Seventh Grade vs. the Galaxy Read online

  “And they’re . . .”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So we’re . . .”

  “Exactly.”

  “What do we do now?” Creaky asks.

  That’s the question, isn’t it? So I explain my plan, from the sea monster store and the kid losing his dragon, to the arcade and the time machine, to the two fuel stores on the level that got hit with what looks like a giant water balloon. When I’m done, Ari looks skeptical.

  “So?” I ask him. “What do you think?”

  He bites his lip. “It makes sense, I think. But how do you know we can pull it off?”

  “Because we already did,” I explain.

  He shakes his head. “No, listen, even if you’re right about everything—and I’m not saying you are—it doesn’t mean we already did it. It means we already tried. Not the same. Because we don’t actually know how the story ends.”

  I take a deep breath. “Well, we won’t find out unless we try,” I tell him. “You in?”

  “I’m in,” says Becka firmly. Ari still doesn’t look convinced, but he nods anyway. I mean, come on: he was never going to say no to a time travel heist. I turn back to Cranky, Creaky, and Stingy.

  “So what do you say? Any volunteers?”

  22

  “Tokens,” the robot says outside the Time Cannon. “Tokens.”

  Ari hands over the counterfeit coins, which are accepted without a second glance. Ari steps into the boxy machine, straps in, and is quickly replaced by an Elvidian from the near future. Becka goes next—but she hands the tokens to the robot so hard that its arm falls off. Nobody else notices and Becka heads back in time too.

  I hand over my fake tokens.

  “Evaluating,” Creaky says loudly, popping them into an internal compartment. “Evaluating.” Creaky drops its voice down to a whisper.

  “Maybe I’ll actually keep this job,” Creaky tells me, the only one of the three to volunteer. But that’s all we needed. Like the other robot said earlier: They had open shifts for a token-taker. And the Arcade people gave Creaky the job as soon as the application was transmitted.

  “The pay is bad,” Creaky continues. “But it beats cooking broccoli, I’ll tell you that. And I’m not going to have to listen to Cranky and Stingy whine anymore.” I smile at its use of our nicknames for them. “It was a toxic work environment, you know? I think this is going to be much better for me.”

  I’m glad Creaky’s feeling so upbeat about sticking its neck out for us. I mean, who knows what the Elvidians do to lawbreaking robots? Send them to AI jail? Take them apart for scrap metal? Turn them permanently offline? Considering the risks, Creaky is being an amazingly good sport.

  “Thanks for doing this.”

  “No problem,” Creaky says. “Good luck.”

  And the former lunch robot sends me exactly six hours into the past, where I join Becka and Ari.

  Time travel is actually kind of meh. No twisty clock hallucinations or the feeling of getting sucked down a wormhole or anything fun like that. Just some hissing from a motor, a lot of smoky exhaust steam from a pipe behind my head, and a loud clicking noise. It seems to last a few minutes. I’m totally conscious the whole time—even a little bored. And eventually the door pops back open to basically the same scene that I left behind, minus Creaky as our mole.

  “We’ve got to work fast,” I tell the others.

  I insisted on the six-hour option, even though Ari wanted to go back two days. I know the exact timeline we need to follow—where we need to be and when. Six hours is the perfect span. I can’t predict what happened in the mall before that. And I don’t want to take any risks. (Well, aside from the risks of going back in time to steal a diamond from an impenetrable safe. But you get what I mean.)

  First stop: outside the sea monster store, where we wait behind a column for the dad and his son to walk out with the baby dragon. When they leave the store, a pretending-to-be-distracted Becka barrels into the kid and knocks the fish bowl from his hands. It shatters to pieces on the ground, splashing water all over them. And she stealthily pockets the tiny animal inside a water-filled plastic bag we brought from the 118.

  “Hey, watch out!” the dad shouts, scanning the floor for his lost Strykor.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Becka mutters, before hurrying away and looping back around toward us. So far, so good.

  Second stop: the atrium of the level with the fuel stores, which looks exactly the way I expected—clean, dry, and unharmed. Becka casually drops the Strykor into the full, not-at-all cracked fountain before sneaking off with Ari. They hide behind a pillar near the entrance to Fuel! Fuel! Fuel! while I reach down and toss the little monster some pieces of bread I brought with me from the ship. One minute goes by. Five. Ten. I’m giving him piece after piece, like I’m feeding ducks at a pond. But even after he’s nibbled down the entire loaf, nothing happens. Fifteen minutes. Twenty.

  When I’m all out, I look over at Ari, who’s peeking at me from behind the pillar. I pull my pockets inside out to show him that I’m running on empty. He just shrugs and I can’t figure out what I must’ve missed—until I remember that the bread isn’t the only food I’ve got.

  I pull a green and yellow stalk from my back pocket—the free sample we got in the Arcade—and drop the whole half-lettuce/half-corn thing into the fountain. It starts to bubble purple and blue, like the water’s suddenly turned to grape soda, as it spills over the sides. I back away from the fountain as quick as I can, but my foot slides out from under me and I fall backwards. I want to move, but I’m frozen, watching the dragon grow to double, triple, fifty times my size.

  The fountain cracks in half as the monster spreads its giant flippers and starts flapping over and over, faster and faster. Here’s an unexpected freebie: It can fly. Badly.

  The monster zips happily around the room, knocking into walls and carving holes into the ceiling. Alien shoppers scatter and scream, crowding near the elevator-cylinders or running to the staircase.

  The purple lady in charge of Fuel! Fuel! Fuel! takes the bait and wanders into the atrium to see what’s going on. I’m still on the ground and try to get up to hide. But it’s chaos in here and the floor’s all slippery and (I guess I knew this would happen, right?) she spots me out of the corner of her eye, crawling away from the fountain.

  “Hey you!” she shouts at me, pointing at the creature doing summersaults in the air. “Is that yours? Did you do this?” The dragon nicks the sign above her store. It comes loose at one end and swings downward, sparking as it falls. She looks out at Fuel Emporium, which is essentially unharmed. “Did they send you?! Did they?!”

  I duck behind a freestanding booth just as a bunch of cleanup robots come running up the steps, along with a few Elvidian soldiers and a rhinogoat wearing a shirt that says “Wrangler” on the back. Together, they catch the Strykor in a giant net and zap it with something that makes it shrink back down to size.

  UNKNOWN NAME was only outside of Fuel! Fuel! Fuel! for ten minutes. But it was enough.

  “Done,” Ari says, huffing and puffing. We’ve regrouped behind an archway near Fuel Emporium, hopefully out of sight.

  He turns on his ring and taps into the tiny camera that he and Becka rigged up while the monster was on the loose. They planted it inside the room with the safe, facing straight at the keypad. Ari projects a holographic image of the keypad against the wall next to us.

  “Perfect,” I say.

  And that’s the thing: It doesn’t matter that the safe is impenetrable. Because all we need is the code to the safe. And it doesn’t matter that the shop lady is the only one who knows the code. Because all we need now is for her to type it in. And it doesn’t matter that she might change the code twice a day. Because we know exactly when she’s going to type it in next and she won’t have the chance to change it before we’re done.

  “Ha!” Becka points. “There we are!”

  Sure enough, the three of us—from our past—arrive in the elevators, up from that
first trip to the Arcade.

  “You again?” UNKNOWN NAME shouts at the pre-time-travel version of me.

  “Me?” the other me asks.

  “Do I really sound like that?” the me me asks Becka and Ari.

  It’s all getting a little complicated.

  We watch as they/we walk into Fuel! Fuel! Fuel! Using the camera we planted, we record the code to the safe when she goes into the back room to get the fuel we had asked for that first time.

  “Gotcha,” Becka says as Ari replays the code sequence on the wall.

  The versions of us from the past—having struck out in Fuel! Fuel! Fuel!—cross the atrium toward Fuel Emporium.

  “I’m not gonna lie. I can’t believe this is happening,” Ari says.

  “Well, it’s really all thanks to you,” I say. “You were right. As usual. Time travel was the way to go.”

  Ari shrugs, half-embarrassed by the compliment. And I realize he’s used to me taking his brilliance for granted. I’ve really got to change that.

  “But what now?” Becka asks. “We don’t know the future anymore, right?”

  “Well,” I explain. “We know one more thing.”

  I lead them back toward Fuel! Fuel! Fuel! where, again, Ari and Becka sneak off to the side to wait for my diversion.

  Right on cue, the purple lady spots me.

  “Ugh,” she says. “Go away! Bother those cheats over at Fuel Emporium instead.”

  “But I have some money now,” I lie.

  Her body language goes from “get lost!” to “get over here!”

  “Well why didn’t you say so?” She smiles, waving me inside. “Still in the market for some Alcubierre QHC?”

  “Actually, I’m going to need a lot more than that.”

  “Ooh!” she squeals. “Right this way.”

  I’m able to distract her long enough for Ari and Becka to sneak into the safe room. And when the lady and I round the corner at the back of the aisle—and she peeks at the camera facing the safe—there’s nothing. All she sees is the empty room. Or a recording of the empty room at least. Because Ari and Becka did one more thing when they were in here: looped the security feed using a five-second clip of the empty room. Don’t ask me how. That’s Becka’s department. Either way, the safe may be impenetrable, but her camera feed was not.

  “And what’s this?” I ask, pointing to what looks like a glowing milky cube—maybe an inch or two thick—pulsing with the dazzling light of what can only be described as a shrunken star imprisoned in glass.

  “Oh.” She shrugs, picking up the starbox with her thumb and forefinger, sniffing it, and popping it in her mouth. “Sorry, just my lunch. The day got away from me.”

  I’m doing my best to keep her occupied but she’s getting impatient. Becka and Ari were supposed to get in, type in the code, grab the diamond, and get out. Which means something’s wrong.

  “Need more time,” Becka texts me. “Keep her away from the door.”

  I get UNKNOWN NAME to turn around as Ari quietly sneaks out of the back room and sprints down the aisle, back into the mall. I panic—but as quickly as Ari leaves (seriously, it couldn’t have been more than two seconds), he comes back. With a neat haircut and totally different clothes. This was not part of the plan. But whatever he did must’ve worked, because he tiptoes back into the safe room and slinks out with Becka a minute later.

  “Oops!” I say, as Becka and Ari get clear. “Gotta go!”

  “But what about your purchase?”

  “Next time, thanks!”

  I join Ari and Becka by the fountain.

  “So?”

  Becka opens her hand to reveal the diamond.

  “What happened to you?” I ask Ari.

  “There was another keypad behind that keypad,” he explains, rolling his eyes.

  “So we needed to plant a second camera in the past,” Becka tells me. “The first one wasn’t enough.”

  “No big deal—” Ari burps. Hard. “’Scuse me. I used the Time Cannon again and took care of it.”

  I look Ari up and down. “How far back did you go?”

  He gives me a mischievous grin.

  I shake my head. “What’d you do by yourself for two days?”

  “Stuff?” is all Ari answers. He blinks innocently, and I know I’m gonna have to get that story out of him later. For now, we walk back to Fuel Emporium and find Rick.

  “Back so soon?” he asks.

  Becka holds the jewel out to him.

  “Ha!” he shouts, snatching it out of her hand. “My trophy!”

  “Trophy?” Ari asks.

  “Yes! My missing Fuel Cell Distributor of the Year trophy! I knew she took it. I just knew it.”

  He proudly places it back into the window display.

  “I thought it was something valuable,” I say.

  “Oh, very valuable. To me. Sentimentally speaking, of course.”

  “Whatever,” Becka says. “We did the job. Now we need 1,500 light years’ worth of Alcubierre QHC.”

  He nods and smiles wide, particularly after we hear UNKNOWN NAME screech something awful from the other side of the level. She must have opened her safe.

  “A deal’s a deal.”

  23

  We practically skip out of the mall and back onto the 118.

  “Mission accomplished,” Becka says, as we enter the main corridor of our ship. “We’ll be home in no time.”

  For once, Ari doesn’t get all superstitious on us. He just lets out a triumphant hoot.

  We walk back into the cafeteria. It’s been cleaned up and the whole place smells like pine and lemony soap.

  “The robots?” Ari asks.

  “Maybe,” I say, as I notice a little handwritten note taped to one of the folding tables: Cleaned up a little—but don’t expect us to make a habit of it. And don’t wait for us. We’ve decided to stay awhile. Sincerely, “Cranky” & “Stingy.”

  “You think they’re okay?” Ari asks. Guess Creaky isn’t going to get that alone time after all.

  “They’re fine,” Becka answers, rolling her eyes. “They hate working here anyway—”

  She’s cut off by a snapping sound and a quick flash of white light.

  “Why are you still here?” an alien asks, his voice raspy and tired. He must have teleported onto our ship. He’s dressed in a long dark cloak, hood pulled back revealing his face. He’s Elvidian, I think. His red eyes eerily reflect the white walls of the cafeteria. But his skin is deeply lined. As if he’s lived too long. Or seen too much. “Unless you want them to capture you—and they will capture you, if you stay put much longer.”

  I stare at the weapon in the visitor’s hands, a glance he notices.

  “This is not for you, Jack,” he says, putting the gun down onto the floor. His voice is familiar—I realize it’s the same voice I heard in my head before Orientation. The one that told me it wasn’t real.

  “How do you know my name?” I ask.

  “We don’t have much time,” is all he says. “I will be called back soon. I’ve been trying to help you. First, by returning your property to you during your imprisonment.” He tilts his head in Ari’s direction.

  “You mean my Pencil?”

  The Elvidian nods. “I had someone slip that device into your cell undetected. I could not risk doing more at the time.” He flicks his ear. Maybe I don’t understand that gesture after all. “But once you were free, you chose to endanger yourselves further. Though I suppose I should not have been surprised that you ignored my repeated warnings. Just like your father.”

  “My father?” I say. “You know him?”

  “No, but I did try to warn him against building that engine. I tried over and over. But he wouldn’t listen. I hoped my messages to you would be more successful.”

  “Uh, Jack?” Ari asks. “What messages is he talking about?”

  I sigh and project the texts up out of my ring: “You must leave.” “Leave this place.” And more, that I also kept to myself:
“They will find you.” “They will hunt you down.” “The rest of your people are lost. They cannot be helped. Leave them. You can save yourselves now—or save no one if you delay.”

  “You didn’t tell us you’ve been getting secret alien text messages this whole time?” Becka yells.

  “What difference did it make?” I yell back. “We needed the QHC. We need to use my dad’s engine again. We need to get home and bring back help. What would you have done if I’d told you? Listened to him? Decided to give up? Then what? We’d just fly around this one terrible solar system for the rest of our lives, with the 118ers in jail and our families probably worried sick—all because of my dad? All because of me?”

  Becka stares at me and shakes her head. “We wouldn’t have given up,” she says calmly. “And I can’t believe that you thought we would have.”

  Ari nods. “You should have told us,” he says. “We’re in this together.”

  “You voted me the captain,” is all I can think to reply.

  He rolls his eyes. “So what?”

  “Ahem,” the Elvidian interrupts. “As I said, little time.”

  Oh, right. I’d almost forgotten about the alien. “Who are you? Why do you care what happens to us?”

  The Elvidian sighs. “My name is Bale Kontra. I will do my best to explain.” He throws something into the air: a small, golden sphere that, when it reaches his eye level, explodes into a million pieces.

  “Come here,” he says, “and watch.”

  The shards hang in the air for a moment before reassembling themselves into a 3D image. A super-real hologram. We move closer to Bale Kontra as the picture comes together into a familiar scene, floating in the center of the cafeteria like a cloud.

  “Is that . . . Jupiter?” Ari asks.

  He nods, placing his hands around the sides of the floating diorama and making a gesture like he’s pulling clay apart. As he moves his hands farther away from each other, the image zooms out. I circle around the hologram and get my bearings: I can see Io, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, and lots of Jupiter’s other moons too. There are ships everywhere. Other schoolships in orbital rotation, cargo and passenger ships in their space lanes, military and police vehicles on patrol. When I’m standing on one side of the image, I can see through to Mars, Earth, and the Sun. When I move to the other side, I can make out Saturn in the distance. It’s as detailed as if it were a portal to the real thing.