to tell me that we’ll be landing in twenty minutes that I start thinking about Daddy and his junkyard in Harlem, and my New York City best friend, Bianca Perez.
Last Tuesday when he called, Daddy sounded happy to have me for a whole week, even though he promised Momma that this time he’d sign me up for a day camp with ballet classes, piano lessons, and math enrichment, as well as making sure that I get to a good church on Sunday. But he’d also secretly promised me that he’d let me play in the junkyard, even if it meant getting in trouble with Momma.
Momma had been eavesdropping on the other phone line. “Julius, you better keep Ebony-Grace away from all those greasy men and little street urchins!”
If Daddy keeps his promise to Momma and signs me up for day camp, I won’t see Bianca the whole time I’m there. She’ll be stuck in her tiny apartment with no TV helping her grandmother sew dresses for rich ladies. Bianca’s definitely gonna need my help, too.
“I’m coming for you, Bianca Pluto!” I say under my breath. Surely, I can use a bigger crew to help on the Uhura, and Bianca Pluto has already proven herself to be a worthy first officer.
When the airplane finally touches down, I squeeze my eyes shut and I’m on the Uhura orbiting Planet No Joke City. I promise myself not to laugh after I beam down or else the aliens will recognize E-Grace Starfleet and take her prisoner. So before the airlock opens, I let out a giggle that becomes a chuckle that turns into an avalanche of big, bright joy. I laugh until I am a bubble floating up into zero gravity.
“Ebony-Grace. We have to exit the plane now. Do you need help with your things?” The stewardess’s voice pulls me back down to Earth.
She is not smiling, so I quickly stop laughing.
When I step off the plane and walk through a long, narrow, dimly lit hallway, no one welcomes me, there’s no parade for E-Grace Starfleet, the granddaughter of the brave and powerful space hero, Captain Fleet. No cheers, no laughter, no joy.
Ain’t nothing funny in No Joke City, all right.
CHAPTER
2
I keep my eyes on a lonely blue suitcase as it rides the baggage carousel around and around, through the black curtain leading to the portal and back toward all the people walking away with their own suitcases. The bag is waiting to be claimed, just like I am. Soon, someone will come sweep it away, and then maybe, that spinning carousel will be all mine.
“Is that blue one yours, too, honey?” a new stewardess asks. She’d been nice enough to pull my two suitcases off the carousel while I just stood there and stared.
I shake my head no.
“Well, you’ve got two here so far, uh . . . ” She leans over to get another look at my name tag—Ebony-Grace Norfleet Freeman scribbled on masking tape with black Magic Marker. “Well, do I call you both names? Ebony-Grace, or just Ebony, or do you prefer Grace?”
“Cadet E-Grace Starfleet,” I say, placing both my feet together and giving her a sharp salute.
She cocks her head to one side and only says, “Okay. If that’s all, then maybe we should wait by the main doors now?”
I salute her again. But she turns away.
E-Grace Starfleet sees her chance! I stretch one skinny leg over the edge of the carousel and try to get my footing. I have to catch my balance really fast because, before I know it, I’m moving away from the stewardess. I crouch down and hug my legs before I reach the black curtains that lead into the portal.
I’m coming for you, Captain Fleet!
I squeeze my eyes shut really tight and brace myself.
“Hey, hey, hey!” I hear in the distance. But the portal is just a few seconds away . . . 5, 4, 3 . . .
It’s not sudden zero-gravity weightlessness that makes my arms and legs flail like a headless chicken. A man pulls me off the carousel and back onto the cold, grimy airport floor.
“Young lady! You could’ve gotten hurt,” the man says. He’s so close to my face that I can smell his cigarette breath. My glasses even fog up a little. He keeps a tight grip on my arm as the stewardess rushes over to us with her eyes wide and her face tight, making her glasses look bigger than they already are.
“Is that how you want your father to greet you?” she says. “Escorted out by security guards?”
I smile and nod. That would be outta sight! I think to myself.
But the officer man lets go of my arm, and the stewardess looks down at my clothes while shaking her head. My skirt is all twisted and bunched up. Stupid skirt. I’d spent the whole airplane ride trying to cover up my knobby knees. Momma made me wear it even after I had begged her to let me put on some blue jeans just in case I had to parachute out of that airplane. Now the whole world has seen my underwear as I got onto that carousel.
I look back toward the black curtains—Mission Portal →Home→Granddaddy aborted.
The stewardess grabs my arm. “Don’t even think about it,” she says through clenched teeth. Her narrowed eyes are hazel, almost the same color as her hair, which is the same color as sand, or as a dry, humanless planet. She’s an alien, of course, set out to deliver me to the ruler of this new world, master of no-laughter, leader of Planet No Joke City, the imperious King Sirius Julius: my daddy.
He’s like the star Sirius, all right—the brightest in the night sky. Granddaddy says that Sirius is also called the Dog Star. And since Momma sometimes mutters to herself that my daddy is nothing but a low-down, dirty dog, the name King Sirius Julius fits him like a crown.
Even after three years of not seeing him, I can still spot Daddy’s thick mustache. I can hardly tell whether he’s happy to see me or not since I can’t see where his lips are moving, his mustache is so doggone thick. So of course, he looks serious.
It takes him a long minute to spot me. And the stewardess isn’t even looking Daddy’s way. She would never think that the man in the blue coveralls with grease stains at the knees and the sweat ring around the collar was actually once married to my fancy momma. Daddy’s coveralls looks like Granddaddy’s NASA space-flight suit, except way dirtier.
Back at the airport in Huntsville, Momma had used her syrupy-sweet voice to ask all kinds of favors from the stewardess. She made sure that I’d have a full lunch and a nutritious snack, that I’d wash my hands each time I used the bathroom, and that I’d read Little Women instead of one of Granddaddy’s comic books I snuck into my bag. Momma smiled big and bright, showing her Vaseline-covered white teeth, and batted her blue-shadowed and mascaraed eyes before slipping a twenty-dollar bill to the lady. I pretended not to see. I’m very good at pretending not to see.
So when Daddy finally spots me and spreads his arms big and wide, the stewardess holds me back. “Who is that man?” she asks.
“That’s my daddy,” I say, and push her out of my way.
But she grabs my arm. “Are you sure?” she whispers, looking at my daddy sideways as if he were a kidnapper.
I pop my eyes out at her, something Momma would twist my ear for doing. It feels good to be a little insolent, as Momma calls it. She isn’t going to be around for a long while, and I can be as insolent as I want to be. I roll my eyes at the stewardess and pull away from her so I can run to my daddy.
His long, strong arms wrap around me almost twice, and I press the side of my face against his chest and smelly jumpsuit, and sniff and sniff.
“Baby girl!” Daddy says. He gently pushes me away from him. “Lemme take a look at you. Still my little broomstick. Taller, but not much wider.” His voice smiles, but not his face, of course.
The officer man who had pulled me off the baggage carousel comes over and pushes the luggage cart toward Daddy. “Is that your daughter?” he asks. “She almost got us all in trouble climbing onto that carousel like that.”
But before Daddy can ask me anything, the stewardess comes over and clears her throat. “I hope you enjoyed your flight with American Airlines,” she says to Daddy and not me. Then she turns around and starts to fidget with my white shirt. I quickly pull away from her again. “Don’t you want a pin?” she asks.
She shows me a brass pin with wings and the blue-and-red double-A logo for American Airlines. I grab it from her and pin it on myself. She just stands there in front of us when I’m done, and clears her throat again.
“Oh, uh, Ebony-Grace, aren’t you going to thank the lovely lady?” Daddy says.
Momma isn’t here, so I barely whisper a thank-you while rolling my eyes again. Daddy is too busy pulling the luggage cart toward the exit doors to notice my insolence.
CHAPTER
3
Daddy’s Buick is dirt brown and has dents, scratches, and duct tape all over it.
“Did you build this car yourself, Daddy? Did you make any special modifications?” I ask.
“No, Broomstick, it’s just a little beat up, that’s all,” he says, as he slips the last suitcase into the back seat. He has to push the front seat forward ’cause there are only two doors on his car—unlike Granddaddy’s new Cadillac with its four doors and leather seats.
I ask Daddy if I can sit in the back seat to stretch out my legs. I lie down on the rough and torn seats, rest my feet on my suitcase, take off my glasses, cross my hands over my belly, tilt my head back, and look out of the car window. After a few minutes of seeing only wide, blue, open sky, the tall buildings in No Joke City appear from out of nowhere. I sit up in my seat as we cross a bridge over a green-brown river. In the distance, I see short-and-wide buildings and tall-and-skinny buildings. The whole city looks like it was built by robots and machines.