Space Cat-astrophe Read online

  All the kids were exploring inside the dome. Feeling the walls and looking into the tunnels.

  Kirsty stepped up to the microphone. “Right, we are going to get ready for the first set of tests. We need to see how you respond to weightlessness and stress on the body under space conditions. We are adjusting the air pressure now. You will all start to feel the gravity changing here within the next few seconds.”

  As she said it, kids around me started floating up in the air and bumping into one another. Igor, not surprisingly, stayed on the ground the longest. And even in the zero gravity he just kind of floated low and hovered.

  Geeky Girl pushed off from the ground and then started doing gymnastic flips in the air. She looked totally at ease in zero gravity. Neil Strongarm even noticed.

  “Just ease into the feeling of weightlessness,” he said. “Like that flippy girl over there. She’s got the hang of it.”

  He’d now noticed Sanj and Geeky Girl, and he hadn’t noticed me once. I had to do something that would make an impression on Strongarm. As I hovered in the air near him I hatched a plan.

  He clomped over past me with his weighted space boots anchoring him to the ground. This was my chance. I mentally flipped through the list of impressive things I had come up with to say to him and randomly picked one.

  “Hey, Mr. Strongarm, this is the most high-tech prototype space station I’ve ever seen.”

  He didn’t even turn toward me. “You seen many of them, kid?” Neil Strongarm looked around at all the kids floating and flipping in the dome.

  “No, I mean, but if I had, this would be way more advanced. Hey … maybe we could chat evil plans sometime?” He walked by, not paying one bit of attention to what I was saying. He had that glazed look on his face that I get when English teachers start talking about irregular verbs. I had to act fast. I pulled out number seventeen from my mental list of things to say to impress Neil Strongarm. “Your ideas are so ahead of your time,” I said, and then added in number twenty-three for good measure. “It’s like you see the evil future and make it happen.”

  Neil Strongarm stopped and looked at me. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I do. Very perceptive. What’s your name, kid?”

  “I’m Mark…” I started to say when I noticed something floating just over Neil Strongarm’s left shoulder.

  It was the tail I saw first as it floated past, attached to a very surprised-looking kitten wearing a look that said, “This is totally against the laws of nature for me to be floating like this. What is happening?” She had her claws out and was rising quickly toward the roof of the inflatable dome. I didn’t know for sure, but I would guess that a scared, weightless kitten like Fang, trying to get out of wherever she was, could tear a hole in the dome in seconds and bring the whole thing deflating down on top of us.

  I had to act fast. “Um, Mr. Strongarm … um … look over there.…” The first thing I saw in the other direction from Fang was Dustin spinning in the air and still managing to flick his hair, but it was like it was in a slow-motion space-hair commercial. “Look at that kid’s hair!” I heard myself say, and pointed to Dustin.

  “Wow, how does he get his hair to do that in zero gravity?” Neil mumbled.

  Good. He was distracted.

  I was hovering over Igor, so I leaned down and whispered, “Quick, throw me toward the roof.”

  “Urgh!” He launched me toward the roof and toward Fang. In midair I flipped, taking off my white evil-scientist coat with one move. Fang was all claws out and heading for the roof of the dome. I held out the white coat in front of me like a net. “I know you’re not gonna like this, kitten,” I whispered as I approached her. She had just turned and noticed me floating toward her with the outstretched coat and was about to let loose a very angry “Meeeoooow!” to protest this floating-around-a-dome thing that she was mad about. Time had run out. In one swift move I scooped up Fang inside the coat and balled it up under my arm. Phew.

  And that’s when Neil noticed me.

  “Look!” Neil Strongarm pointed up at me. “That kid has got this Zero-G thing too.”

  He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. Just at that moment, I crashed into the roof of the dome and bounced off. My speed increased because of the bounce and I headed right for Geeky Girl. I couldn’t change my direction.

  “What are you doing?” was the last thing I heard before I crashed right into her. All I remembered was her boot connecting with my head and the ball of evil-scientist coat holding the kitten slipping from my arms.

  I woke up to a light slap in the face. I was back on the ground, and Kirsty Katastrophe was leaning over me. Everything in my body felt suddenly heavy, especially my eyelids. They drooped shut again. “Maybe I should hit him harder?” she said.

  I opened my eyes. I heard an announcement saying, “Now that regular Earth gravity has been restored, please go change into your space suits, get your assignments and head to the appropriate section for testing.”

  “He’s awake now,” Kirsty Katastrophe said to Neil Strongarm, who was now leaning over me as well.

  “Good agility, kid,” Strongarm said. “Just watch where you’re going. It’s lucky for you that other kid grabbed on to something and pulled herself mostly out of the way.”

  I was groggy. My mind was slowly starting to put together what must have happened. I had been hurtling toward Geeky Girl, but she’d pulled herself up onto something, so I just connected with her boots. Then the next image came back to me. I was holding something. What happened to …

  “My kitte—” I stopped myself. “My coat?!” I said out loud.

  “What?” Neil Strongarm said. “You’re not making sense, kid. Maybe he got hit on the head harder than we thought.”

  Then Geeky Girl leaned over me too. “Maybe you should stop talking and rest,” she said. “You did bump your head pretty hard.” She was holding my rolled-up white coat, and although she was covering it up pretty well, the coat was definitely wriggling. She gave me a look that said, You are so lucky that I didn’t rat you out. “I’m going to go change into my space suit and leave my white coat in the laundry basket outside the changing room like we’re supposed to,” she said, and looked down at the wriggling coat.

  “Yeah, right. I’m gonna, ummmm…” I started to say.

  “Stop talking?” she said again. “And rest?”

  “Yes, that,” I said.

  Kirsty Katastrophe took Neil Strongarm off to another section of the dome. I waited a second to sit up. My head was sore and I felt like I had been kicked in the head. Which was kinda true, except it was in reverse, because I’d head-butted a boot instead. I swung my feet around off the table and got up. Besides a bit of a headache, I felt OK.

  Just outside the tunnel I came across Igor, Bob and Diablo, all being fitted for their space suits. Igor was still trying to zip his up.

  “One, two, three, pull!!!” Trevor the Tech-in-ator was straining to inch up the final bit of the zipper. “Breavve in, Igor,” he said, tugging on the zipper. Then with one giant suck-in of his stomach, Igor’s zipper hit the top of the suit. “Phew.” Trevor wiped his brow. “Right. Now for the challenges.”

  “Urgh, urgh, urgh,” Igor gasped.

  “Yeah, that looked like a challenge already, Big Guy, but we gotta find out what the tests are for this space-race thing so we can ace them,” I said.

  “Are you done?” Trevor glared at me.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  “The first round of tests vill start right away vith the G-Force Simulator.”

  4

  “The G-Force Simulator vill test your ability to vithstand the stress of takeoff and reentry on the mission. If you pass that, then you’ll have to complete a Space Suit Strength Challenge.” Trevor read off a sheet that had NASA SPACE SIMULATION TESTS written at the top of it. He looked around the room at the campers.

  “Most of you von’t make it past those stages. This is hard and there is no shame in failing.” Then he stopped himself. “Th
at is just a nice thing non-evil people say. Of course there is shame in failing. You vill have failed. Who writes this stuff? Anyvay, get on vith it and head to the area for the first test.” People started to walk back down the tunnel.

  Trevor stopped me. “You still need your suit,” he said to me. “Quickly go collect it from outside the changing rooms. The assessments are about to start. If you’re late, you lose.”

  “There’s no way I’m losing,” I answered, and ran off to collect my suit and change. I grabbed one off a rail of gleaming white suits and held it up to me to judge the size. “Yeah, this one should work,” I mumbled to myself as I jumped into the outfit as fast as I could. I carefully stuffed some small evil space invention prototypes into my socks just in case I got to show them off to Neil Strongarm later. I was ready.

  On my way out again, I caught my reflection in the mirror by the door. I had to take a second to look at myself in the suit. It looked good. I mean, I was born to wear a space suit, right? This was my destiny. The kid who shot his limited-edition licensed action figures into the sky on a plastic rocket was going to get to go into space. I just had to show them what I could do.

  Oh yeah, and I had to find Fang.

  Right, where was the laundry basket? Geeky Girl said she would put the coats in the laundry basket. I stopped at the one outside the boys changing room and searched through all the coats. Sanj came out of the room to put his in the basket while I was looking.

  “Now, if I didn’t know any better, I would swear that you look like someone who has lost their illegally smuggled and very sharp-clawed pet into a highly puncturable inflatable space station and is desperate to find it.” Sanj smiled.

  “No, I lost … ummm … my keys. Yes, I lost my keys, but I think I left them back in the tent, so no worries.”

  “Right, well, you better hope that you find her before I do, Mark. I’m not going to let an annoying little vampire kitten come between me and my career as an evil astronaut,” Sanj said.

  While he was talking, I saw something moving over by the girls changing room. Oddly, it was their laundry basket that seemed to be walking away on its own.

  “Don’t worry, Sanj,” I said, still glancing at the moving basket out of the corner of my eye. “Fang won’t need to ruin your chances, because you’ll do that all by yourself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got a contest to win.”

  I walked off confidently in one direction until I was sure that Sanj had headed off in the other, far enough not to spot me doubling back to the changing rooms. I caught up to the walking laundry basket just as it was about to head down a tunnel leading to one of the assessment areas.

  I flipped over the basket, and there was a very unhappy kitten.

  “Not this way, Fang; we’ll get caught.” I scooped her up and went to tuck her inside my space suit but discovered the disadvantage of the cool-looking ultrafitted suit. There was no room to smuggle a cat.

  So instead I tucked her under my arm and headed back to the changing room. As soon as we were inside she jumped down from my arm and started to meow at me. I don’t speak cat, but she was basically telling me that she was mad. Very mad. And at me. I got that much.

  “OK, Fang. I get that you didn’t like the weightlessness and that you didn’t want to be stuck in a laundry basket either.” I stroked her behind her ear. “I’ll find someplace to keep you safe, but for now I have to figure out how to get you to the next test without being spotted.”

  I looked at the list on the wall of the changing room. It was a timetable of who was in what test section and when. “I’m gonna be late!”

  Trevor’s words echoed in my head: “If you’re late, you lose.”

  “I can’t be late, because I can’t lose, kitten,” I said to Fang.

  She growled at me.

  “Sorry, I’m supposed to be in the G-Force Simulator pod now and then there’s a Space Suit Strength Challenge.”

  Fang looked at me like that was not her problem. She jumped into a space helmet that was upturned on one of the benches in the changing room, curled up and tucked her head in to go to sleep.

  “That’s it!” I shouted, which made her pop her head over the top of the helmet.

  “I can hide you in the helmet. I knew you were an evil genius, Fang,” I said, and she purred.

  I headed out of the changing room with the helmet tucked under my arm, cradling a curled-up Fang inside the lining. She was well-hidden.

  Now all I had to do was get through the G-Force Simulator. How hard could it be?

  5

  When I got into the room I saw one of the simulators spinning to a halt on the turntable. The lid unlocked and the door slammed open wide. Dustin climbed out of the pod and went to flick his hair, but his normally perfect hair was now enormous and unflickable. The G-force had blown it all out so it was three times the size of his head. I already loved this thing if it did that to Dustin’s hair.

  He touched his newly expanded hairdo. “Argh! My hair?! Someone get me a mirror! This is a hair emergency!”

  “I don’t think they have hair emergencies in space.” Geeky Girl smiled at Dustin as she walked off to the next station.

  I guess Geeky Girl had already done the G-Force Simulator and gotten through. Igor looked like he was waiting for his turn.

  “That ride looks like fun. I’m next, right?” I climbed in and handed my helmet to Igor. “Can you look after this for me, dude? It’s very delicate, so be careful,” I said, tilting the helmet to show Igor what was inside.

  “Urgh, urgh!” he said.

  I jumped into the pod like it was a sports car and I was in a TV show about a guy who drove sports cars. (Or maybe a guy who drove sports cars and then went into space. Yeah, that.) They strapped me into the chair and closed the hatch. Suddenly it felt less like riding in a sports car and more like being encased in a giant washing machine. It was noisy and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just about to be put onto a megaspin cycle.

  A voice came through the speaker inside the pod. It was Phillipe. “In zis test, zee machine will simulate a portion of zee G-force zat you would face on a descent back into Earth’s atmosphere. If you don’t pass out, we take zat as a pass.” He made a smug little laugh to himself. “Zee test will start now.”

  I could feel the machine begin to move, then get faster and faster and faster. This pod thing whipping around on a giant arm was faster than any roller coaster or fairground ride I’d ever ridden. I started to feel sick, but then I started to feel something even weirder. My skin was moving. It was being forced back, making wrinkles that must have looked like a pug dog’s face. How is that even possible?

  But more important, what if it stayed like that? What if I became a famous astronaut, but I did it with the face of a wrinkly dog? I guess it wouldn’t be all bad. I’d get a lot of publicity as an astronaut with a pug face. The speed was building to a peak. Then, just as I was imagining all my mega-promotion TV deals for being a famous dog-faced astronaut, the spinning started to slow down. By the time it stopped, I could move my hands, and I reached up to touch my face. Back to normal. Well, no TV deal, but at least I still looked good.

  Someone unlatched the door to the pod but hadn’t opened it yet to unstrap me from my seat.

  I could hear the kids getting ready for the other G-Force Simulator and some of them heading over to the Space Suit Strength Challenge across the hall.

  I could hear Dustin saying, “That helmet is way too small for me now that my hair is this big. I’ll need to use the big kid’s helmet for the challenge.”

  “Very well. Igor, give zee helmet to Dustin for his challenge, and zen you can have it back when it’s your turn,” Phillipe said.

  “Urgh, urgh, urgh, urgh!” Igor protested.

  “Now, or you give up your chance, Igor,” Phillipe insisted.

  “No!!” I shouted from the pod, but no one listened.

  I could hear footsteps as Dustin walked away to start the Space Suit Strength Challenge.
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br />   “Let me out! Someone unstrap me! Come on! I want to do the next thing!!!” I shouted.

  Phillipe eventually came up and unstrapped me. “Very impressive,” he said. “You passed.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to get to the strength challenge!”

  Phillipe nodded. “Igor, you’re next. Climb in.”

  I jumped down from the simulator and Igor pointed to Dustin, who had just put on my helmet and was starting the challenge. I was too late.

  “Urgh, urgh, urgh.” Igor patted my shoulder as he got into the pod. The arm of the machine creaked from the weight.

  I ran over to the Strength Challenge Zone and looked. Any minute now Dustin would say, “There’s an illegal pet in my helmet,” and rat me out. Or cat me out.

  I waited.

  Dustin was in the suit and helmet and attached to a weighted harness. He had to perform certain lifting and walking tasks to see if he was strong enough to do them in increased gravity.

  Suddenly Dustin started flailing his arms and hitting his helmet with his gloved hand. You couldn’t hear what he was saying in the helmet, but he was motioning to get the helmet off. He couldn’t do it himself. He was panicking.

  Trevor came over and unhooked the helmet and lifted it off Dustin’s head.

  This was it. I had passed the first test, but my space race was stopping here and Fang and I would be sent home from camp in the Canoe of Shame.

  Trevor dropped the helmet to the floor. No kitten rolled out of it.