This Place Has No Atmosphere (6 page)

M
r. “Call Me Buzz” Schwartz greets the group. “Welcome to CAMP, the training place for Coordinating American Moon Pioneers.”

Chumps Are Moon Pioneers would be more accurate, I think, sinking farther into the chair and looking around.

There are about a hundred people in the room . . . and not one of them is a cute boy my age.

In fact, there’s only one boy who seems to be
about my age, and he is what the old gang would refer to as a barfburger.

“Call Me Buzz” is busy introducing himself. “Years ago, before space travel was common, I was called an astronaut, kind of like in the really old days when people who operated airplanes were called aviators and then when there was nothing special about plane travel, they were just pilot and crew. That’s the way it is now. I was an astronaut and now I’m a trainer at CAMP.”

I wonder whether he knows Juna’s parents. She once said that there’s an organization of astronauts who get together and talk about the old days when people used to get airsick and stuff like that.

This one girl is taking notes. I think she’s Barfburger’s sister. At least she looks like they’re related.

“Break up into groups of twenty-five,” Buzz tells us. “Then introduce yourselves to each other.”

I don’t move. It’s so scary to go into new groups.

My mother comes over and pinches me on the arm.

I move.

My parents and Starr go into three different groups.

I go to the group which does not have a member of my family in attendance.

Introductions begin.

The Mendez family, Mr. and Mrs. and their four-year-old quadruplets—Henny, Penny, Lenny, and Kenny—are first.

Mrs. Mendez says, “Little did I know that fertility drugs would turn into ‘fourtility.’ ”

“Some days it feels like futility,” Mr. Mendez says, as the quads do somersaults in the middle of the circle.

If there are not enough Mendez kids to start a sports team, at least they can be a cheerleading squad.

I wonder if the school on the moon has cheerleaders, or even a drama club.

Barfburger’s name is Vern Verne. It figures.

His sister is Julie Verne.

They both seem so yucky.

Vern has so many pimples that he could be a crater map of the moon. What makes it totally disgusting is that he’s always picking at them.

If that weren’t vomitous enough, Vern has this awful laugh that sounds like a seal after he’s caught a fish and is applauding himself—sort of a very deep voiced “Are. Are. Are.”

Julie looks like a nerf ball with mousy brown hair. Not only does her hair look like that but she’s always chewing on the end of it.

I wonder whether she ever coughs up hair balls.

Their parents are Agri-Culturists. It’s natural that the Verne kids are such plants.

Emily Doowinkle, in a mood-sequined mini, is a member of Writers in Residence and will be conducting poetry classes on the moon.

The person in the group who looks the most interesting to me introduces herself. “I’m April Brown, a junior at Antioch College. My work-study year will take place on the moon. I’m so pleased and excited to be chosen.”

She is dressed in a long lavender dress, with charm necklaces draped all the way to her waist. It’s impossible to tell what all the charms are, but somehow I know that each one was specially chosen and that there’s a great story about each of them. She also has different-color gemstones going up her multipierced earlobes.

She looks really terrific and different. It’s great to see someone so original.

Buzz joins our group and tells us that April has won a nationwide essay contest and is the only person who will be staying for just one year.

Maybe I’ll be able to go back the same time that she does. Then the trip back won’t be so all alone.

Salvador Arply speaks next. He’s this really weird-looking guy who has braided eyebrows and will be creating moon sculptures on a grant from the Universe Endowment of the Arts. “During the first years, most of the people sent to the moon were scientists, construction workers, miners, and manufacturers. Next came the support people—the families, the teachers. Now it’s time for the arts. So here I am—to create, to teach.”

I wonder whether actors will be sent to the moon.

Next, Buzz looks in my direction.

I look around.

It’s me.

I’m next.

People are looking at me. Unless I’m on stage, that makes me nervous.

“Aurora Williams. My father’s a dentist. My mother’s a doctor. I have a younger sister, Starr.”

“But who are
you?
Surely you are more than just a part of your family.” Buzz sounds like one of my old psychology teachers.

I look around at the group. How can I tell these strangers who I am when I don’t really know that myself?

It’s so hard.

Where are the Turnips when I need them?

I hope April doesn’t think I’m a blobbrain or anything.

Buzz doesn’t give up. “How do you feel about going to the moon?”

“My parents want to go,” I say.

“And you?” He continues.

Why do some grown-ups think they have the right to make kids tell everything in front of everyone?

I’d really like to say something like “They’re making me go,” but then maybe CAMP would tell us that it has to be voluntary and that I have a bad attitude and the family can’t go. I can’t let that happen. Last night my parents and I talked again and I promised to really try for them. I have to stick to it. I’m almost fourteen years old and that’s really too young to leave home. Even though I want to sometimes, the thought of that is kind of frightening.

Buzz insists. “And what about you?”

“I go too. We’re a package deal.” I smile at him.

He nods and turns to the next person.

As the rest of the group introduce themselves, I think about how scary it would really be to leave my
parents and how scary it is to be leaving my friends and the life that I have always known.

Sitting in a group of over one hundred people, I suddenly feel very alone.

I look at the comment on my test paper, which Buzz has just returned.

If my last initial were S, I’m not sure I’d like to have a nickname that begins with B.

“Now we’re going to show you some historical film
footage, and then we’ll be giving you a tour of the space shuttle simulator,” Buzz informs us.

One of the construction workers raises his hand. “How come we have to go through all this? Why can’t we just go up to the moon right away? We don’t need all this historical and scientific information to live and work someplace. I spent thirty years in Altoona without knowing much about it.”

Buzz says, “The time here is important. It’s not as if you’re going to be moving to a familiar environment on this planet. You’ll have to get used to new conditions, be prepared to live under an environmental shield and have the commitment to stay on the moon for at least five years under conditions that you won’t be used to. CAMP is the chance to train for that life. It’s also the chance for you and for us to make the final decision about whether moon life will be right for you.”

I look at my parents.

They look back.

I read my father’s lips. “We’re going!”

Buzz looks at the group. “It’s only two weeks. By then most of you will be ready to go . . . . Also, a new team is in final stages of training at the Johnson
Space Center, and the crew will be ready to fly in two weeks.”

Emily Doowinkle waves her hand.

Being writer in residence, Emily rhymes every-thing.

She’s so weird.

Buzz shakes his head. “Don’t worry. They’ll be assisting our regular crew. We need more trained personnel, since the Space Travel Program is growing in leaps and bounds.”

Emily shakes her head.

“I wish about the shuttle, you wouldn’t say leaps and bounds.

Language like that and my heart just pounds.”

Buzz reassures her. “Don’t worry. Let’s just see the film about the very first man on the moon.” He pushes the button on the giant screen monitor so that we can watch the film.

Just as the movie starts, the computoprojector breaks down.

Waiting for someone to get the machine to work,
I practice writing backwards, which was what I always did when the projector at school broke down.

I look over and notice that Vern Verne has a runny nose. At least he’s not picking that.

I really miss Matthew.

The projector is fixed.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Neil Armstrong is saying.

Buzz explains how the line was later changed to add the article
a
, to make it “One small step for a man.”

I wonder what Matthew is doing right this very second. He’s the only man whose small step I’m interested in right now.

I also wonder what color(s) Juna’s hair is this week.

I continue to practice writing backwards. Starr kicks at my foot to remind me to pay attention.

I stick my tongue out at her, but I listen to Buzz,
who is telling us how the astronauts left stuff on the moon—a U.S. flag, a laser reflector, a seismometer, and a sheet of aluminum foil.

Litterbugs, I think.

It’s not enough that we mess up our own planet; we leave junk on the first place we land.

Buzz says, “Now it’s time for another simulation exercise.”

He reminds us of the first day’s lesson, how the space shuttle spins so that the passengers don’t have to experience zero gravity.

Flicking on pictures of a shuttle interior, he says, “Look at the walls. They’re covered with stick-a-bob, a material that adheres to itself. There are toe and hand locks added to the wall. Each of you will be issued life suits to be put on in case of loss of centrifugal force.”

“Oh, oh,” someone says—me, I think.

If it had been Emily, she would have said,

“Don’t worry.” Buzz smiles at us. “In the ten years that we have been shuttling colonists to the moon,
there’s been no major problem. This is just a precaution.”

As the assistants hand out the life suits, which are also made of stick-a-bob, I wonder what the minor problems were.

As we get into the suits, Buzz explains. “As soon as you are all ready, it’s into the simulation chamber.”

Emily exclaims,

“With stick-a-bob, we’ll all be ready,

It’ll hold us to the wall nice and steady.”

Salvador Arply butts in with

“If it doesn’t, it’ll make us very deady.”

No one seems to appreciate his joke except Vern, who goes “Are. Are. Are.”

Emily calls Salvadore

Buzz continues. “As soon as the centrifugal force is turned off, zero gravity will occur. When it does, throw yourself against the stick-a-bob wall so that the stick-a-bob jackets stick to it. Get into the toe and hand holds. Remain there until you get used to the sensation.”

That should take about fifty years.

My father says, “What if this really happened in space? What good would it do to be stuck to the wall?”