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 Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:35 am
"Space," Laney announced herself, popping out of the window that led onto the second floor fire escape of the Barren Pines dormitories, "the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Barren Pines. Its one-time mission: to explore strange new worlds, except those blocked from view by the building on this side, or the tree cover we've got going on over there, or the ones that are too faint to see with your telescope. To seek out new life and new civilizations, other than what's growing in the fridge down on the boys' floor. To boldly go where no person fleeing from a fire has gone before. Why? Because the ladder is locked and won't drop down. Note to self: bring that up at Game Night along with the other second floor issues."
She had on pajamas of the flannel, matching variety; they were medium blue and covered in Felix the Cat, as well as the occasional crescent moon wearing a sleeping cap. She had on cat-faced slippers and her hair was in a tidy little french braid, and looked like "slumber party teenager" from a Sears catalog in the 1990s. "Did you know 'to boldly go where no man has gone before' is probably the most famous split infinitive in the English language? And that's even compared to Shakespeare! Of course, his was in kind of a depressing sonnet, if you ask me. 'Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows | Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. | If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, | By self-example mayst thou be denied!' Not exactly a love poem you read to your boyfriend or girlfriend."
Laney was carrying a cookie tin and a metal thermos that was probably Eddie Bauer ("Jack Bauer's outdoorsy cousin!" she liked to repeat this joke, forgetting to whom she had told it already.) "Sorry it took me a while, I had to stop by Frankie's room up on three to look in on her for a bit, she likes when I do that -- it helps her sleep, I think. You know, I think she has some kind of generalized anxiety disorder. But I had to learn how to pick locks with a bobby pin so I could do it, so, that's a useful skill, right? You never know." She held out the tin of butter cookies.
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:02 pm
Since the first time Laney came through the fire escape she nearly smashed a basil plant, Tara had learned to be prepared. Her window garden slash weather station was mounted on a two by four. In case of rain or Laney, she just had to put the plants on the floor and the board on top of her bookcase. She waited for a couple of minutes, then got bored and flopped over on her stomach to skim her biology textbook, which was what she was doing when Laney began her speech.
Tara was in her pajamas too, which for her consisted of a pair of blue drawstring pants with polar bears and penguins on them and a t-shirt bearing the first words spoken on the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." A grammatically inconsistent sentence, but for the first human on the moon, Tara felt they could be lenient. She had sparkly red toe socks on in lieu of slippers, and her hair was a total mess underneath the tinfoil had she'd taken to donning at night, but she knew it wouldn't remain that way for long.
"The Starship Barren Pines is a decrepit excuse for a space vessel," she commented dryly. "When we leave the earth, it'll be in style. Not in a building where the escape hatches don't even work properly. Not with a crew that doesn't just fail to believe in the mission, but in the hope of crossing new borders. Or better- ignoring those borders altogether. When we go to space, no imaginary line will hold us back. You can quote as many dead guys as you like, and I can make things explode, and no one will be able to stop us. We're going to make our own history out there."
That was how Tara's interest in space travel had started: as an escape tactic. In that relatively unexplored realm, nothing was impossible. And while she now knew more about what was out there and what she hoped to find, somewhere in her mind, space was still the playland she'd imagined it to be when she was five.
"I wish I'd known about your fundraising, I would have helped." Or had Laney told her and she forgot? Maybe. Probably. "How is Frankie tonight?" she asked quickly, trying to change the subject. "Can you teach me that sometime? Maybe we can get up to the roof that way. The lock up there's probably better than what we get on our rooms, but it couldn't hurt to try."
There was no lukewarm greeting. Tara was bad at them and Laney always seemed to make them unnecessary. From the nearest shoebox Tara extracted a can of chocolate frosting, which she dunked a cookie into. Butter cookies and frosting. Dessert of champions.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 11:26 am
"We could try," Laney agreed, helping herself to a butter cookie shaped like a pretzel, "do you think we'd get kicked out of school?" The prospect of being expelled sent the corners of her mouth careening downwards into a huge, miserable frown. She sat on the cold brick of the windowsill, folding her arms on her knees. "My parents would be so mad. I wish we could escape, you know, in our spaceship, but that's, that's years off. Bang bang chitty chitty bang bang, our fine four-fendered friend!" (Laney was a repository of Broadway musicals.) "What are your parents like?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 3:22 pm
"Psssh, if they haven't kicked me out yet, I kind of doubt they're planning on it." Tara polished off her cookie and reached into the tin again. The school would have its choice of reasons to kick her out. Grades not up to par, because "gifted" though she might have been, she did the minimum required work in classes, and sometimes not even that. Disobedience, because she couldn't be bothered to memorize the student handbook. Destruction of school property, though that was an accident and in the name of science, and it wasn't like they didn't make her pay for the beakers. If they were so inclined, Barren Pines could have her packed and ready to go anytime. But they didn't, so Tara was stuck. At least she had someone to be stuck with.
"We'll escape one day. I promise." Cramming a sugar-sprinkled cookie into her mouth whole, Tara held out her pinky. She was serious about what she said. One day, they were going into space. Things were simpler there.
As the topic turned to parents, Tara swallowed and buried her face in the text in front of her. "They're both boring," she said flatly. "Mom's a teacher and Dad runs a museum and I'm the family disappointment. Honestly, I think they were glad to send me here, so I'd be out of the way. Hah, you should have seen the looks on their faces when they scouted me. It was awesome. My brother's pretty cool though. He's the one I really miss, but he moved out ages ago anyway. He's in grad school now."
There was a lot that she didn't say, like the fact that Tara still wrote dutifully to her father, the more open-minded of her parents, and looked forward to his emails, quick and boring as they were. The fact that even though her mother disapproved of her pursuits, she had still come to every science fair in middle school. Those facts seemed distant in the midst of her Barren Pines-induced imprisonment. Sighing, Tara took more care in selecting her next cookie. "What about your parents? If you're worried about what they think, they must be strict."
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