Life on Mars (12 page)

RIP

ARCTURUS BETELGEUSE CHAMBERS

He did not die in space

He had only one shoe

He was an armpit

Shameful.

I busied myself by trying to come up with some new names for CICM-HQ, just on the off chance I should live to see it again.

I had:

ALIEN: Association for Looking Into Exceptional Nartians

Nartians? No. But I did like being an association. Associations sounded important.

CLOUD: Contacting Life Outside USA Dimensions

But I was afraid that would make the other countries mad.

SKY: Stars Kinda Yellow

What the heck did that even mean? Only one star really looked yellow to the naked eye, and that was the sun. Stars were mostly blue or red, sometimes orange, but to us they looked white.

This clearly wasn't working. I couldn't sit in one spot all day. I had to do something. I had to get out of here.

I moved the table away from the door and leaned the side of my head against it, listening for Mr. Death. I hadn't heard any coughing or smelled any cigar smoke yet this morning. Maybe he'd gone back out to the woods. Maybe he was a late sleeper.

Maybe he was waiting on the other side of the door with his teeth sharpened into razors, a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, wearing a bib that read I HEART FACES around his neck.

I tried not to think about it.

I turned the doorknob, feeling my heartbeat in my fingertips and behind my eyes, hearing it throb behind my eardrums. I opened the door a tiny crack.

No needle-sharp teeth.

No silverware.

No bib.

I opened the door a little farther. Stuck my head out into the hallway. Held my breath.

Nothing. Phew.

I went back into my room and picked up my bag, then went straight for the front door and my freedom.

That is, until I noticed something different about the room next to mine. You know, the one with the lights and the prisoners?

That door—the one that stays locked—was open. Just a crack, but open, definitely open.

I slowed to a stop, wavering in front of the doorway, unsure what to do. It wasn't open enough to see inside. I gripped my bag tighter.
I should leave
, I thought.
While I have the chance, forget about the room and get out
.

But there were lights and prisoners and I might be an association now. What association can resist lights and prisoners behind an open door, I ask you?

I reached out with my fingertips and felt the wood of the door lightly.

What was in there that was so important to hide? What could it possibly be?

No. I didn't need to know. I shouldered my bag and took a few determined steps toward the front door.

But then stopped and looked back over my shoulder.

What if he had a kid trapped in there or something? What if he was planning to eat that kid's face for breakfast? Wasn't I obligated to save that poor kid? If I didn't and I saw some poor, faceless kid wandering around the mall later, wouldn't I feel guilty?

I had to save that kid's face.

And, you know, there was the strange glow …

I went back to the door and gently, carefully pushed it.

It swung open with a faint groan.

Just like in a horror movie.

And when it did, I saw what was inside. I gasped so hard I almost fainted right there in the hallway.

My legs didn't even feel like mine. They were numb and weak and struggled to keep me upright. I took two steps into the forbidden room and felt along the wall for a switch, not even thinking about the light possibly attracting Mr. Death.

I finally found the switch and flipped it, and then gasped again as the room was illuminated.

Space was everywhere.

Model rockets and satellites, moon rocks in glass cases illuminated by black lights, articles about manned space missions and Mars rovers and even the Iranian space monkey. There were glowing stars on the ceiling and giant blown-up photos of Mercury, Venus, and Saturn. There were photos of moons I'd only hoped to one day see through a telescope, and of stars and swirling nebulae and comets streaking across a crowded sky. Draped on the far wall was a huge poster of Earth as seen from space, and behind it, on a mannequin, an official NASA flight suit.

No, that should be in all capital letters.

AN OFFICIAL NASA FLIGHT SUIT!

My eyes got all swimmy and I realized I hadn't been breathing.

I rushed over to the flight suit and let out a gust of air. The sleeve ruffled in the breeze of my breath and I got all swimmy again.

MY BREATH TOUCHED AN OFFICIAL NASA FLIGHT SUIT!

I reached out and stroked the sleeve with my fingertips.

I STROKED THE SLEEVE OF AN OFFICIAL NASA FLIGHT SUIT!

I ran my fingers over the name Maddux, which was embroidered in silver on the flight suit's chest. I only hoped some space dust might have rubbed off on me at that very minute.

I was so enthralled with what I was seeing, I completely forgot where I was.

“What is going on in here?”

I jumped, my hand falling immediately to my side, and whipped around to see Mr. Death standing in the doorway. I was trapped.

I opened my mouth to explain myself, but my brain was still repeating,
Touch it, touch the shiny flight suit
and wasn't working yet. Besides, I had no real excuse other than lights and prisoners and associations, and I doubted he would accept those as viable excuses for invading his privacy. Not to mention mucking up his flight suit with my earthy fingertips.

He took a few steps into the room, waving his unlit cigar at me. “You just go into closed rooms in other people's houses?” he boomed.

I shook my head. “The d-door wasn't cl-closed,” I stammered.

“So you just invited yourself in. What have you been doing in here? What have you been messing with?”

I backed up. “Nothing, s-sir. I've just … you have an official flight suit, and … moon rocks, and … I really … you … I wish I had my other shoe.”

He took two more steps toward me. Soon he would be towering over me and I would be pressed up against the flight suit—my idea of a dream come true in any other situation—and I wouldn't be able to get away. Just when I'd finally found something to like about Mr. Death he'd go and ruin it by eating my face. Figures. My luck always went that way.

“Yes, I have an official flight suit. And it's mine. Mine, you hear? Not open for grimy kids to go drooling all over. That's why I keep it locked up. That's why I didn't want you in here.” He was waving that cigar around so much it practically nicked my nose, and I was glad it wasn't lit. Who smoked stinky cigars first thing in the morning, anyway? “Didn't I make it clear that I didn't want you in here? Isn't it enough that I let you stay in my house? Don't your parents teach you to obey your elders?”

I was nodding and shaking my head so much I was beginning to get dizzy.
Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, I mean, no, sir. I don't know, sir, I'm getting confused, sir
.

He walked in a circle in the center of the room, ignoring my answers anyway. “I moved into this house for some privacy. I moved here to be alone. Alone, you get it?” He pointed at me with his cigar and again I nodded. “I tell some mopey neighbor I'll be an emergency backup, yeah, sure, whatever, and next thing I know there's a girl begging at my doorstep, and now here you are. So I take you in and what do I get? I get a snoop, that's what I get! A snooping snoop! In here putting your filthy hands all over my things. Reading my articles. Looking at my photos. This is not a museum. These things are not here for you, do you understand?”

“I th-think so,” I stammered. “I'll just … I think I hear my sister … someone needs to feed Comet.…”

I bent to pick up my duffel and realized a moment too late that I had scooted right up against the flight suit. As I bent, my backside plowed right into it. I watched in horror as the mannequin tipped and swiveled on its round base.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“Watch it,” Mr. Death said, only everything suddenly went slow motion, and it sounded more like
“Waaatccchhh iiittt.”

I lunged forward to stop the swiveling, but my timing was off. My palm punched the flight suit chest, sending the mannequin careening off to one side, where it collided on its way down with a pedestal that held a particularly intricate-looking model rocket. The pedestal fell, sending the rocket flying across the room. It crashed into a map of the solar system, ripping a long hole in the paper, and then clattered onto a very important-looking metallic thing with Russian writing all
over it. The rocket knocked the metallic thing onto the floor, and bounced to the side, sending a crack snaking down a glass case that housed a moon rock.

In the movies, whenever something terrifying is happening in slow motion, the kid always has time to spread out a field of banana peels and marbles, balance some half-full paint cans on the tops of the doors, and rig a pillow to explode, blinding the bad guy with feathers so the kid can make a getaway.

In real life, you just stand there and hope you don't poop your pants.

The swiveling, crashing, flying, and knocking down of things seemed to take forever to finish. And then when it did, there was a moment of silence, just the whir of a motorized spinning galaxy in the corner, and both Mr. Death and I looked helplessly at the mess I'd just made.

And then he exploded. That part was in real time.

“What the …? How in the world …?” He dropped his cigar in a nearby ashtray and stormed to the broken case. “Don't! Touch! Anything! Else!” he yelled.

I pulled my duffel tight against my chest. “I won't. I didn't. I mean, I did, but I didn't mean to. I was trying to … Now I lay me down to sleep …”

And then a miracle happened. There was a knock on the door, and then Mom's voice floated in from the living room. “Knock-knock,” she called. “Hello? Arty?”

Mr. Death grunted and left the room. I followed, pushing past him and wrapping myself around her waist.

She patted the back of my head. “Oh, goodness,” she said.
She held out her hand. “I'm Amy, Arty's mom. Thank you so much, Mr.…?”

Death
, I almost supplied, but thought better of it.

He grunted again, not answering her question, shook her hand, and then sat down in his recliner.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Thank you for taking Arty in. We're so sorry to put you out. We stayed the whole night at the airport so we could get on the first flight out this morning. I hope he wasn't too much trouble.”

“He's nosy,” Mr. Death grumbled. “And clumsy.”

“Oh.” She glanced at me. “Well, I hope he used his manners,” she said meekly.

“I'm not exactly high society,” Mr. Death said. Mom looked even more flustered, her fingers fidgeting around her necklace.

“Come on, Arty,” Mom said. “We should get you home.”

“And I'm not a babysitter, either, so I hope this doesn't become a habit,” Mr. Death said.

“Of course it won't,” she said, frowning, and then turned to me. “Okay, let's go home, let Mr.… um … let him have some peace. Thank you again,” she said over her shoulder as we headed to the bright patch that was the front door. “It was very kind of you to let Arty stay with you.”

“I didn't have a choice,” Mr. Death called out. Mom shut the door.

“Well,” she said huffily as we walked across the yard. I was leading the way, just happy to be free, celebrating Comet-style.
“He certainly doesn't have many manners to speak of, does he?” I ran a circle around her. “He was actually quite rude.” I dropped to the ground and rolled. “I hope he wasn't that mean to you the whole night, Arty.” I hopped in place a few times. Mom stopped and waited for me to catch up. She held my face between her hands and looked into my eyes. “Arcturus, look at me. I feel so terrible about having to leave you there. I had no idea he was so grumpy. Are you okay? Do you forgive me?”

And looking at poor Mom like that, her eyes droopy and tired, I felt a little sorry for her. I was free now—did it really matter anymore how horrible my night with Mr. Death had been?

“It was okay, Mom.” (Lie.) “It was actually kind of fun.” (Super lie.) “He's got an official flight suit in there. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my whole life!” (Truth.)

Mom let out a sigh of relief, let go of my face, and kept walking. “Wow, a space suit? That must have been exciting. Maybe he'll let you see it again sometime.”

“I hope so,” I mumbled. As much as I hated to admit it, that was … a super truth.