Dangerous Read online

  I didn’t pretend to myself that someday I might drive around my hometown in a convertible with Jonathan Ingalls Wilder. He would get bored with me; summer camp would end. This was a stolen moment, an impractical fantasy, candle smoke that melts into the air as fast as you can blow.

  I wiped mustard off his chin with my napkin.

  “Thank you, darling,” he said, breaking the spell of silence.

  “We should get back. They’re announcing the winners after dinner, and I think my fireteam has a shot.”

  Wilder frowned but sped back to the complex and eased us into the spot we’d left. For a minute neither of us moved. The day was fiery brown, the shrubs rattling with insects. It seemed like everything was ticking toward an explosion.

  “I’ve never done that with someone before,” said Wilder. “The silence part. That it wasn’t awkward.”

  He turned to look at me. My pulse ticked to life in my throat, and I wondered if he wanted to kiss me again. I didn’t dare kiss him first in case I was wrong.

  His glance caught in the rearview mirror. GT was standing outside the building, watching us and chewing gum, his suited goons flanking him. Wilder hopped out and tossed his father the key. I scrambled out my own door.

  “Jonathan …” GT’s voice was both inquiring and threatening.

  “Everything’s under control,” Wilder said, holding his father’s gaze as he sauntered into the building.

  GT held out his hand, stopping me from following. “Hi there. Who are you?”

  “Me? I’m Maisie Danger Brown.” I don’t know why I used my middle name—I wanted to be on the offensive, I guess.

  “Brown …” He said the word as if tasting it for significance. “What brought you to astronaut boot camp?”

  “A box of cereal.”

  His frown matched his son’s. “What’s your—” Then he noticed Ms. Pincher. “Are you missing your arm?”

  “Well, the separation was hard at first, but we’ve adjusted to a long-distance relationship.”

  His eyes flicked to the door where Wilder had gone. He chewed, his gum clicking in his teeth, then he turned his back and walked away.

  I’m not an expert on manners, but I think he was rude.

  Wilder was waiting just inside.

  “What is your dad doing here?”

  “He’s a control freak. He stops by once a week to make sure the security is vigilant in protecting an important man’s son.” Wilder traced my lower lip with his finger. “I like your mouth.”

  “I’m not that girl,” I reminded him, but I wondered if maybe I was.

  So much knowledge gained in the past two weeks, I couldn’t contain it all. I started to organize it into a tidy list:

  1. Turbulence is characterized by chaotic, random property changes in air flow.

  2. The most dangerous part of scuba is the buildup of nitrogen molecules in your body and those gases expanding if you rise up through the water too quickly.

  3. You can like a person’s mouth.

  4. You can feel your heart beat not just in your chest, but everywhere at once.

  “Let’s skip the next session,” he whispered, his hand finding my lower back. “We could find an empty room and talk about microscopes.”

  I shook my head. “No. No way.”

  “You’re a good girl.” He frowned. “Your middle name lies.”

  I didn’t want to be rude like his father. So I took his hand and said, “Jonathan Ingalls Wilder, you have become one of my top five favorite people in the world. Now come on.”

  We found seats and watched a documentary about the building of the Beanstalk … sort of. Wilder kept holding my hand, rubbing my fingernails over his lip. I was field testing a theory that a person’s skin emits a scent, and if you’re attracted to that person, his scent enters you and releases hormones in your brain that make you disoriented and apt to grin.

  After the movie, Bonnie Howell hopped onto the stage, dressed in florals and stripes. She stared at us for a few moments, and then she pulled three green balls out of a bag and juggled. The uncomfortable silence became twitchy.

  Howell caught all three balls, pulled the podium’s microphone lower with a grating squeak, and spoke with her lips touching it. “I learned how to juggle this year so I could be more entertaining.”

  She didn’t seem to have any other reason for being on stage. Dragon nudged her away from the podium.

  “We have the fireteam results,” he said.

  My stomach made friends with my shoes.

  “Congratulations to Fireteam Thirty-six. Jacques Ames, Maisie Brown, Mi-sun Hwang, and Ruth Koelsch.”

  I had never known before that you can smile so hard your cheeks hurt. But I couldn’t stop. It was like my body was in happy mode. My first-ever trip out of the country would be jetting to the equator and getting a front-row seat to a Beanstalk launch.

  “In addition, the student with the highest individual rating is invited to join Fireteam Thirty-six as its fifth member. Congratulations to Jonathan Wilder.”

  Could this moment get any better? Dragon dismissed us, but I couldn’t seem to move.

  “We’re both going.” Wilder’s words were as heavy as bricks.

  “I know it, but I can’t get myself to believe it!”

  “But …” He didn’t look at me. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

  Wilder’s eyes seemed darker, his whole mood blacker. His gaze slid off me as if I were too lowly to contemplate, and he got up and walked away.

  Chapter 7

  I hurried after Wilder, running into Jacques, Ruth, and Mi-sun in the hall. Wilder stood apart from us, his gaze locked on the ceiling. Ruth and Jacques were celebrating by shoving each other.

  “Jacques, you’re the man!” I said. Our last couple of victories had been thanks to his awesome strategies.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, fake-buffing his nails on his shirt. “You’re not half bad yourself, tiger.”

  “I’m very proud of all of us,” said Mi-sun, smiling with lips stained blue.

  “That slush can’t have enough nutrients for you,” I said. She had it for every meal.

  “At home I only eat saltines and pickles,” she said, “and I’m fine.”

  She started to talk about the meals she made for her brothers, but my attention kept clicking back to someone and his silence. I walked closer.

  “Wilder,” I whispered, “what’s wrong?”

  His expression was blank, yet it affected me like a force. How had I made myself so fragile?

  “This,” he said, gesturing between the two of us, “was a mistake. I wasn’t planning on flying off into the sunset with you or anything, so let’s not get tacky about it, okay?”

  What?

  The troop of blond girls bobbed up to tell him “Congrats!” Wilder put his arm around the nearest and pulled her closer, whispering something. His lips brushed her earlobe. She blushed and giggled.

  For the rest of the day I felt like I’d been hit by a train, cartoon birds twittering around my head. I’d just gotten the best news of my life, but I was wasting it moping after an asinine boy.

  We rushed from the medic to supplies to suit fitting. At dinnertime we ate the cafeteria food on leather sofas in Dr. Howell’s office—malibu chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, peach cobbler. Wilder was a dead space in my periphery. Did all boys turn weirdo-zombie after kissing a girl? Had I done something wrong? I should have stuck to my plan—work toward becoming an astronaut, eschew emotions, become Maisie Robot.

  When Bonnie Howell asked if we had any questions, I jumped in.

  “How did you get the Speetle to work on liquid hydrogen?” I asked, referring to the spacecraft Howell Aerospace had launched years before the Beanstalk.

  “Speetle?”

  “The … uh, the Space Beetle. I’ve been calling it the Speetle in my head. By the way, I’m surprised you don’t shorten Howell Aeronautics Lab to HAL.”

  She sniffed. “I will now. Anyhow, you wo
uldn’t understand if I told you.”

  “I might,” I said.

  She obliged me with an explanation that had me lost by the first sentence. Howell had hazel eyes, neither warm nor cold, but they pierced me.

  She’s not just a crazy old bat, I thought. She’s scary-smart.

  “We should wrap this up, Dragon. I want the fireteam back here at 0500.” And she bounced out of the room.

  “Good night, um, Dr. Howell,” I said.

  “Everyone just calls her Howell,” said Dragon.

  “Like she’s some cool teenage boy?” I said. I glanced at Wilder and wished I hadn’t said “cool.”

  Dragon escorted us to small private bedrooms, mine next to Wilder’s. I locked my door and fell into bed. I could hear Wilder moving around for a long time, so I didn’t move at all. I wanted to be soundless, invisible.

  I woke with a jolt, terrified I’d overslept, but the clock read 3:14 a.m. My heart was pounding. No chance I was getting back to sleep.

  The luxury of having my own shower made everything feel hopeful, the heat scraping the lack of sleep from my skin, yelling at my muscles to wake up. I was an hour early, but I headed to Howell’s office. It felt closer to midnight than dawn. My nerves danced on dagger shoes.

  Someone was singing. I stopped, peeking in the door. Dragon, his back to me, was doing paperwork and singing opera in a faux soprano. I couldn’t believe that squeaky voice came from such a massive, muscular body. And most surprisingly, he wasn’t horrible.

  He saw me and stopped. “Busted,” he said, laughing a bouncy, high laugh. “Don’t tell anyone and spoil my formidable image?”

  I zipped my lips. “Dr. Barnes, can I borrow a phone? I want to let my parents know about the trip.”

  “It’s too early to call, but they signed a release form with your initial registration, so everything’s set.”

  When the others arrived, we took a van to Howell’s private airstrip. Wilder claimed one of the comfy leather seats in the back of the jet, so I sat in front.

  Jacques leaped aboard, shouting, “Cry havoc!”

  “Why do you always say that?” asked Mi-sun.

  “It’s an old military command, instructing soldiers to pillage and generally make chaos,” he said. “Besides, it sounds kicky.”

  Ruth snorted.

  Two days ago, I couldn’t have imagined regretting those eight kisses. The first one that lasted seven heartbeats, and that second one lasting five. The third when his knee touched mine, the fourth when his thumb twitched on my cheek. The fifth when he breathed in through his nose, the sixth when a whisper of a moan escaped his throat. The seventh and eighth that had slowed, lingering.

  My mom said that my mind is a scanning machine that makes a copy of everything I see or read or hear. I wished I could delete those kiss files. But the memory sat over me, mocking, like that mouthy raven in Poe’s poem. Nevermore.

  Stupid bird.

  We watched a couple of movies before landing on a little island off the coast of Ecuador. The scenery was scrubby and bare, the sun relentlessly hot. But we only stayed long enough to put on astronaut suits. I felt kind of dorky, like a teenager still going trick-or-treating. But Howell wanted us to have an astronaut experience. We even had to wear astronaut diapers.

  “This is a stupid place to build something expensive,” Ruth said, looking over the sea. “I’m from Louisiana, yo. I’ve seen what hurricanes can do.”

  “Actually this is the safest place,” I said. “Due to the Coriolis force, hurricanes don’t develop on the equator.”

  Ruth smacked me on the shoulder—for correcting her, I guessed.

  “Back off, Ruthless,” I said, rubbing my arm.

  Jacques smirked at the nickname.

  “How’s about I call you One-Arm?” she said.

  I shrugged. “If it’s a good name, it’ll stick.”

  “Let’s call her One-Arm,” Ruth whispered to Jacques.

  “That’s stale, Ruthless,” he said.

  So she hit Jacques.

  “Ruth, keep your hands to yourself,” Mi-sun said in a perfect gentle-but-firm tone. “I won’t tell you again.”

  Ruth rolled her eyes but stopped hitting.

  From the island we took a helicopter out to sea. The sun was high—a hot brand melting through the blue. The helicopter was silent under the deafening stutter of the blades. Every face pressed to a window. Slowly the Beanstalk’s base came into view.

  The ocean platform resembled an oil rig with an Eiffel-like tower. Invisible from this distance was the six-centimeter-wide ribbon made of carbon nanotubes—lightweight and stronger than steel, the only known substance that could support the tension and pressure of climbing into space. The Earth end ran through the tower and attached to the ocean platform. The space end was attached to an orbiting asteroid thousands of kilometers away.

  We landed, and I was the first out. At the top of the tower waited the elevator car—a silver pod with wings of solar panels. I could make out the glint of the ribbon. I looked up, following the line into the sky, and got vertigo.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” I said.

  Wilder’s face swung toward me.

  I smiled. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “I didn’t think—” He shook his head and walked on.

  “Howell, can we get a peek inside the pod?” I asked.

  Howell considered. “Well, since you’re here …”

  Jacques gave me the thumbs-up.

  A metal lift took us to the top of the tower where the pod rested, looking as dangerous as a boulder on a cliff. Howell and Dragon went into the pod first, and the rest of us followed. From the outside, the solar panels had made it look deceptively large, like long legs on a small-bodied spider. Inside it felt downright cozy. If the interior of a metal ball can be cozy.

  Six seats with harnesses were bolted to the floor around one half of the pod. Each faced a small window—just a slit, really, like the ones on old castles that archers would shoot through. The cargo area took up the other half of the pod. In the center was a hollow metal pillar. The ribbon ran through it, and the pod used robotic lifters to climb the ribbon.

  “Companies pay us to transport their satellites,” Dragon was saying, “which in turn pays for the expense of building and running the Beanstalk. This trip we’re only carrying food and supplies for the Beanstalk’s two space stations: Midway Station and Asteroid Station.”

  “So you don’t have a lot of cargo this trip,” Wilder said, resting his arm on one of the chairs. “You’re not overweight. You could take, say, five passengers on a quick jaunt?”

  For a few seconds, no one spoke. Then Howell said, “Well …”

  My legs turned cold.

  “Howell,” said Dragon in a warning tone.

  “We’re not overweight,” she said.

  “Howell,” said Dragon again.

  “Why not? It’s for education’s sake.”

  “Howell, it’s not safe for children. Their parents—”

  “Why would they protest? This is a singular opportunity!”

  She clapped her hands and gave a command. A horde of crew in white jumpsuits squeezed into the pod, fitting the fireteam with headsets under soft helmets, leading us to chairs, and harnessing us in. My stomach squelched.

  “Howell,” Dragon said with exasperation.

  “Don’t be such a wet blanket. We’ll only go up a bit.”

  Howell sat in the sixth and last chair. Dragon grumbled and sat on the floor, pulling his arms through some straps of the cargo bags.

  Howell tsked her tongue. “You’re the one not being safe.”

  That phrase caught in my mind, stuck on repeat: not being safe, not being safe …

  “If you’re going, I’m going,” he said.

  The pod door sealed with a hiss.

  “Wait.” Jacques started fumbling with his harness. “What is ‘up a bit’? How far is a bit?”

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Howell said in a happ
y, singsong voice. “Next stop: space!”

  Chapter 8

  “Stay strapped in and remember your training,” Dragon said.

  “What training?” Ruth yelled. “You mean kiddie camp? You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

  I was smiling but it was that freaky kind of smile, hard and frozen, as if my facial muscles couldn’t decide between ecstatic glee and eyeball-clawing horror.

  “If any of you want to turn down this chance, speak up now,” said Dragon. “Just say the word and we’ll open the door.”

  Ruth stopped squirming. No one answered.

  The pod rose slowly for a few meters and then stopped with a loud click. I heard control counting down on my headset.

  Ten … nine … eight … seven …

  My parents would so not be okay with this. Was I okay with this? Space travel is not a field trip, and I was not an astronaut. Three Beanstalk astronauts were killed a couple of years ago. Their pod just cracked open on descent. I didn’t want to go to space like this, unprepared, unearned, rushed off in a possibly faulty space elevator. It was too dangerous.

  And then I thought, Danger is my middle name.

  I thought those very words.

  Six … five … four …

  Prove it, Maisie Danger Brown, I dared myself. Your name was supposed to be a joke. Prove it’s not.

  Three … two …

  I didn’t say no. I didn’t say anything at all.

  One …

  The pod pushed up with a force that left my stomach on the ground. There was a lot of screaming. Mostly Jacques.

  “AAH! AAH! I DO NOT LIKE HEIGHTS! I DO NOT LIKE HEIGHTS!”

  “Say it, Jacques,” I said.

  “Ican’tIcan’tIcan’t—”

  “Come on,” I said. “Your war whoop, your rebel yell, your battle—”

  “Cry havoc,” he said, his voice trembling. “Cry havoc! CRY! HAVOC!”

  It was better than his screaming. I began muttering prayers in Spanish as my mother did when she was worried or scared.

  Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo. Santificado sea tu nombre …

  We rose so fast, in seconds the ocean waves looked motionless, a great expanse of cake frosting. I glimpsed red—lasers pointed up at the photovoltaic cells on the pod’s wings, powering the elevator’s ascent. The whole pod was vibrating, a plucked elastic band. The vibration chattered my teeth. My vision wiggled. My bones felt too close together. Gravity would not let us go without a fight.