It started last Monday, because I had to go with my dad to his annual meeting of the Space Cadets. I’m not making it up. Space Cadets. That’s what they call themselves. When I was a little kid I used to think it was a great name for a club of astronomers. That was before I realized “space cadet” was just another way of saying “nerd.”
The Space Cadets—there are six of them now—had all been in college together. All of them studied physics and astronomy, and they formed this group while they were still in school. After graduation they went their separate ways and agreed to get together for a few days during the second week of June each year. June is not the best time of year for astronomy, it’s just the best time for them to get together, because, like my dad, several of them are teachers. My dad says, “Every one of us thought we would have unraveled the mysteries of the universe by now, but the universe turned out to be a lot more mysterious than we could have imagined.”
I always imagined going with my dad to investigate universal mysteries. I begged to go every year and was always told “no kids allowed.” That is, until last year. Last year my dad invited me along even before I asked. I thought it was because he no longer considered me a kid. I should have known better, and I did know better not long after I was introduced to Stephen A. Warrensburg.
Last year, about six months before the Space Cadets annual reunion, Stephen and his father were in a car wreck. Stephen was paralyzed from the waist down. His father was killed. You wanted to have compassion for the guy except for one thing: Stephen A. Warrensburg was and is the most obnoxious, self-inflating know-it-all I’ve ever met.
Stephen is two years older than I am, and it became obvious soon after we got to last year’s meeting that I was along to keep him company. I was not there to share my theories of the universe with the Cadets. I was there to keep Stephen from getting bored. I was the babysitter for a guy two years older than I was.
His mom and dad were both Space Cadets. After the car wreck his mom said she didn’t think she could leave him with the grandparents anymore. She said the grandparents couldn’t take care of a child in a wheelchair. My bet is the grandparents wouldn’t let him in their house. Stephen A. Warrensburg had a personality that even his mother had a hard time loving. I saw that for myself several times during last year’s trip.
This year when my dad invited me along for the twentieth anniversary gathering of the Space Cadets, I said, “No thanks.”
“No?” Dad said. “You begged me for years to come along.”
“Is Stephen Warrensburg going to be there?” I asked.
“Oh,” said my dad.
“Oh,” I said.
“I don’t suppose there’s anything I could say to make you change your mind,” my dad said. “Is there any way I could bribe you?”
And that’s how I got my new iPod. And that’s how I found myself on my way to Alabama.
Yeah, you heard right. Alabama. Angie Warrensburg, Stephen’s mom, works for NASA, and it was her turn to pick the location. She picked Huntsville, Alabama, her home and the home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
The last time I was in Alabama three guys tried to kill me. I wasn’t so sure a week in Huntsville with Stephen Warrensburg would be any easier.
I was right.
3
Angie Warrensburg was waiting at the Huntsville airport to pick up my dad. She saw him before he saw her and blindsided him with a hug and a noisy kiss on the cheek. Dad’s face flushed red.
“Angie, I . . . I . . . I . . .” he stammered as he nodded toward me.
Angie Warrensburg followed his nod, and at the sight of me she released my dad.
“Jason?” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you this year.”
“When he heard we were coming to Huntsville, home of the rocket that put man on the moon, he begged to come along,” said my dad.
His face turned red again. He was stretching the truth, and he knew I knew it.
I joined right in. “I saw it when we were making our approach to the airport,” I said. “I was looking out the window of the plane.”
“Actually,” said Angie Warrensburg, “what you saw was a replica. They’ve got it standing up at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center not far from here.”
“I thought they had a real Saturn V,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “but it’s so big they can’t stand it up. The real deal is in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the Space and Rocket Center.”
Angie Warrensburg was a tall, thin woman with long, straight, dark black hair. Her eyes were a sparkling green. Nothing unusual about any of that except Angie Warrensburg was African-American. Her skin was a light cinnamon. Lighter, I thought, than last year. Evidence of a woman who spends more of her time under the night sky than the day sky. I might have considered Angie Warrensburg good-looking if not for one thing: she was old enough to be my mother.
“Jason, I have something for you,” she said.
She was wearing a navy blue pants suit, and she had a triangular pin on her left lapel. Along the base of the triangle was the word ARES. She removed the pin and handed it to me.
“You know what Ares is?” she asked me.
“It’s the new rocket that will carry us back to the moon,” I replied.
“I work on the Ares Project at Marshall Space Flight Center. I have more pins and some posters I was going to send back with your dad for you and your sister.”
“Thank you,” I said as I clipped the pin to my shirt pocket.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Okay, are you both ready to go? Do you have any checked luggage?”
“No, just the carry-on,” said my dad.
“No, just the carry-on,” I said. “And my shiny new iPod.”
Dad gave me a smirk, and we all headed to the airport parking lot.
“I thought you might bring one of your telescopes,” Angie Warrensburg said.
“I figured we would have all the telescopes we could use up on the mountain at the observatory,” said my dad.
“Well,” she said, “I thought we might need more room than what we’ll need for just a couple of carry-on bags and a, what did you call it, Jason? A shiny new iPod? I borrowed Stephen’s van.”
“Stephen’s driving?!” I almost shouted. Didn’t mean to; did it anyway. I’m sure Angie Warrensburg heard the disbelief in my voice.
“Oh, believe it,” she said. “You know, Stephen’s almost seventeen now. He’s come a long, long way since you saw him last year.”
When we got to the parking lot I saw how Stephen A. Warrensburg could come—and go—a long, long way since I saw him last year. The van was a full-sized Ford Econoline, midnight blue with gray trim and dark tinted windows. As we approached, Angie Warrensburg clicked a remote control, and the side door slid open revealing a platform that could extend and lower to the ground.
The interior of the van was not much smaller than my bedroom back home. The ceiling was raised. At the back, there was a plush black leather bench seat that would hold three people. Up front were two black captain’s chairs. Secured to the wall opposite the sliding door was a folded wheelchair. I figured it must be a spare since