Florida was whining. “Why’s it called the Vomit Comet? No one was sick.” She sounded like she thought I should do something about it.
Then that voice came on the loudspeaker again and said, “That was the first parabola. Please prepare for the second.”
“There’s more!” said Monsieur Martinet, and grabbed my hand again.
So it all happened again. The plane climbed, our ears hurt, Hasan said he wanted to get off and then we all started floating again.
Someone thumped me on the back and sent me somersaulting down the plane. When my head came up, I could see Samson Two grinning at me and shouting, “Tag to you too!” He put his thumb up.
Suddenly a voice yelled, “Stop!” and there was Monsieur Martinet, still in his lap belt, but a bit floaty, like a balloon on a string. “The pilot has lost control!” he bawled. “This is an emergency! We need help! We need—” but instead of words a ball of puke slipped out of his mouth and drifted off down the plane like a tiny green planet.
“Look!” yelled Florida, pointing at it as if it was the most exciting thing in the world ever. She got herself in front of it, opened her sick bag and let the vomit planet drift inside.
“Back. Of. The. Net!” she yelled.
When we were all back on the floor again, Florida showed me the sick bag and said proudly, “Caught it.”
“I know.”
“Want to see?”
“Not really.”
She also tried to show it to Dr. Drax when she landed. I did try to discourage this. “Florida,” I said, “I’m sure Dr. Drax doesn’t want to see that.”
“Oh, but I do, I do.” Dr. Drax smiled. “I was watching on the monitors and I have to say, Florida, the coordination and agility you showed when you caught Monsieur Martinet’s little accident was very impressive. I think you have the makings of an excellent taikonaut.”
Florida glowed a kind of radioactive pink and looked round to make sure that everyone was listening. No one was. Everyone was staring at the plane. A little girl with her hair tied back with a ribbon and her hands held stiffly at her sides was trotting down the steps of the plane and onto the tarmac. We were all thinking the same things—how did she get on there? Where was she when we were all floating around? She looked about Florida’s age, but the way she stood next to Dr. Drax reminded me of Mrs. Sass standing on the stage at assembly—still and straight, waiting for us all to be quiet.
“Ah,” said Dr. Drax, “I’d like you all to meet my daughter, Shenjian. She was piloting your plane today.”
Eddie Xanadu said, “Surely you’re teasing again.”
“Not at all. This,” said Dr. Drax, “is what Infinity Park is all about. Giving children the chance to show what they can do. Although Shenjian is only thirteen—”
“Thirteen?!” shrieked Monsieur Martinet.
“—she is an excellent pilot.”
Everyone gasped.
Shenjian said, “Infinity Park believes in young people. This is why I started training as a jet pilot when I was nine years old. Astronauts of the future must be young so that mankind will be able to make longer journeys. I am the future.”
You could see that Dr. Drax was enjoying how amazed we all were. She said, “Any questions?”
Florida said, “That’s a lovely coverall. I like the detail on the pockets. Will we be getting ones like that?”
“Possibly.”
“They look very astronauty. I’d love one.”
“Any questions that are not about clothing?” snapped Dr. Drax.
“This is very inspiring,” said Samson One. “Samson Two can do things that many adults cannot do. And when he was only thirteen Alexander the Great was already a great leader. Although of course, even Alexander the Great was not flying jets. Because they hadn’t been invented.”
After that the grown-ups had to go and see a doctor for finger pricks and blood pressure.
“Mr. Digby,” the doctor said when it was my turn, “you have the metabolism of a twelve-year-old. You’ll have to tell us your secret.” And she winked at me!
Monsieur Martinet was next in line. He said, “I believe he has the brain of a twelve-year-old too. When the pilot lost control of the plane, this man tried to start a game of tag!”
“The pilot lost control of the plane?” said the doctor. “I heard that it all went very smoothly.”
“They have to say that,” said Monsieur Martinet, “for insurance purposes.”
Florida was waiting for me when I came out of the doctor’s room, which is unusual because she usually just gravitates toward the nearest television. She was still radioactive pink and worryingly smiley. She said, “How did that happen?”
“What?”
“How did we just start floating around like that?”
She was being so nice. My game skills told me to suspect a trap but I couldn’t help enjoying her treating me with respect like this. I started to explain about the Earth having gravity which keeps you on the ground and how if you go far away from Earth you have less gravity so you float.
“Yeah, but what is the gravity? I mean, how does it work?”
“Well, all objects exert gravity. And big objects—like planets—they have enough gravity to pull things toward them. Like the Earth attracts the moon and the moon attracts the sea.”
“What are you talking about, the moon attracts the sea?”
I tried to explain tides and stuff to her, but the more I tried to explain how it worked, the more I realized I didn’t really know.
“Liam,” she said, “you don’t really know, do you?”
“No.”
“We’ll go on Wikipedia tonight and find out.”
“You do know that Celebrity Dental Check is on TV tonight?”
“We can skip that. It’s the one with Tom Cruise, where they find out that his teeth are completely false. Like you couldn’t already tell.”
I was sure I was going to get all the votes. After all, I was the only grown-up who actually liked being weightless. I got one vote. In fact, everyone got one vote again. I said to Florida, “What is the point of the voting? Who is ever going to vote against their own dad? Except when someone pays them not to, in ice cream.”
“I voted against you,” said Florida.
“What?! Again? Why? You said you were going to help me.”
“I voted for Monsieur Martinet.”
“You…what? Why? He was scared! He passed out on the runway! He threw up.”
“I know. Wasn’t that great?”
* * *
SCORES
EDDIE XANADU 6
M. MARTINET 2
SAMSON ONE 2
ME 2
* * *
Astrogossip
That evening Florida really did spend lots of time on Wikipedia trying to find out more about gravity and space travel.
She looked on all the right pages, but she has a brain that turns everything into daytime TV. So she accidentally invented a whole new field of knowledge—astrogossip. She’d say stuff like, “Valentina Tereshkova—she was the first woman in space—on Vostok 6—and guess what? She married another spaceman….”
“Astronaut.”
“Cosmonaut. And they had a space baby! How cute is that?! A cosmonautette.”
I sort of preferred it when she was talking about Britney’s ghost dog.
Gravity Is Not a Trivial Monster
In the middle of Infinity Park is this dome, the Infinity Dome. The outside is all mirrors, so that when you walk toward it, you see yourself walking toward you. The entrance is just a narrow door, with the mirrors bending inward. As you get closer, you just melt into your own reflection, like entering a portal to another dimension or something. Inside it’s completely cosmic. The dome is where all the best rides are. These are not rides like you’ve seen before. Their names are all to do with the history of space exploration: the Giant Leap, Lake of Fear, Sea of Storms. The biggest one—the Vortex—looks like a kitchen blender from the La
nd of Giants. When we arrived that morning, it was whirling round so fast on its spindle it looked like it might come loose and take off. There was an old man named Mr. Bean in charge of it. I mean, he looked old but he also looked young—his eyes were bright and shiny and he walked like he was weightless. He gave us this big hello when we arrived, pressed some buttons and the Vortex slowed right down.
“You’ll never guess what’s in here.” Dr. Drax smiled.
No one had any idea of what could possibly be inside a twenty-foot blender. Dr. Drax nodded at Mr. Bean. He winked at us, then pressed some more buttons. The door opened, a ramp appeared and down the ramp came…Shenjian.
Everyone gasped. “You were in there?!” said Florida. “How could you be in there? If they spun me round like that, I’d turn to soup.”
Shenjian bowed and then stood up straight to show she wasn’t soup.
“The Vortex,” said Dr. Drax, “is really just a big washing machine. When you’re ready, we’re going to pop you inside and spin you round until you feel like old knickers. How does that sound?”
“Uncomfortable,” said Florida.
“It certainly will be. At first. But soon you will be able to cope with it, just like Shenjian. Look, she’s not even dizzy.”
Shenjian bowed again, to show that she was not only not soup, she was not even dizzy.
“Yesterday we had great fun finding out what it was like to experience less gravity than usual. Today you’re going to get a taste of what it’s like to experience a lot more gravity than usual. That’s what happens when we spin you in our centrifuge. Excited?”
Somehow being whirled in a massive washing machine didn’t seem as appealing as floating around inside a big airplane.
Florida was still trying to get her mind round the whole gravity thing. “If less gravity makes you float in the air,” she said, “won’t extra gravity make us sink into the ground?”
Samson Two giggled. Max tittered. Samson One rolled his eyes. Monsieur Martinet snorted.
A few days ago I might’ve laughed too, but now I felt different. I said, “No, Florida, you won’t sink through the floor but you’ll feel heavy.”
“You are going to experience 10 g,” said Dr. Drax. “That’s ten times your normal gravity.”
That’s more than twice as much gravity as you get on the Cosmic. I tried to imagine a version of the Cosmic that was twice as big as the one in Enchantment Land. The man who runs the Cosmic had said that lots of people passed out at 5 g. We were going to hit twice that. This really was going to be a scary ride.
Mr. Bean opened the steel doors wide. Inside was a big metal arm with a little seat on each end. If Orgrim Doomhammer, Orc Lord of Durotar, had made a seesaw, that’s what it would look like.
“So,” said Dr. Drax, “you’ll weigh ten times more than you usually do.”
Florida put her hand up and said, “Are you saying we’re going to put on weight!?”
They all giggled again.
Florida didn’t react. She knew they were going to laugh at her and she still asked the question. Because she wanted to know.
I said, “You will put on weight, but you’ll lose it again the moment you return to normal gravity.” And then I said, “Okay, Princess?”
She beamed at me. “Okay, Daddy.”
Dr. Drax went on. “I know 10 g sounds like absolutely heaps of gravity, but the body can take more than that. David Purley, the racing driver, once experienced 180 g and lived to tell the tale. If he can do it, so can you.”
Samson One said, “That seems like a lot of gravity in a car. How did he do that?”
“He drove straight into a brick wall with his throttle wide open. He was doing 107 miles an hour. Now then. Who’s first?”
“Are you sure he survived?”
“Yes, he did. Or did he? I’m not sure. Anyway, rockets are much safer than cars.”
Samson Two said, “Are you sure rockets are safer than cars?”
“Course they are,” said Florida. “They don’t have brick walls in space, do they?”
Monsieur Martinet wanted Max to go in first because “that’s what winning is all about.” But Max wouldn’t budge. And when his dad tried to shove him in, he just kept shouting, “No! I don’t want to!”
Monsieur Martinet was hissing at him, “You’re embarrassing me.”
Eddie Xanadu tried to bribe Hasan to get in. Hasan wasn’t moving either. His dad was snarling, “You’re making me look like a fool.”
Samson One tried to explain to Samson Two that gravity was just a natural force and nothing to be afraid of. That wasn’t working either. Even though his dad was growling, “Think of your reputation.”
I said to Florida, “We should go on first. Show them what a good team we are.”
“I’m not going in there.”
“Did you ever go on the Cosmic?”
“No. I was too short, remember?”
“Pepsi Max?”
“Queue was too long.”
“Traumatizer?”
“Too scary.”
“Well, I’ve been on big rides—and this thing here, it’s just a big ride. Do you want to know what the worst bit of a big ride is?”
“What?”
“The queue. The waiting. The anticipation. Watching everyone else screaming and turning green. That’s way, way, way the worst thing. It’s tons better to go first. And if we go first—all these others, all the people who were laughing at you before, they’ll have to stand here, watching us and getting more and more scared.”
She liked the sound of that.
We strolled past Monsieur Martinet while he was poking Max in the chest, and Eddie Xanadu, who was waving a wad of money at Hasan, and Samson One, who was drawing a diagram to prove to Samson Two that gravity wasn’t scary. We walked past all of them right up to the machine.
“Florida Digby”—Dr. Drax smiled—“you certainly seem to have the Right Stuff to be a taikonaut.”
Mr. Bean came into the Vortex with us and showed us how to strap ourselves into the seats—one at each end of the evil seesaw. My seat was—obviously—too small. I had to tuck my legs up really tight to get into the harness. Now that we were in there, I could see that Florida was starting to get nervous. I said, “Mr. Bean, has anyone ever died on this?”
“On this old thing? No, sir. Not a one.” He taped some wire things to the ends of our fingers.
“Please don’t say ‘But there’s always a first time.’”
“Well now, I’m going to make sure that you’re not the first. I’m going to monitor all your heartbeats and whatnot. You start to malfunction, I’ll stop the whole thing.”
For a while nothing happened. It was just really, really quiet. Florida said, “I’m really, really scared now.”
“But just think: if we’re really, really scared, they must be really, really, really scared. And in a few minutes we won’t be scared at all. You’ll be all right, Princess.”
“Actually, you can stop calling me Princess now. It sounds weird when you say it. Thanks all the same.”
There was a deafening THUNK. We both screamed. Our chairs jumped sideways, then stopped dead.
Phew! I thought. It’s broken.
Then it started.
If you’ve ever been on the Cosmic, you’ll know what 4 g is like—you feel a bit sick and scared, but if you spread your arms out and pretend you’re flying, you feel better. As you blast into the air you can think, This is bad but this is as bad as it gets. It gets easier any second….
But the Vortex was different. On the Vortex, 4 g was only the beginning.
A voice came over the loudspeaker, telling us we were now at 5 g. You can’t spread your arms out at 5 g. You can’t move them at all. It feels like the air has turned to concrete and you’re stuck in it. It’s hard to breathe, but you think, We must be near the end now. We must slow down now. But we didn’t slow down. We went faster.
The voice said we were at 6 g. Now my eyeballs felt like little
shriveled raisins. I couldn’t see anything except a muddy blur. But still we didn’t stop. We went faster.
At 8 g you feel flat, two-dimensional, like Itchy and Scratchy run over by a steamroller. I thought I was dead. I was even starting to enjoy being dead when I heard the voice again, saying we were now at 10 g. The sentence didn’t come and go like an ordinary sentence. It seemed to stay in my ears, steady, like the noise of a humming top. Then my chest exploded. But the air was so thick that all the bits of me couldn’t fly away. They just stayed there. In the same shape but not connected anymore.
Then we slowed down.
And that was just like Itchy and Scratchy too. When the steamroller’s gone and someone comes along with a foot pump and pumps them back up to their normal shape. Amazing. For a minute I didn’t say anything because I thought if I opened my mouth I might deflate again. I looked over at Florida and she said something like, “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!! Whoooooo!”
And I said, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” which is not something I usually say.
The door opened. I was so proud of us that I tried to stroll out and swagger past the others. Unfortunately I seemed to have lost my swagger-control skills and ended up swaggering sideways.