We Dream of Space Read online

  Dedication

  “You have to dream.

  We all have to dream.”

  —Christa McAuliffe, Mission Specialist

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Wednesday, January 1, 1986

  Thursday, January 2, 1986

  Sunday, January 5, 1986

  Monday, January 6, 1986

  Tuesday, January 7, 1986

  Wednesday, January 8, 1986

  Saturday, January 11, 1986

  Monday, January 13, 1986

  Tuesday, January 14, 1986

  Wednesday, January 15, 1986

  Monday, January 20, 1986

  Thursday, January 23, 1986

  Friday, January 24, 1986

  Sunday, January 26, 1986

  Monday, January 27, 1986

  Tuesday, January 28, 1986

  Wednesday, January 29, 1986

  Thursday, January 30, 1986

  Friday, January 31, 1986

  Saturday, February 1, 1986

  About the Challenger Disaster

  To Learn More

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Wednesday, January 1, 1986

  READY FOR TAKEOFF

  The pinball machine didn’t steal Fitch Thomas’s quarter. Not really. But when one of the flippers is broken, there’s no point in playing. As soon as Fitch realized this, something sparked inside him. Something ugly and familiar. He stared at the slot where he’d sunk his quarter only moments before.

  Easy does it, Fitch. Just go to Mr. Hindley’s office and get your quarter back. No big deal.

  The blinking lights of the machine—Bright Star One, it was called—seemed out of place in the arcade today. Fitch looked around. He was one of the only people there.

  Maybe it was too early for people.

  It was never too early for him.

  READY FOR TAKEOFF, the lights blazed. He left them behind and walked to Mr. Hindley’s office.

  The door with MANAGER stenciled above the frame was open, as usual. Mr. Hindley was manager, owner, and staff. When quarters were stolen, he was the man to see.

  Fitch cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Hindley?” he said.

  Mr. Hindley looked up from his ledger. “Henry Nelson Thomas, my favorite patron! What brings you to the front office?”

  This was what Mr. Hindley always said, even though no one called him Henry and Mr. Hindley’s office was in the back corner of the small arcade. Nowhere near the front.

  Fitch motioned half-heartedly toward pinball row.

  “One of the machines is broken,” he said.

  Mr. Hindley placed both hands on his desk and stood up, like President Reagan ready to face the Soviets.

  “That is unacceptable, patron Thomas,” he said.

  Mr. Hindley was what Fitch’s mother would call “an odd duck,” but he moved fast. Within seconds he was in front of the Major Havoc game in the center of the arcade, squinting at the screen.

  “Not that one,” Fitch said. He pointed at Bright Star One. “This one.”

  Mr. Hindley raised his eyebrows. “But you’re a Major Havoc guy. One from all, all from one, fighting for humanity and all that.”

  Yes, it was true. On any given day, Fitch could be found at the Park, Delaware, arcade—officially named the Pinball Wizard, but known to the locals as the “arcade on Main”—playing Major Havoc, a game that his best friend, Vern Repass, said was a “Star Wars wannabe,” even though Major Havoc had been released first, but whatever. Vern was so obsessed with Star Wars that Fitch had developed unfounded resentment toward Luke, Han Solo, and the whole lot of them. (Except Vader, maybe. Vader was kinda cool.) The more Vern ragged on Major Havoc, the more dedicated and defensive Fitch became, and now he was so preoccupied with beating his own high score that Major Havoc—in all his vector-graphic glory—sometimes appeared in his dreams, demanding that he get to the reactor before everyone exploded.

  But today was January first, and Fitch had made a New Year’s resolution to try something different. The last time he was here, his twin sister had come along and been entranced by Bright Star One, with its spaceship and lights. She didn’t want to actually play it—video games were not her thing—but she tried to convince him to give it a chance. He’d snapped at her to leave him alone, then felt bad about it later. So he’d gone for the pinball machine this morning, even though no one played pinball anymore. And now look what had happened.

  Mr. Hindley made his way to Bright Star One and tapped it affectionately.

  “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

  “The right flipper’s broken,” replied Fitch.

  Mr. Hindley pushed the button. When nothing happened, he said, “It’s impossible to play a respectable game of pinball with just one flipper.”

  Duh, Fitch thought.

  Mr. Hindley disappeared into the office and emerged seconds later with a sheet of paper with “OUT OF ORDER” written across it in fat black letters. The smell of Magic Marker wafted in the air as he taped it across Bright Star One.

  “Thanks for the heads-up, patron Thomas,” Mr. Hindley said. He smiled. It was wide and pleasant and took up most of his face. “Anything else I can help you with?”

  Yeah, you can give me my quarter, Fitch thought. But he didn’t say it out loud. The fire was too bright.

  THE MOOD OF A HOUSE

  Ten seconds before Fitch’s twin sister, Bernadette Nelson Thomas, opened her eyes, she thought: If there’s a five on the alarm clock, it will be a good day. When the digital numbers glowed 2:32 p.m.—no fives in sight—she assumed the first day of 1986 would be a toss-up. She shouldn’t have slept so late, but she’d stayed awake until four that morning assembling a new desk for her room. The job would have taken thirty minutes if she’d followed the instruction manual. But twelve-year-old Bernadette—“Bird,” as she was called—was not one to follow instruction manuals. She threw it away instead, assembled the desk perfectly, then created a manual of her own. Her stack of schematics was growing, and thanks to the new desk, she now had a safe place for them.

  After she forced herself out of bed, she walked quietly into the hall.

  Houses had their own personalities, and Bird liked to know which one she was walking into.

  She navigated around the hallway clutter—laundry baskets stuffed with clothes, short stacks of books and magazines, a box of old toys (including a Barbie that Bird had never played with, and her brothers’ plastic toolbox, which she had)—and listened as she sidestepped the seemingly endless array of sneakers that littered the house like land mines. Her mother always said she would straighten up once she found a place for everything, but where would that be? They were cramped enough as it was. Her parents didn’t even have their own bedroom; they’d converted the small den into their personal space. That, too, was cluttered.

  Her parents were talking in low voices. That was a good sign. Bird continued into the living room, where her father, Mike, was sitting in front of the entertainment center, fiddling with buttons on the new VCR. Her mother, Tammy, was stretched on the couch with a book, saying “. . . that was the whole point of getting a new one. Or so I thought.”

  Bird detoured into the adjoining kitchen. She moved stained coffee mugs and random pieces of mail out of the way, then took out a bowl and spoon and placed them delicately on the kitchen counter. She stared at the cereal boxes in the pantry. She usually had Apple Jacks on Wednesdays, but maybe she should try something different. Fruity Pebbles? No, those belonged to Fitch, and he could really pitch a fit—hence his nickname—when someone messed with his things. Shredded Wheat? No way. There was a fresh box of F
rosted Flakes for Cash, and he usually didn’t notice if someone swiped his cereal. But Bird wasn’t in a Frosted Flakes mood.

  “It wasn’t the whole point, Tam,” her father said. “There are other people in this house, too.”

  Apple Jacks. Definitely Apple Jacks.

  Bird filled her cereal bowl three-quarters full. Then, milk.

  “I’m well aware there are other people in the house, Mike,” her mother replied. “Who do you think does all their laundry after working eight hours a day?”

  Bird had misjudged the house’s personality. She’d been tricked once again by her parents’ low voices. She’d expected Dr. Jekyll, but it was Mr. Hyde.

  “Good morning!” Bird said, lifting her voice with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

  Her mother looked up from her book. If Tomorrow Comes, it was called. “Don’t touch those sugar cereals, Bird. Those are for your brothers. You won’t be skinny forever.”

  I wonder how many times she’ll say that sentence in 1986, Bird thought. She considered counting. Maybe she could make it a New Year’s resolution.

  Bird returned the milk to the refrigerator. “Where is everyone?”

  “Fitch is at the arcade and Cash is out with friends,” Tammy said.

  “I stayed up late last night putting my desk together,” said Bird. She shoved a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. “It took me a while, but I got it. I even assembled the drawers and sketched a schematic of—”

  “It’s probably not the VCR’s fault, Tam,” her father said, eyes on the VCR. “You probably didn’t set it right.”

  Her mother sighed and turned a page. “I did exactly what the instructions told me to do.”

  “If you did exactly what the instructions told you to do, it would have worked.”

  Bird carried her bowl into the living room, moved a stack of newspapers off the armchair, and sat down. Their old VCR was on the carpet, a thin coat of dust and a tangle of wires on top.

  Bird had yet to disassemble a VCR. Now that would be a great undertaking to kick off the new year. She could remove the top of it easily with a simple screwdriver from her toolbox and take a “Bird’s-eye view” of its inner workings. Study the guts of the machine.

  Machines had the best guts.

  “If you don’t need the old VCR, can I have it?” Bird asked.

  Her question disappeared just as quickly as it’d arrived.

  “Your father told me this fancy new VCR would record Days while I’m at work,” her mother said. “But today when I sat down to watch my show, the tape was totally blank. Didn’t record a thing.”

  “What’s happening with Dr. Evans these days?” Bird asked, quickly.

  Marlena Evans was her mother’s favorite character on Days of Our Lives.

  “Tam, which of these scenarios is more likely?” her father said, leveling his eyes on her. He used his fingers to count off: “One, our brand-new VCR is malfunctioning for no apparent reason, or two, you didn’t get the settings right?”

  Tammy laid the book facedown on her lap. “Oh, you’re right, Michael, I’m far too stupid to follow clearly written instructions for a machine as complicated as this.”

  “No one said you were stupid.”

  Bird chewed silently and focused on a speck of lint on the floor.

  “I’d have to be stupid if I can’t read and follow simple instructions.”

  “We’re all well aware how smart you are. God forbid, a woman with a college degree wouldn’t know how to work a VCR!”

  Tammy snatched the book off her lap and sat up. “Lots of good that degree did me. I’m working as a secretary for a bunch of—”

  “You’re the one who insisted on going back to school and putting us in debt.” Bird’s father flipped through the VCR manual.

  “Funny you should talk about debt when you just spent an outrageous amount of money on a gadget that doesn’t even work . . . ”

  Bird looked into her cereal bowl and thought of Ms. Salonga, her science teacher. Before winter break, Ms. Salonga said the class would dedicate the month of January to space exploration to celebrate the launch of the Challenger shuttle. Ms. Salonga had taught them all kinds of facts about space—not that Bird needed to be told; she knew many of them already—but the most fascinating fact was that there was no sound in space. Not really.

  Space is a vacuum, Ms. Salonga said. If a piece of debris hits an orbiting spaceship, the astronauts inside would hear it, but someone outside wouldn’t.

  As Ms. Salonga explained the process of sound and molecules, Bird snapped a picture together in her head, like a puzzle. Then she imagined her brothers and parents inside a spaceship.

  And her: outside, floating. In silence.

  GOD OF BASKETBALL

  The game was pretty stupid, to tell the truth. All you needed was a few guys and a brick wall. In this case, it was the east side of the Park Public Library, two blocks from the arcade on Main, and the guys were Cash Nelson Thomas, Justin “Brant” Brantley, and Kenny Haskins. The rules were simple: Two of them would run toward the wall, jump at the last minute, and touch the highest brick they could reach. The third guy would serve as judge to determine the victor. Thirteen-year-old Cash was quick—he used to outrun Kenny and Brant when they ran laps for Coach Farnsworth—so he usually got to the wall first. He wasn’t much of a jumper, though, so he rarely won. It didn’t matter, anyway. There was no prize. Only glory.

  On January first, Brant and Kenny got to the parking lot before him. Typical. When they saw him appear down the street, hands stuffed in his Sixers jacket, Brant immediately called out, “No wonder you’re a repeat—your butt can’t get out of bed!”

  “Shut up,” Cash said, when he was close enough. The words came out casually but firmly, as they always did, and he swallowed a thick seed of embarrassment. As he always did.

  Brant and Kenny ragged on him any chance they got for failing seventh grade, but it’s not like they were geniuses. Bird could outsmart them at any turn. Kenny had barely passed last year himself.

  But.

  He had passed.

  “Did you set off fireworks last night?” Brant asked. A Boston Celtics knit cap covered his curly blond hair. Cash resisted the urge to snatch it off his head. It’s not Justin’s fault his parents are from Boston, Cash’s dad liked to say. All in good fun.

  “We shot off a bunch of Roman candles,” said Kenny. “It was awesome.”

  Kenny had red hair and pale skin. In elementary school, he cried because the kids called him “Carrot Head.” Now all the girls thought he was handsome. He was tall, had more muscles than most of the other guys their age, and was the star of the Park Middle basketball team—a spotlight he shared with Brant. Cash had intended to be in the spotlight, too, but things hadn’t quite worked out that way.

  “Yeah,” Cash said. “We fired a bunch.”

  Actually, they’d only lit a few sparklers before Fitch got mad about something and stalked to his room. Their father went in after him because their mother had fallen asleep in the armchair at eleven o’clock, still wearing her pantyhose. Then it was just Cash and Bird outside in the cold. And what did they have to talk about?

  Cash and Brant took their places a set distance from the wall while Kenny hung back to keep score. No one had to announce that it was time to start. They’d been best friends since elementary school and moved like a single unit.

  “You gonna watch the game tonight?” asked Brant.

  “What do you think?” Cash replied. “Portland’s gonna get destroyed.”

  “The Sixers are gonna tank after Dr. J retires,” Brant said. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

  Dr J.

  Julius Erving.

  Forward for the Philadelphia 76ers.

  God of basketball.

  Dr. J was the last face Cash saw before he fell asleep and the first face he saw when he woke up, thanks to a poster his dad got for him, which Cash had taped proudly to the back of his bedroom door.

 
“Are you guys gonna go or what?” Kenny called.

  Cash took off without answering. Converse high-tops hitting cold gravel. He jumped as high as he could when he reached the wall, but he fell short.

  Just as he always did.

  MAJOR HAVOC

  The arcade was quiet, so Fitch was on a winning streak. Vern wasn’t there to pester him. People weren’t bumping his shoulder on their way to Pole Position or Star Wars. No one hovered nearby. It was just Major Havoc and him, flying a Catastrofighter through a wormhole in space so they could lead a clone army against the brainless Vaxxian robots. Fitch had just started counting his blessings when Bird burst through the doors and half jogged toward him, saying they had to go. Something about the emergency room and Cash. What was she talking about?

  “Cash hurt his hand,” Bird said, nearly breathless.

  Fitch kept his eyes on the game. “What do you mean, he hurt his hand?”

  “Just what I said. We’re going to the emergency room. Come on.”

  “Is he dying or something?”

  “No, but . . . ”

  “Why do I have to go, then? I’m not injured.”

  “His hand is swollen like a basketball!”

  “Good,” Fitch said. Major Havoc fell into yet another maze, tasked with touching the nuclear reactor before it exploded. He still had threes lives left. “Maybe it’ll improve his one-on-one game.”

  “Come on,” said Bird. “Stop playing that stupid thing and let’s go!”

  “You write instruction manuals in your spare time and you’re calling this stupid?”

  Someone honked. Probably his parents.

  Ugh. Why couldn’t he ever be left alone? He wished he could transport to another planet. He wished he really was on an important space mission instead of dealing with his stupid family. He’d rather face brainwashed Vaxxians.

  “Fine,” Fitch said. “I’m in the middle of something, but whatever. I have three lives left, but fine.” He released the joystick and kicked the machine with the toe of his sneaker. His chest burned. It only took a second for Major Havoc to get hit. You couldn’t lose a single moment. You’d get obliterated in the blink of an eye.