Stars Above: A Lunar Chronicles Collection (The Lunar Chronicles) (12 page)

A tiny spaceship. A 214 Rampion, to be exact.

His mother, as expected, had hated the tie tack when she’d noticed it for the first time nearly two weeks later. “Sweetheart,” she’d said in that sweet tone that just bordered on condescending, “they have a whole display of spaceship accessories at Tiff’s. Why don’t we go down there after school and you can pick out something nice? Maybe a racer, or a fleet ship, or one of those vintage ones you used to like? Remember all those posters you had on your walls when you were little?”

“I like the Rampions, Mom.”

She’d grimaced. Literally grimaced. “What under the stars is a Rampion ship, anyway?”

“Cargo ship,” his father had jumped in. “Mostly military, aren’t they, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A cargo ship!” Exasperated, his mom had set her hands on her hips. “Why would you want a tie tack of a cargo ship, of all things?”

“I don’t know,” he’d said, shrugging. “I just like them.”

And he did. A Rampion had the bulk of a whale but the sleekness of a shark, and it appealed to him. Also, there was something nice about a ship that was purely utilitarian. Not flashy, not overdone, not luxurious. Not like every single thing his parents had ever purchased.

It was just … useful.

“Presentable?” he said, scruffing Boots on the back of her neck. The cat ducked her head in a way that was almost realistic and purred louder.

Grabbing the gray uniform blazer off the door handle, he headed downstairs. His parents were both at the breakfast table (as opposed to the formal dining room table in the next room), all eyes glued to their portscreens, while Janette, one of the maids, refilled their coffee mugs and added two sugars to his mom’s.

“Good morning, young captain,” Janette said, pulling his chair out from the table.

“Don’t call him that,” said Carswell’s father without looking up. “You can call him ‘captain’ after he earns it.”

Janette only winked at Carswell while she took the blazer from him and hung it on the back of his chair.

Carswell smiled back and sat down. “Morning, Janette.”

“I’ll bring your pancakes right out.” She finished with a silently mouthed
captain
and another wink before drifting toward the kitchen.

Without bothering to look up at his otherwise-engaged parents, Carswell pulled his book bag toward him on the floor and removed his own portscreen. Just as he was turning it on, though, his father cleared his throat.

Loudly.

Intimidatingly.

Carswell glanced up through his eyelashes. He probably should have noticed an extra layer of frost sitting over them this morning, but really, who could tell anymore?

“Would you like a glass of water, sir?”

As a response, his dad tossed his portscreen onto the table. His coffee cup rattled.

“The school forwarded your status reports this morning,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect before adding, “They are not up to standards.”

Not up to standards.

If Carswell had a univ for every time he’d heard something wasn’t up to standards, his bank account would be well into “beginning investor” status by now.

“That’s unfortunate,” he said. “I’m sure I almost tried this time.”

“Don’t be smart with your father,” said his mom in a rather disinterested tone, before taking a sip of her coffee.

“Math, Carswell. You’re failing
math.
How do you expect to be a pilot if you can’t read charts and diagrams and—”

“I don’t want to be a pilot,” he said. “I want to be a captain.”

“Becoming a captain,” his dad growled, “starts with becoming a great pilot.”

Carswell barely refrained from rolling his eyes. He’d heard that line a time or two, also.

A warm body bumped into his leg and Carswell glanced down to see that Boots had followed him and was now nudging his calf with the side of her face. He was just reaching down to pet her when his dad snapped, “Boots, go outside!”

The cat instantly stopped purring and cuddling against Carswell’s leg, turned, and traipsed toward the kitchen—the fastest route to their backyard.

Carswell scowled as he watched the cat go, its tail sticking cheerfully straight up. He liked Boots a lot—sometimes even felt he might love her, as one does any pet they grew up with—but then he would be reminded that she wasn’t a pet at all. She was a robot, programmed to follow directions just like any android. He’d been asking for a real cat since he was about four, but his parents just laughed at the idea, listing all the reasons Boots was superior. She would never get old or die. She didn’t shed on their nice furniture or climb their fancy curtains or require a litter box. She would only bring them half-devoured mice if they changed her settings to do so.

His parents, Carswell had learned at a very young age, liked things that did what they were told, when they were told. And that didn’t include headstrong felines.

Or, as it turned out, thirteen-year-old boys.

“You need to start taking this seriously,” his dad was saying, ripping him from his thoughts as the cat-door swung closed behind Boots. “You’ll never be accepted into Andromeda at this rate.”

Janette returned with his plate of pancakes, and Carswell was grateful for an excuse to look away from his dad as he slathered them with butter and syrup. It was better than risking the temptation to say what he really wanted to say.

He didn’t want to go to Andromeda Academy. He didn’t want to follow in his dad’s footsteps.

Sure, he wanted to learn how to fly.
Desperately
wanted to learn how to fly. But there were other flight schools—less prestigious ones maybe, but at least they didn’t require selling six years of his life to the military so he could be ordered around by more men who looked and sounded like his dad, and cared about him even less.

“What’s wrong with you?” his dad said, swiveling a finger at Janette. She began to clear his place setting. “You used to be good at math.”

“I am good at math,” Carswell said, then shoved more pancake into his mouth than he probably should have.

“Are you? Could have fooled me.”

He chewed. And chewed. And chewed.

“Maybe we should get him a tutor,” said his mother, flicking her finger across her portscreen.

“Is that it, Carswell? Do you need a tutor?”

Carswell swallowed. “I don’t need a tutor. I know how to do it all; I just don’t feel like doing it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I have better things to do. I understand all the concepts, so why should I waste whole days of my life working through those stupid worksheets? Not to mention”—he gestured wildly, at everything, at nothing. At the light fixture that changed automatically based on the amount of sunlight that filtered in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. At the sensors in the wall that detected when a person entered a room and set the thermostat to their own personal preferences. At that brainless robotic cat—“we are surrounded by computers
all
the time. If I ever need help, I’ll just have one of them figure it out. So what does it matter?”

“It matters because it shows
focus. Dedication. Diligence.
Important traits that, believe it or not, are usually found in
spaceship captains.
”

Scowling, Carswell sawed at the pancake stack with the side of his fork. If his mother had noticed, she would have reminded him to use a knife, but she was far too busy pretending to be at a different table altogether.

“I have those traits,” he muttered. And he did, he knew he did. But why waste focus and dedication and diligence on something as stupid as math homework?

“Then prove it. You’re grounded until these grades come up to passing.”

His head snapped up. “Grounded? But mid-July break starts next week.”

Standing, his dad snapped his portscreen onto the belt of his own uniform—the impeccably pressed blue-and-gray uniform of Colonel Kingsley Thorne, American Republic Fleet 186.

“Yes, and you will spend your break in your bedroom doing
math homework
unless you can show me, and your teacher, that you’re going to start taking this seriously.”

Carswell’s stomach sank, but his dad had marched out of the breakfast room before he could begin to refute him.

He couldn’t be grounded for mid-July break. He had big plans for those two weeks. Mostly, they involved an entrepreneurial enterprise that began with sending Boots up into the fruit trees on his neighbors’ property and ended with him selling baskets of perfectly ripe lemons and avocados to every little old lady in the neighborhood. He’d been charming his neighbors out of their bank accounts since he was seven, and had become quite good at it. Last summer, he’d even managed to get the Santos family to pay him sixty-five univs for a box of “succulent, prize-winning” oranges, having no idea that he’d picked the fruits off their own tree earlier that day.

“He’s not serious, is he?” Carswell said, turning back to his mom. “He won’t keep me grounded for the whole break?”

His mom, for maybe the first time that morning, tore her eyes away from her portscreen. She blinked at him and he suspected that she had no idea what his father’s doled-out punishment was for his low grades. Maybe she didn’t even realize what the argument had been about.

After a moment, just long enough to let the question dissolve in the air between them, she said, “Are you all ready for school, sweetheart?”

Huffing, Carswell nodded and shoved two more quick bites into his mouth. Snatching up his book bag, he pushed away from the table and tossed his blazer over one shoulder.

His dad wanted to see an improvement of grades? Fine. He would find a way to make it happen. He would come up with some solution that gave him the freedom he required during his break but didn’t include laboring away over boring math formulas every evening. He had more important things to do with his time. Things that involved business transactions and payment collections. Things that would one day lead to him buying his own spaceship. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. Just something simple and practical, something that would belong to him and to him alone.

Then his dad would know just how focused and dedicated he was, right as he was getting the aces out of here.

*   *   *

Jules Keller had hit his growth spurt early, making him a full head taller than anyone else in the class, and he was even sporting the start of peach-fuzz whiskers on his chin. Unfortunately, he still had a brain capacity equivalent to that of a pelican.

That was Carswell’s first thought when Jules slammed his locker shut and Carswell barely managed to get his fingers out of the way in time.

“Morning, Mr. Keller,” he said, calling up a friendly smile. “You look particularly vibrant this morning.”

Jules stared down the length of his nose at him. The nose on which a sizable red pimple seemed to have emerged overnight. That was one other thing about Jules. In addition to the height and the brawn and the fuzz, his growth spurt had given him a rather tragic case of acne.

“I want my money back,” said Jules, one hand still planted on Carswell’s locker.

Carswell tilted his head. “Money?”

“Stuff doesn’t work.” Reaching into his pocket, Jules pulled out a small round canister labeled with exotic ingredients that promised clean, spot-free skin in just two weeks. “And I’m sick of looking at your smug face all day, like you think I don’t know better.”

“Of course it works,” said Carswell, taking the canister from him and holding it up to inspect the label. “It’s the exact same stuff I use, and look at me.”

Which was not entirely true. The canister itself had been emptied of its original ridiculously expensive face cream when he’d dug it out of the trash bin beside his mother’s vanity. And though he’d sometimes sneaked uses of the high-quality stuff before, the canister was now full of a simple concoction of bargain moisturizer and a few drops of food coloring and almond extract that he’d found in the pantry.

He didn’t think it would be
bad
for anyone’s skin. And besides, studies had been showing the benefit of placebos for years. Who said they couldn’t cure teenage acne just as effectively as they could cure an annoying headache?

But Jules, evidently unimpressed with the evidence Carswell had just presented, grabbed him by his shirt collar and pushed him against the bank of lockers. Carswell suspected it wasn’t to get a better look at his own flawless complexion.

“I want my money back,” Jules seethed through his teeth.

“Good morning, Carswell,” said a chipper voice.

Sliding his gaze past Jules’s shoulder, Carswell smiled and nodded at the freckled brunette who was shyly fluttering her lashes at him. “Morning, Shan. How’d your recital go last night?”

She giggled, already flustered, and ducked her head. “It was great. I’m sorry you couldn’t make it,” she said, before turning and darting through the crowd toward a group of friends who were waiting near the water fountain. Together they broke into a fit of teasing chatter as they proceeded down the hallway.

Jules pushed Carswell into the lockers again, pulling his attention back. “I
said
—”

“You want your money back, yeah, yeah, I heard you.” Carswell held up the canister. “And that’s fine. No problem. I’ll transfer it over during lunch.”

Harrumphing, Jules released him.

“Of course, you’ll lose all the progress you’ve made so far.”

“What progress?” Jules said, bristling again. “Stuff doesn’t work!”

“Sure it works. But it takes two weeks. Says so right here.” He pointed at the label, and Jules snarled.

“It’s been
three.
”

Rolling his eyes, Carswell tossed the canister from hand to hand. “It’s a
process.
There are
steps.
The first step is”—he respectfully lowered his voice, in case Jules didn’t want the sensitive nature of their conversation to be overheard—“you know, clearing away the first layer of dead skin cells. Exfoliation, as it were. But a really deep, intense,
all-natural
exfoliation. That takes two weeks. In step two, it unlocks all the grease and dirt that’s been stuck in the bottom of your pores—that’s the step you’re in the middle of right now. In another week, it’ll move on to step three. Hydrating your skin so that it has a constant, healthy glow.” He quirked his lips to one side and shrugged. “You know, like me. I’m telling you, it does work. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s skin-care products.” Unscrewing the cap, he took a long sniff of the cream. “Not to mention … no, never mind. You don’t want it. It’s not worth mentioning at all. I’ll just take this back and—”