“Are you taking pictures of this space ship?”
“The question is, why aren’t you?”
“Non-disclosure agreement.”
“I just don’t want to forget anything,” Jenny said.
Brooklyn raised her eyebrow. “Do you really think you’ll forget any of this?”
“Good point,” she said, grinning.
Still, she held up her phone. “Selfie with me?”
Brooklyn shook her head and leaned in. They both made big cheesy grins, and Brooklyn held up a peace sign as Jenny snapped the pic.
“Friends are always good to remember,” Jenny said.
“True.”
Like a regular plane, the seats were in rows, though only two on each side, near windows, so the passengers could see out. Jenny figured that must have been by design, since it was taking Earthlings, who’d never left their world, into space.
From a row behind them, one other that Jenny hadn’t met yet rambled on about going to space before his cousin, who worked for NASA and studied and trained for years, and never got to touch the stars.
“He brings up a good point,” Jenny said. “What about all of them? NASA astronauts, and all the other space organizations around the world? Wouldn’t they have something to do with all of this?”
From the seat in front of her, Polly turned around. “They are. And they will. We’re organizing a kind of council for aliens and astronauts. Start a program that allows for exploration and all that stuff that they’re going to do.”
“You’d think it would be easier if the aliens just gave us the stuff, and we could develop it,” Jenny said.
“Well, there’s a whole thing about that?—”
Polly was cut off by the ship moving.
Jenny clutched her cat carrier that she’d stowed on the floor between her feet, holding it steady, and grabbed the handles of the seat.
“This is it,” she whispered.
She half-expected the ship to tip up on its backside and lift off like a rocket, but it didn’t.
It just rose into the air, up through the haze of clouds for a few seconds, like a slow balloon rising, and then it shot forward.
And they were moving.
And oh wow, were they moving!
“Look!” Brooklyn said, pointing at the window.
She stared in wonder as the ship rose, and they headed straight into the sky, higher and higher.
The ship shook, and she held on tight. Outside, she could see where the atmosphere ended. Not quite a harsh line, more like a badly blended ombre, the whitish blue of Earth’s sky, faded to a white film, and then that melted into the stars.
Like they’d crossed a finish line, all the shaking disappeared. The engine’s roar shifted to a much softer one, and the ship turned. Her grip on the cat carrier relaxed, and she let out a breath.
“This is?—”
“We’re weightless!” Brooklyn squealed.
Right there in front of her, Brooklyn’s purse was floating.
