Life on Mars

  I didn’t want to clean closets with Mom. I wanted to talk about space with Cash. At first Mom worried about me going to “that man’s” house, but after I “helped her” with a couple of closets, she stopped minding so much and let me go.

  MY FIVE-STEP PROCESS TO GETTING OUT OF CLEANING CLOSETS SO YOU CAN HANG OUT WITH YOUR ASTRONAUT NEIGHBOR By Arcturus Betelgeuse Chambers

  Step One: Groan.

  A lot. And not the usual groaning, but really loud, over-the-top groaning. I-Think-My-Appendix-Just-Ruptured-Into-My-Throat kind of groaning. I-Just-Stepped-Into-a-Pit-of-Lava-in-Flip-Flops kind of groaning. Vega-and-the-Bacteria-Are-Kissing-on-the-Couch-That-I’m-Currently-Sitting-On kind of groaning. And don’t do it just once. Do it every few seconds for at least half an hour.

  Step Two: Find Treasures.

  And I don’t mean real treasures like gold coins or jewels or Dad’s lost golf shoes. Find “treasures” like a hair wad left over from when Cassi cleaned out her hairbrush or things kicked out of the old hamster cage or a muddy sock or a plate with a shriveled month-old hot dog stuck to it. Hug the treasure to your chest, make happy crying sounds, and tell your mom you’d rather die of an appendix rupturing into your throat while stepping into a lava pit in flip-flops than get rid of this long-lost gift.

  Step Three: Guilt It Up.

  When your mom balks about keeping your treasures, get sentimental about it. Tell her that she taught you to be sensitive and that you thought she, of anyone, would understand the significance of that particular receipt wrapped around that particular petrified hunk of chewed gum, because it was chewed “on that day,” “when that thing happened,” and when you both “laughed/cried/cheered/danced/giggled/sniffled/sighed” over it. Together. Be vague. You don’t want to accidentally end up in some big sentimental cry-fest with your mom about something terrible like when you were a baby and she used to give you baths and your cute little butt fit right into the palm of her hand. Embarrassville.

  Step Four: Ask Tons of Questions.

  Because once moms are in an I-Have-Only-One-Hour-to-Clean-Every-Closet-in-the-House sort of mood, they really love being sidetracked by questions like, “Hey, what’s this?” and “Do you see that tiny speck right there? There. Right there. You can’t see it? What is it? It smells bad. Can you smell it?” Or especially, “Is that mouse supposed to be in here?”

  Step Five: Make the Pile Bigger.

  And, finally, when you’ve worn her out with questions and crying and a fake spotted mouse, start putting more things into the closet when she’s not looking. If she notices and yells at you, just let your lip quiver and tell her you were simply trying to help.

  She’ll feel sorry for you.

  And next thing you know, you’ll be sitting on the floor of the space room in “that man’s house,” eating a sausage log and flipping through a book about telescopes.

  Works every time.

  “Cash?” I asked one afternoon. I was wearing a space helmet and playing with a plastic solar system model.

  “Huh?” he asked from his chair. He had a photo album spread across his lap and was turning the pages slowly.

  “Cash?” I repeated.

  “I said what.”

  “Did you ever go into space?” I’d already asked Cash this question roughly nine billion times, but he never answered me. He always changed the subject or completely ignored me, like I’d never asked anything at all.

  Once again, he didn’t answer, and all I could hear was the sound of pages flipping slowly, slowly. I decided to try again, because I really, really had to know.

  “Cash?” I repeated.

  “I heard you,” he said. “And, no, I didn’t.”

  I spun the earth on its axis. “Why not? Were you afraid?”

  He grunted. “I’m not afraid of anything. Never have been.”

  I spun the earth faster. “Motion sickness?”

  “Of course not.”

  I stopped the earth with my finger and laid back so I was looking right up his nose. Not a pretty sight, by the way. I wouldn’t recommend it. “So why didn’t you?”

  He snapped the book closed and held it on his lap. “Because of Herbert Swanschbaum,” he said.

  “Isn’t that an ice cream company?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not. An ice cream company. I never understand a thing you say, kid.”

  He got up and put the photo album back on its shelf, then shuffled out the door. I didn’t want to leave the space room, but I had a feeling Cash wasn’t done talking about Herbert Swanschbaum, the non-ice-cream-company-guy, and I had an even bigger feeling that I was supposed to follow him so he could finish the story.

  I found him in the living room, slouched into an old recliner. He had a newly lit cigar between two fingers. I hated those cigars, and I didn’t understand why he smoked them if they made him cough so much. But I was afraid to say anything to him about it—you never knew if Cash would invite you to leave his house forever.

  I sank to my knees on the floor a few feet away from him. I hadn’t bothered to take the helmet off yet, and my voice sounded echoey. Which was cool. I wanted to make noises, talk, quote some Star Wars lines.

  “Commander(er-er), tear this ship apart until you find those plans(ans-ans)! And bring me all passengers(ers-ers), I want them ALIVE(ive-ive)!”

  “What?” Cash said.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “What did you just say?”

  I felt my skin get hot under the helmet. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize I was saying it out loud. Just … some Star Wars … nevermind. Who is Herbert Slapschlinger?”

  “Who?”

  “Hubert Slapsnotter?”

  Cash looked impatient. “Not Slapsnotter, Swanschbaumer. Herbert Swanschbaumer. And he was an astronaut. Went through training with me. We were friends.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  Cash puffed on his cigar. “Last I heard he’s living in a retirement community outside of Port Canaveral with his wife, Rita.”

  “And?” I asked.

  Cash let out a sigh. “Herb was better than me at everything. If I got a plaque, he got a medal. If a pilot requested me in the simulator, two pilots requested him. When his head was clear, I was panicking. When I was dizzy, he was steady as a rock. Heck, even when he was getting married, my girlfriend was breaking it off with me. Everything he had, I didn’t. Everything I wanted, he had. I despised Herbert Swanschbaumer.”

  “I thought you just said you were friends.”

  “You gotta understand, kid. Sometimes there’s a fine line between friendship and hate. Sometimes you can admire someone so much you start to think you’re nothing because you’re not like them.”

  Hating your friend? I thought about Tripp, whose finest moment involved shoving two green olives up his nose so far he had to go to the emergency room to have them pulled out. And then he brought them to school, put them on his burger … and ate them. It’s hard to be jealous of that.

  Cash continued. “Herbert and I weren’t just friends, you see. We were both training to be mission specialists. The space program was big back then. You went into astronautics because you planned to go into space. We both wanted it. And long story short, Herb got it. He passed all his tests with flying colors, and I had high blood pressure. Game over for an astronaut. My name never got called. I stayed grounded from the day I signed on until the day I retired. The end.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “So you never got to go?”

  “And never will.”

  “Because of one test.”

  He nodded. “It’s a cruel world, kid.”

  It seemed like a very cruel world to me. A world in which you can dedicate your whole life to the skies and never get to see them up close just because you failed one little test. What kind of things could keep me out of space? What things could keep me from actually meeting the Martians I would eventually make contact with in CICM-HQ? Who wo
uld steal my spot on the shuttles, who would steal my bunk in the space station? Who would be my Helmer Schwansmeller?

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

  Cash shrugged. “Life isn’t fair. Doesn’t matter now. I’m an old man.”

  “But what about your dreams?” I said, feeling fairly outraged now. I wanted to make him feel better with a perfect, echoey Star Wars quote, but all that came to mind was “Into the garbage chute, fly boy!” which didn’t really seem all that appropriate for the situation.

  At first he didn’t answer. But then he shifted and leaned forward so his elbows were on his knees, his hands dangling between them, the cigar forgotten between his fingers. He looked me straight in the eyes.

  “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

  I pulled off my space helmet so he could see me nodding.

  “Okay,” he said. “Come back here tonight.”

  “Why?”

  He sat back again. “You ask too many questions, kid. Just come back tonight. You want to know where I go when you’re up there on your roof, don’t you?”

  A chill ran down my spine. “Yes! Well, no. I’m not sure, actually. You’re not hungry for a face or anything, are you?”

  He stubbed out his cigar in an ashtray on the table next to his recliner, then stood up and headed back toward his bedroom. I heard the door close with a sharp click, and I understood this to mean that we were done talking about missions and dreams and goody-goody Herbie Snotbagger.

  I took the helmet back to the space room and placed it back on the shelf where it belonged.

  I patted the helmet. “You’re all clear, kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home(ome-ome),” I whispered. I went back to my house, nervous and excited for the sun to fall so I could come back and see Cash Maddux’s secret in person.

  22

  Blastoff Into Nothingness

  “Hey, Arty, where you going?” my dad asked as I walked past him. He was perched on a stepladder, painting the last few inches of the ceiling over our front porch. He’d been out there since right after dinner, trying to finish it before the sun went down. “So many things to fix on this old place before we move,” he’d said, and I’d immediately lost my appetite. I hated thinking about the move.

  “Over to Cash’s house,” I said. “We’re going to …” I paused, unsure how to finish the sentence, because I really didn’t know what we were going to do. I finally decided on ending it with, “You know. Space stuff.”

  The bald dome of my dad’s head was covered with big baby blue paint droplets, making his head look like an Easter egg. He frowned at me. “Your mother says he’s not a very nice guy.”

  Okay, maybe he wasn’t the nicest. Nobody could argue that. Cash was one angry astronaut. And most of the time I wasn’t sure if he liked me or wished I would go away. But I didn’t care. “He’s okay,” I said. As far as I was concerned, the “astronaut” part of “angry astronaut” canceled out the “angry” part. “He can be nice. Sometimes.”

  Dad’s eyebrows raised. “That so?”

  I nodded. “And we have a lot in common. He loves space like you and me, Dad.”

  “Huh,” Dad said.

  I watched him slide the last brush stroke of paint onto the ceiling. As if to celebrate being done, a fat paint blot fell and dripped down right between his eyebrows. “Dad?”

  “Yeah, buddy?” he asked, distractedly scraping the brush against the edge of the paint can to squeeze off the leftovers.

  “Is your observatory in Las Vegas going to be as good as the one here?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he came down the ladder and set the paint can on the top step, covered it with its metal lid, and rested the paintbrush across the top. When I started to think maybe he wouldn’t answer my question at all, he sighed and leaned against the ladder. “I won’t be working in an observatory, Arty,” he said. “I’m working in an IT department. You know … computers,” he said. He tried to make the last word sound exciting, like any old technology was just as good as space technology.

  But it didn’t work. My heart startled, limped, and fell into my stomach. “No observatory?” I croaked. “We’re moving all the way to Las Vegas to work on computers? They have computers right here in Liberty!”

  “But no jobs,” he said. “Not for me, anyway. This job pays more, Arty. And we’ll find an observatory in Vegas once we get settled in. We’ll visit that one every now and then.” He reached for me, but I ducked away from his hand.

  “Find an observatory once we get settled in? Every now and then? But what about Mars?”

  “Arty, you’ll have plenty of chances to see Mars next year.”

  “But it’s only in opposition one day!” This was true. Mars was visible in the night sky much of the year, if you had the right equipment to find it. But it would be most visible when it was in opposition, meaning Earth was between Mars and the sun, so the red planet was both the closest and also stayed in the sky the longest on that day. That day would be my best hope in communicating with the life there. No big deal. Only an entire three years of grueling work, gone. No problem.

  “And we’ll do our best to get to an observatory that day, Arty. You know, this isn’t the end of the world.”

  But to me it seemed pretty close to the end of the world. The end of my world, anyway. The end of the world that I had spent my whole life dreaming about. How could Dad do this to me? He was the one who made me love space. How could he rip it away from me like this? Without even asking me! Without even caring!

  “What happened to you?” I asked, my lower lip beginning to tremble, which was embarrassing because it meant I was about to cry. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure nobody I knew was around to witness me losing it. “You used to love space.”

  Dad sighed again and closed his eyes. “I do love space, Arcturus,” he said. “But I love my family more. And this is what I have to do for my family.” I thought maybe I saw his lower lip tremble a little, too, and I felt a little better about mine. If I was going to lose it and be a big bawling baby, at least I wasn’t going to be alone about it.

  Finally, Dad picked up the can by its metal handle. “Don’t stay out too long,” he said, all business again. “It’ll be getting dark pretty soon.”

  I could barely make myself talk. “Actually, I was kind of wondering if I could stay out a while,” I said. “I think we might look at some stars.” At least I hoped that was what we were going to do.

  Dad looked up and nodded. “It’s a clear night for it,” he said. “Okay. But you promise me you’ll come home if you have any problems with him?”

  “I promise,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Dad nodded again. “Say hi to the Martians for me.”

  What would be the point of that? I thought.

  Cash was sitting in his recliner again, just like he had been earlier in the day, only now he wore his standard nighttime uniform: black hoodie and jeans and a pair of boots. Next to his chair was a black plastic trash bag and a box. All of a sudden I was scared again. I knew that we were going out back tonight, and I still didn’t know what to expect there. It was both terrifying and thrilling and, just in case, I tried to tell myself that a future lifetime zombie diet of faces could be quite tasty.

  “About time,” Cash growled. “I thought you weren’t gonna show up.”

  “I had to get permission,” I said, sinking into his couch.

  “Something wrong?” he asked. He coughed, held up his cigar as if to smoke it, then changed his mind and stubbed it out angrily.

  “Did you know we’re moving?” I asked.

  “I figured when your parents were house hunting in Vegas.”

  “Right. In Vegas. Away from my friends and from space.”

  “How do you get away from space? It’s over your head all the time.”

  “But … the light pollution,” I said meekly. “Never mind. I’m sure Mars will be in opposition lots of times in my life.”

 
“Every couple of years,” he agreed.

  “Cash?”

  Grunt.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Can I stop you?”

  “How come you stay outside all night and don’t come home until morning? I saw you once. So did Priya.”

  Cash ignored my question and swiped at the curtains to peer outside. The sky was bathed in evening indigo. A lightning bug flashed. Night would be fast upon us. He pulled himself up out of his chair with a groan, then grabbed the bag and the box. “You ready?”

  I jumped up, eager to go.

  It didn’t feel real, walking behind Cash through the dewy backyard. My teeth chattered nervously, and I glanced up at CICM-HQ to make sure I didn’t see myself sitting up there, asleep, dreaming that I was walking with Cash through the backyards.

  Of course, I wasn’t there, but Comet was, and he followed us, jumping at the fence, his head popping up, tongue flapping, every few feet. When we’d passed the fence line, he danced around in the corner, barking and bellowing, as if to warn me that I was with a bad guy.

  “I’ll be back, Comet,” I called, only half reassuring him and mostly reassuring myself, as the woods got nearer and my palms started to sweat. “Is there any poison ivy in there?” I asked, but Cash didn’t answer. “Are there snakes?” Nothing. “Ticks?” Not a word. I gulped. “Open graves?”

  Cash acted like he didn’t hear what I was saying and plowed on into the trees, where a path led into the blanket of woods. I followed him, not sure if I was doing the smartest thing in the world, but I had gone too far to go back now. As the woods closed in around our path, I felt comforted having the moon as my companion on this walk. The moon and I had been buddies since pretty much the day I was born.

  Even though it was a warm summer, the nightfall had turned everything cooler and the sweat on my skin picked up breezes that coaxed goose bumps onto my arms and legs. I listened for animals, but the only sounds I could hear were the echoes of Comet’s barks in the distance.