Seventh Grade vs. the Galaxy Read online

  The clouds part and it’s now terrifyingly clear that we’re not as high up as I thought we were. In the distance—but not far enough away by a long shot—I spot a familiar shoreline. Massive city walls protect impossibly tall skyscrapers from the surrounding water. And of course I recognize the small green statue near the bottom edge of the island.

  I grip the sides of my chair even more tightly. On any other day, I’d be thrilled to be here. It would be a dream come true. But not today. Because there probably isn’t any worse place to crash land a spaceship than into the middle of New York City.

  “Turn down! Head for the river!” I shout.

  “I’m trying!”

  Our best bet would be to fall straight into the water. But we’re not coming in steep enough. Most of the ocean is already behind us and even the rigged hangar doors can’t send us into a nosedive.

  Out toward the left side of the bridge window, we see boathouses and stores and apartment buildings and a large grassy lawn. Over on the right and up ahead, countless towers gleam in the sunlight, stretching north for miles. We can’t go too far to either side. And the ship won’t let us go straight down.

  We’re close enough now that I can make out George Washington Bridge Park directly ahead. Ari and I did an Earth Fair project on it once. It connects New York to New Jersey across a river and hasn’t been used for old wheelcars since, well, whenever we stopped using old wheelcars. These days, it’s a park. A popular park. The sun is beaming. There’s barely a cloud in the sky. It’s the kind of summer day that would draw people out.

  But the closer grassy space on our left looks empty. Big and empty.

  “I’m gonna aim for that park!” Ari shouts, pointing ahead and to our left.

  “It’s just like a runway!” I tell him. If we had full control over the ship, there’d be plenty of room to take the 118 down safely. But we don’t have full control over the ship.

  We’ve got only one chance to save ourselves without doing damage to the city. At this rate, we’ll never land safely in the grass. We’re too low down already. We need to skid directly onto the water and hope we come to a soft enough landing by the time we hit the empty shore.

  “Right!” I scream. “Right!”

  We jerk to the side, barely avoiding clipping the edges of a giant building.

  “Too much! Left! Left!”

  We readjust at the last second. But even though the river is wide, we’re moving fast. We dip and smack hard against the New Jersey side, too early. A giant chunk of the seawall breaks off, nearly crushing a building beneath it. We get turned around and spin back out the way we came.

  “Steady!” I yell.

  Through the window, I can see pieces of our ship that have come off in the descent. Fiery metal is flying everywhere. I hope there aren’t any boats underneath us and that everyone else is okay down in the gym.

  The 118 shudders as another piece of the hull goes flying by, knocked loose. Flat and sharp, it lodges itself into the cliff now on our right.

  One of the hangar doors.

  “Hold on!” Ari shouts.

  The ship turns around and around, unbalanced and completely out of control.

  We’re screaming at the top of our lungs. Everything is moving so quickly now. And I only know we’ve touched down when we smack the water and I’m almost thrown out of my chair. Huge waves spout up on all sides of us and the room begins filling with water, which seeps through the walls. But the ship doesn’t come to a stop. Instead it bounces, like a pebble skipped across a lake, and rises back up into the air.

  I can feel everything I’ve ever eaten in my stomach, churning like I’m on a rollercoaster. We clear the park Ari was aiming for—blocks of other buildings pass directly beneath us—and finally slam down hard into another river, flowing just behind the first one. We’re far enough away from New York City now that we don’t have to worry about it. But there’s another city directly ahead of us.

  As we hit the water again, the front window shatters, spraying glass and salt water into the bridge. I duck, covering my face with my arms.

  We skid forward, this time sliding along the water like it’s a solid sheet of ice. We’re careening to the side, directly toward the city. We jump the riverbank and run aground on a wide street surrounded by towers of metal and glass. We’re flailing down an avenue, inches away from the buildings around us. I hear a loud scratching sound as the ship tears up the street in its wake.

  Until little by little, we slow down.

  And stop.

  Alive.

  I can’t believe it. We’re alive. On Earth. We made it.

  I turn my head around to look at Ari and Becka. They’re as shocked as I am. Principal Lochner is just starting to regain consciousness. He’s going to be sorry he missed this (or, then again, maybe not). And one glance at Doctor Shrew confirms that he’s still having a perfectly normal day. He glances up at me for maybe half a second before he goes back to snacking.

  Looking at Doctor Shew, I can’t help it—I start laughing. And not a normal laugh either. A full, whole-body-shaking laugh. I’m cracking up and Ari and Becka do the same. I know that there’s still a lot to worry about. We just crash landed into a pretty big city near New York. I’m scared that we may have hurt people. And there’s still the big question of what the Quarantine did to the people on Ganymede and whether the Minister is sending someone after us. But for the moment, none of that matters: I’m alive and I’m cracking up.

  The ship flickers back to life just long enough to say: “SO PRETTY MUCH AN AVERAGE 118 LANDING, EH?” Which isn’t really that funny. But this is one of those moments where everything is funny.

  After a minute I calm down—and look out of the huge hole in front of me, where the bridge’s main window used to be. I expect to see crowds of people or firefighters starting to gather. But there’s no one. I’m relieved. Maybe there was some kind of surface proximity alarm that got everyone to safety.

  “Come on!” I say, standing up. I’m bruised and my legs and arms feel like jelly. But otherwise, I’m all right. “Let’s get out of here!”

  We could use the door and wind through the ship toward the main exit. But why bother when there’s a new opening right in front of us.

  “Let’s just hop out the window,” I suggest.

  “Awesome,” Ari agrees.

  “Um . . . wait,” Becka says.

  “Wait?” I ask. “For what?”

  I look back at Ari and Becka, who are now both huddled around Becka’s console. I guess it’s back up and running, although I don’t know what they’re looking at. We don’t need a damage report to tell us that the ship is busted.

  But fine, if they want to stay here and look at screens all day, that’s up to them. So I step over the edge of the window and onto the nose of the ship. The 118 juts out about twenty feet from the front of the bridge. I test the stability of the hull with one foot before stepping outside with all my weight. For the first time in my life, I feel the warmth of the sun. The real sun. When I’m done with school, I’m totally moving to Earth.

  “Come on!” I call over my shoulder. “You have to come out here.”

  I take another step forward, crunching a pile of broken glass underneath my feet. It’s so quiet that I can hear every little thing. The ship settling. A nearby fire crackling. And Ari and Becka slowly walking across the bridge and up toward me. I hear more footsteps. Principal Lochner stumbles off the bridge, holding his head. And behind him, the rest of the 118ers pile out too, taking stunned steps out into the sun.

  We all stare at what’s ahead of us. The street is completely empty. We’re in the middle of a large intersection, hovercars sprinkled down each of the roads. At first, I thought that we had knocked them down. But now I see that they’re not just bunched up around where the 118 crashed. They’re everywhere. Piled on the ground. Jammed into the sides of nearby buildings.

  It’s as if, all at once, every single hovercar fell out of the sky.

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nbsp; I look up. There are flames in the distance all across this city. I look behind me, across the little river, and see more plumes of smoke dotting the horizon. But not a single siren.

  And no people anywhere. No stranded hovercar drivers, no gawkers watching us from the windows of buildings, no panicked pedestrians. Even if there was a surface proximity alarm, someone would still be outside.

  “Where are all the people?” I wonder out loud. But even as I’m saying it, Bale Kontra’s explanation of the Quarantine comes rushing back to me. And I realize that I misunderstood. The Quarantine was bigger than the 118. Much bigger.

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Becka says. “The ship didn’t pick up any human life signs.” She pauses, lowering her voice to almost a whisper. “Anywhere.”

  31

  Principal Lochner smiles and adjusts his tie—the same one that he wore on the last day of school.

  “Where were we?” he jokes. “I think we had just finished the slideshow.”

  You can feel the whole school roll its eyes so hard that the ship might flip over.

  “Anyway,” he continues, “I know we’ve all been through a lot. And the last thing you probably want is an assembly.”

  Actually, I don’t mind. We’ve been waiting two whole days for the teachers to talk to us about what we’re going to do next, and I’m more than ready for an update. Though I do mind that we’re sitting in the cafeteria of our mostly-destroyed schoolship when we could be having this meeting ANYWHERE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET. We could at least take a field trip ten minutes away to New York City, right? Empire State Building. Coney Island. Do you know how badly I want to go to the beach?

  Instead the teachers put out the usual folding chairs and are having us sit by grade in our broken-down ship, still hammered into the streets of Newark, New Jersey, where we crashed. I’m in the front row with Becka and Ari. Becka never would’ve sat with us before all this happened, but now it feels totally natural.

  “We’ve given you some time to rest up and absorb our . . . situation,” Principal Lochner says. “But all of us—we’re important. Too important to sit on our hands any longer.”

  Out of nowhere, one of the last remaining roof tiles falls and hits the floor a foot away from him.

  “So where is everyone?” one of the fifth graders yells from the back. Antonio, I think.

  “We don’t know,” Principal Lochner answers honestly. “And please raise your hand if you have a question.”

  “Seriously?” Antonio snaps back.

  Principal Lochner gives his classic eyebrow raise and I turn around to glance at Antonio. He grunts and raises his hand.

  “Yes, Antonio?” Principal Lochner calls.

  “Um, seriously?” he asks again.

  “Thank you,” Lochner says firmly. “And yes, seriously. Just because we’ve hit some . . . bumps in the road doesn’t mean that we can’t stay civilized. And as I was saying, we’ve rested long enough. It’s time for a plan.”

  I look sideways at Ari and Becka. We’re back to being plain old kids, just along for the ride. It’s a serious relief. Once we explained everything, Principal Lochner decided not to punish us for all the trouble we caused. “You three have managed to do things that I don’t think most adults could have done,” he told us yesterday. “And you showed bravery in the face of real danger, when some of us would have given up.” He paused. “When some of us did give up.”

  After all the times I was sent to the principal’s office this year, it felt weird to sit across from him and get complimented. But I guess the mistakes the Grahams have made don’t have to be the full story here. Technically, we did save the 118 from the Quarantine, even if we messed up a lot along the way.

  And our classmates don’t seem to hate us either. If anything, we’ve gained popularity points. Even me.

  In fact, just before the assembly, Riya Windsor came over to me to say that she was sorry about my dad. That she knew the last few months had been hard for me and that it hadn’t really been fair. Which was pretty cool.

  “So here’s the situation,” Principal Lochner explains. “They’re out there, somewhere. Likely teleported far away by an Elvidian process called the Quarantine. And as the only ones who are still free, we have a responsibility to search for our friends and families and the whole human race. It’s our job to bring them home.”

  The teachers and crew are standing in a line next to Principal Lochner. Most of them—except the ever-unimpressed Mrs. Watts—are nodding like they’re listening to the president give some important speech. And I have to admit, Principal Lochner’s really stepped up to the plate. The teachers aren’t the ideal rescue party for the entire human race. But if three kids and a hamster can pull off what we did, there’s no telling what the whole school—together—is capable of.

  “To do that,” he continues, “we need a ship. We need this ship.”

  Half the room groans.

  “DON’T ALL CHEER AT ONCE,” the ship says. The AI’s fully back online, even if most of the rest of it isn’t.

  Most of our classmates were hoping that we’d ditch the 118 and find some other ship to fly, like a military carrier or maybe a luxury cruise liner. Something with a waterslide.

  But I knew that Principal Lochner would make this choice.

  “The 118 is the only ship we have that can travel faster than light. Which means that, step one, we need to repair it. When the assembly is over, you’ll all get your work assignments. Small groups of students will be paired with a teacher and given a system to work on. Life support. Hull integrity. School components. Engineeri—”

  “Wait.” Antonio again.

  Principal Lochner puts his hands on his waist. “Yes?” he asks, after Antonio remembers to raise his hand.

  “School components? Like . . . the classrooms and stuff?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But what for? Don’t we have better things to do?”

  “We have a crucial mission. True. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of your education. In fact, it makes it even more important. It’s summer right now, so we’ll give you a break. But if our search takes a long time—and it might—school will start in the fall like it always does. The fifth graders will start sixth grade, the sixth graders will start seventh, and the seventh graders—even though the 118 technically only goes up through seventh—they’ll start eighth. In fact, Mr. Cardegna is already hard at work planning the curriculum for eighth grade English Lit.”

  “Summer reading lists by the end of the week!” Mr. Cardegna announces.

  More groans. But I don’t know—I wouldn’t mind a little “normal” in my life.

  “We’ll figure out the details as we go along,” Principal Lochner tells us. “But I also wanted to say that you’ve all been incredible. I couldn’t be prouder. We’ve got the best school in the solar system. And when we bring everyone back—not if, but when—they’re going know it too.”

  “St. Andrew’s Prep sucks!” Ming yells from the row behind me.

  Everyone starts laughing and wooing. Even Principal Lochner lets out a chuckle.

  “Settle down, settle down.” He waits a beat. “But go Champions!”

  And it’s weird, considering how much has gone wrong, but that gets the room cheering louder than we’ve ever cheered for ourselves before.

  I feel Ari take a deep breath and exhale. I look over at him. Things are good with us now. I’m really going to try to be a better friend. Hopefully, it doesn’t take a second unimaginable alien conspiracy to keep me focused on what’s really important.

  Principal Lochner raises his hands up in the air to quiet us down again.

  “Seriously, though,” he says. “This isn’t going to be easy. But I know we can do this. We can bring everyone home. We can save the world.”

  “No we can’t!” someone shouts. Hunter LaFleur. Obviously. “We’re just a bunch of kids. You’re only teachers. This is a school. How can we possibly save the world?”
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br />   The room goes suddenly silent again, like we’re all holding our breath. But Principal Lochner is undeterred. “Aliens or no aliens, there’s no such thing as just kids. No such thing as only teachers. Schools are where we make the future. There’s nothing we can’t accomplish. So I have to ask, are you with me?”

  He lets the question hang out there, dangling over us. It’s a little awkward and a little forced—and, at first, it goes unanswered.

  “I’m gonna ask again,” he says louder, like he’s trying to get us excited for a homecoming game. “Are. You. With. Me?”

  “Yeah!” Becka shouts. Ari and I echo her. We owe Principal Lochner that much, at least.

  “Are you with me?”

  “FINE,” the ship mutters. But more kids join in now. The teachers too: “Yeah!”

  “Are you with me?”

  “Yeah!”

  The room shakes and he nods, grinning from ear to ear. And maybe he’s right. Maybe we really can do this. Bring everyone home. Save the world.

  “Okay,” he says. “Then let’s get started.”

  Acknowledgments

  I wrote my first book when I was in fifth grade. It was a novelization of the Super Nintendo game The Death and Return of Superman. It was handwritten on wide-ruled, loose-leaf paper. And it was EVERYTHING to me. Until I mustered up the courage to share it with one of the bigger kids on the school bus, who made me painfully aware that The Death and Return of Superman was already a book of sorts and that the SNES game had been based on an acclaimed comic book series (which itself had already spawned a novelization). Having legitimately thought that I’d penned The Definitive Retelling of My Second-Favorite Video Game (I wasn’t worthy of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past), I regrettably chucked my version in the trash.

  Since then, I’ve mostly kept wanting to write fiction to myself. All this is a self-indulgent windup to deeply thanking the small handful of friends who did know and who have encouraged me all this while. Thank you. I’m throwing out a trite “you know who you are”—because you do. And because if you didn’t know this was something I’ve been chasing, it’s not you, it’s me. I promise to shout more from rooftops (or flight decks) from now on.