Chapter 11
Whooosh……phtttt. I slid on something soft and powdery then slowly came to a stop. I sat lying on my back, with my feet sprawled out in front of me, staring up at an inky black sky. I felt the ground with my right hand. I could tell it was like sand but I couldn’t really feel it with my fingers. I looked down at my hand. It was covered with a thick gray glove. My eyes scanned from my hand to my arm. It was encased in a thick white fabric sleeve. I looked down at my chest to find the same white fabric, but this time it was covered with small knobs and tubes.
As I was investigating my own new clothes, P walked up beside me and his costume was in full view. His face was obscured by a shiny helmet and I could see my reflection in it. My head was covered by the same helmet. The backs of the helmets were made up of a hard white material. That in turn was attached to a mirror-like face mask. P’s arms and legs were covered with the puffy white suit and he looked like a giant marshmallow. P’s suit had a large rectangular pack attached to the back. It looked as if it would pull him over backwards, but he was able to stand up straight pretty easily. As he walked towards me his feet seemed to hover for a few seconds before touching the ground.
“Wow, Emma, this is so cool!” P exclaimed. “We get to wear space suits!”
When I heard P speak, it seemed to be coming from inside my helmet, right next to my ear, and his voice had a slight electronic sound to it. I recognized that we were both wearing space suits and set out to discover where we were. As P continued to walk closer to me, I scanned the environment. The ground was covered in light brown sandy dirt and there was not a tree or plant in sight. The air was motionless, not even a slight breeze. I was so used to the rough winds that accompany our travels that the still air gave me an eerie feeling.
Just as P caught up with me, Zack emerged from behind a large hill of dirt that resembled a sand dune. “Hey, guys, sorry it took me a few minutes to get over here. When I landed, I got my foot stuck in that sandy stuff over there and I had a hard time getting it out because of this big boot! Where do you think we are anyway?”
P chimed in, “We must be in the desert. See all this sand. But why would we be in space suits in the desert?”
Zack responded, “I wonder if we’re at a NASA training facility. I don’t think we’re in Texas or Florida, but maybe they have a secret place out in New Mexico or California. I think those states have some deserts. Why else would we be in these suits?”
I thought a moment then retorted. “This doesn’t really look like any desert pictures I’ve ever seen. Even in the desert there is a little breeze and even wind. Look over there.” I pointed to our left in the distance. “See those shiny slick rocks over there and those lumpy rocks over there. It looks like there are small mountains in the distance. Everything seems to be the same color, too.” I looked at P. “Okay, kid, I know you studied this in school just before we got out for the summer. You showed me some photos in a book you were reading. What do you think it is?”
P thought for a few seconds then his eyes lit up. “It’s the moon, Emma! Oh wow, we’re walking around on the moon. This is awesome!”
He was so excited that he jumped two feet into the air then floated gently down to the ground. It caught him off guard and he stopped and stared at us with his eyes wide open. In less than a minute, the frightened look was gone and the boy began leaping into the air over and over again to see how high he could get.
“Whoa P, that’s enough jumping, we don’t want to lose you into space if you go too high.” Zack laughed. P continued to do leaps, but kept himself lower to the ground to appease Zack.
“What should we do next?” I asked. “I doubt anyone else is here. I wonder what the book has planned for us to learn here.”
“I don’t know.” replied Zack. “But let’s go explore and figure it out!” He started to walk to the left and waved us on to follow him.
P and I walked after him. We walked slowly at first in our huge suits, then each step turned into a hop as we crossed the low gravity landscape. We finally approached what looked like a massive pile of sandy dirt. P immediately scampered towards it. He briefly paused to look at us, but before Zack and I could say “No” he had climbed to the top of the hill. Before we knew it, he sat at the very top of the hill and waved down at us.
“Hey guys, come look at this. It’s huge!”
We eventually caught up to him, and stood at the bottom of the hill. Zack looked at me. “Ladies first.” He bowed and ushered me ahead with a wave of his hand.
I climbed slowly up the hill until I reached P. I sat next to him and waited for Zack. He followed me up and sat next to both of us. The three of us sat quietly and looked out in awe over the other side of the hill. The dirt sloped downward in front of us and kept going and going until it eventually tapered off and became flat. The horizontal portion seemed to go on for miles into the distance.
“Are we on a mountain?” asked P and looked inquisitively at Zack and me then pointed. “Look how steep it gets down there.”
Zack responded, “I don’t think so. To me it looks like a great lake without any water.” He wrinkled his brow, “But I’m not sure.”
I scanned the area… brown dirt everywhere. It did look like a giant lake bottom, but it seemed too flat and even. Then it donned on me. “Hey guys. I think this is actually a crater.”
“No way,” P replied as he rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen pictures of those things and they just look like big circles. Like, this big.” He held his arms in an arc out in front of him with his fingertips touching.
“No P,” Zack laughed as he chimed in, “I think she’s right. Craters can actually be miles long. I think they’re caused by objects bumping into the moon.”
“Really?” replied P, “Because it doesn’t look like any of the pictures I’ve seen.”
I answered, “Well, honey…those pictures are from really far away so the craters look smaller. We are seeing it from very close up so it looks really big!”
P thought a minute, “Hmmm, that makes sense. I can see it now.”
Zack added chidingly, “Yes, and P, the moon is not really made of cheese, and it doesn’t actually have a face on one side.”
“Oh, Zack,” P laughed as he responded. “Stop making fun of me!”
Zack winked at P, then all of a sudden P lunged at Zack and they started to play wrestle. We all laughed, but as they wrestled, they began to roll down the side of the hill towards the inside of the crater. They seemed to pick up speed as they rolled.
I watched Zack and P tumble down the side of the crater. Dust flew through the air as they rolled, their legs tangled and arms flailed in the air. What started as a fun tussle began to turn into a dangerous situation. I heard a faint “Helllppp….” as they rolled faster and faster down the crater’s embankment.
I scanned the area for anything that might slow them down but the landscape was barren. If they didn’t stop they would be so far into the lake-sized crater that they wouldn’t be able to get back up. If I chased after them I could end up in the same predicament and we would all be stuck in the crater.
What else could I do? I started down the steep hill, trying hard not to lose my balance. The sandy ground was mobile and felt slick under my feet. Suddenly I started to tumble forward, but I caught myself just in time. Pheww. I started again but this time my feet slid out from under me and I landed on my back, with my feet sticking out in front of me. Dust flew around my face, and I had to wipe it from my eyes as I tried to look outward to see how far Zack and P had rolled.
I couldn’t help them. I sat there hoping that they would be all right. Suddenly, the two of them flipped through the air, tumbling over each other. I saw boots, then gloves, then plopppp! Both boys landed face down in the tan dirt. Their legs were sprawled out behind them and they weren’t moving.
I caught my breath as I waited for them to move. Finally I saw P’s left leg wiggle. He slowly pulled his feet underneath him and stood up.
P wa
s a little wobbly, but he managed to wave at me. “I’m all right Emma!”
“Thank goodness. How’s Zack?” I responded, trying not to let P hear the worry in my voice.
“I don’t know. Let me see.” P plodded very slowly, being careful not to fall and start the rolling again. He made it to Zack’s side, gently squatted down beside him and tapped him on the shoulder. He spoke quietly into Zack’s left ear and I could hear the anxiety in his voice. “Zack, are you okay?”
Time seemed to stand still as we waited for a response. Finally, we heard a low moan.
“Mnnnpphh. Ugh. Oh man.” Zack muttered. He slowly rolled over onto his back and pulled his heavy gloved hand to his the mask that covered his face, as if he was trying to hold his head. “What happened? I remember rolling down the side of the crater, then there was a bump, then everything went black.”
“We hit a rock and it stopped us from rolling. We both flew through the air. It was awesome!” P exclaimed.
“Oh dear,” Zack responded, “I must have hit my head on the inside of my helmet and got knocked out. I think I’m okay now. Thank goodness for that rock. I didn’t think we were ever going to stop.”
“I’m just glad you’re both okay!” I yelled from where I sat on the slope. “You guys need to take it slow coming back up here. Be careful!”
P and Zack began the ascent back up the side of the crater. They scaled the embankment carefully, ensuring that each step had good footing. They finally caught up to me and we carefully completed the trek back up to the apex. Once we arrived at the top, panting from the exertion, we rested and looked back in awe at the huge lake-like crater.
After a few minutes of silence, Zack spoke up, “Okay… who’s got the book. I think this may be a good time to try it.”
My mouth dropped open. I felt around my space suit. I didn’t have it. I don’t know how I would have been able to carry it anyway. “Do you have it P?”
P shook his head no. Zack shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t have it either.e slowly pulled his feet up under him then stood up
“Okay guys. We probably left it where we landed, but I’m not sure if I can even tell where we came from.” I continued to scan the area below us, but I couldn’t see the book.
The three of us sat atop the side of the crater looking out at the vast moonscape.
“Hey, Emma,” P interjected, “I think I see our footprints over there. We can follow them back to the book!” He nodded as he tapped his finger on the right side of his helmet as if tapping his temple to indicate how smart he was.
“All right smarty,” I responded. “Let’s go look for the book!”
We slid down the side of the hill and set out in search of the book. We retraced our steps as we followed the imprints of our boots in the sandy dirt. We saw the large toes pointing toward us and the smaller heels in the back. The centers of each shoe print had wavy ridges from the soles of the boots. Zack’s prints were by far the largest as he had started his teenage growth spurt. Mine were next in size, and P’s much, much smaller footprints followed beside the bigger ones. We continued to retrace our steps along the flat ground.
I spoke up, “Wow, I didn’t realize we had walked this far. There are so many footprints!” and then I paused and smiled. “Hey, I think I see the book. Is that it over there?”
Zack and P strained to see. “I see it!” P shouted. “That square bump right next to the rock.”
He began to run as fast as he could in the big boots and cumbersome spacesuit, which wasn’t very fast at all. We hobbled after him. We finally caught up with P, and I reached down to pick up the book. As I looked at its cover, I felt like it was frowning at me. The cover was slightly displaced to the right and I could see about one inch of pages sticking out. Because of the angle that the book was positioned in, they were spread into an arc forming the book’s frowning mouth. Two small stones sat on the face of the book and looked like sad eyes staring up at me.
I grabbed the book and held it to my chest. “Sorry.” I whispered so the boys couldn’t hear. Then I turned towards them with the book in my arms.
“Well, throw it down!” shouted P, and his exuberant voice reverberated through my helmet.
“Okay kid, but, I don’t think this is a good spot here. Let’s walk over that way.” I pointed in another direction worried that the book was still mad and didn’t like where it was now.
P and Zack shrugged their shoulders as if they didn’t understand, but followed me anyway as I turned and walked away. I walked about 20 feet before I gently put the book down on some soft soil. It was silly, bit I felt guilty for abandoning it earlier.
We waited about five minutes after I set it down. Nothing. The book remained still, but I felt like it wasn’t upset with us anymore. Its pages were in line and its cover was straight.
Zack finally spoke, “Now what?”
“I don’t think it’s ready.” I replied.
P looked downtrodden and shook his head from side to side.
“Well,” I added, “I guess we should explore some more. How often do people get to walk on the moon? But which way should we go?”
Just then a rock rolled out from under the book and with a “plop” the corner slid into the sand. A thin line of sand stuck to the edges, about two inches up both sides. The sand lines formed an arrow at the corner of the book that pointed in a direction we had not travelled yet.
“How about this way?” I pointed my index finger in the same direction as the arrow.
The boys seemed anxious to get going so there were no objections, and they started ahead of me. I remembered to reach down and grab the book before I left. Luckily, I had found the cloth bag lying next to where we had found the book earlier. I slipped the book through the opening and tried to fling the bag over my shoulder. The strap would not fit over the huge arm of my spacesuit and the bag kept slipping off. I clasped the strap close to the opening of the bag with my thick gloved hand. I held it as tightly as I could for fear of dropping it, took a deep breath then followed the boys.
We plodded along, occasionally stooping to look at moon rocks. Zack and P pointed out craters, but we smartly stayed away from them. As we walked along, P started to get bored. At first, he began to wander away from us, but Zack sharply steered him back onto our path with a “P!” that echoed through our headsets. P joined us and walked with us for a while, but soon became bored again. He started to hop like he had done before, briefly hovering in the air before he landed back on the ground.
Zack and I let him go because it was keeping him busy and we could keep an eye on him. Eventually he had managed to move himself in front of us and we could see the hopping get higher and the amount of time he spent in the air get longer. This continued until we heard a squeal.
“Emma! Zack! Please help me. I can’t get back to the ground!
Sure enough, P was floating about six feet off the moon’s surface. We scrambled after him but before we could reach him, he had floated above our heads. He was scared and started flailing his arms and legs trying to move his body back to the ground.
“Don’t flap your arms like that!” I shouted. “It will only make you go higher!
As I yelled, Zack was trying to jump up and catch P’s leg, but he couldn’t reach him. He kept jumping and hovering briefly in the air, but just couldn’t get high enough. P seemed to be floating higher faster.
“Why is his suit not working?” I excitedly asked Zack as he hopped through the air. “It shouldn’t let him get up that high! Our suits keep us heavy and on the ground.”
As I said these words, I saw about two feet of thick black tube protruding from the back on P’s spacesuit. It gently flapped in the air as P floated upward.
I yelled, “Zack, grab the black tube! You may be able to reach it. It looks like something came loose and his suit is not keeping him down!”
We both ran after P but it seemed like he kept getting farther and farther away. We frantically jumped trying to
grab P or something sticking out from his suit. We were beginning to fear that we couldn’t get him back down.
All of a sudden we heard a crackling noise come through the sound system inside our helmets, then a man’s voice spoke. “Houston, you’re not going to believe this. I’m not sure I believe it myself!”
There was a pause, then another crackle, then another man’s voice came responded. “Go ahead Neil, what’s the problem.”
The first man replied, “Um…It looks like we may not be the first ones out here. I see three men in the distance. Two of them seem to running, if you can call their slow movements running. The third is hovering about seven feet in the air. I think they are running after him, trying to catch him.”
The other man named Houston spoke again. “Uh, that’s impossible. No one else’s space programs have announced that they were going to the moon. It may be the Russians, be careful!”
“I don’t know,” Neil replied. “They all seem very short. The Russian astronauts that I have seen are much taller. The man that is floating in the air also seems extremely small.” There was a pause on both sides as they thought in disbelief, then Neil added, “Houston, I think they’re in distress and I need to help them!”
At first we could not see the astronauts, but as we chased after P, they came into view. The slightly taller of two men was just climbing down a ladder attached to a strange looking vehicle. The other man had poked his head out of the door. I thought that must be Houston. The top part of the contraption they were leaving was composed of flat panels placed in squares and hexagons. The top sat on a base that seemed to be covered in gold foil with four legs extending down to the ground.
We continued to move toward the men as we chased P. We couldn’t stop. We couldn’t lose him. The men started to hobble toward us as fast as they could.
I spoke to Zack as I had before, “I think the black tube is closer to the ground. Can you catch it? I think those men said they were coming to help. Maybe they can get it.”
As soon as I said this, the two men stopped dead in their tracks. “Um… can you hear us talk?” the taller man spoke, then added in surprise, “You speak English?”
“I can hear you just fine.” I replied.
Zack added, “Me too.”
P added, “Please help me! I can’t get back down to the ground!”
The taller man, Neil, began to speak to the shorter man, “Buzz, run around in front of him and try to catch him. I will try to grab him from the side!”
They maneuvered toward P. Buzz headed in front of him and Neil came towards him at an angle. We followed behind him as fast as we could in our cumbersome spacesuits. The two older men were much taller than us. Zack was tall but not as tall as them. Hopefully they could reach the tube.
We watched Neil jump into the air, and, as he hovered there, he was able to reach out and grab the broken black tubing sticking out from P’s suit. He grabbed it tightly and pulled P closer to the ground. P was then able to put both of his legs on the ground as Neil held him by the shoulder. Buzz came over to him and grabbed the end of the tube that had been hanging off of the spacesuit. He found where it had popped off and was, surprisingly, able to reattach it. Zack and I saw him tighten something around the tube and then it stayed in place.
P was now able to stay on the ground. We could tell that he was still a little afraid. He seemed to shuffle as he walked, not picking up his big boots into the air, likely in fear of drifting into space again.
I turned to the astronauts. “Thank you so much for your help.”
“Yes, thank you for saving me!” Polite P chimed in.
The men made sure that P was safe, but then they remembered their confusion at seeing the three of us.
“So who are you?” Neil asked.
“Yeah, are you from Russia? You don’t have a Russian accent.” Buzz added. How did you get here? Where is your lunar lander?”
As they asked these questions, the crackling noise came through our headsets again. “What’s going on up there? We lost you for a while. Is everything okay? Over.”
Neil spoke first. “Um, Houston, We are all right. We ran into a little trouble, but, I think everything is okay now.”
As I listened to their conversation, I realized who they were talking to. Houston wasn’t the name of a man but the name of the city they were in. It was NASA, mission control for America’s space flights. I laughed to myself, then stood in amazement as it donned on me that we were talking to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first men on the moon. Michael Collins must still be in the orbiter.
Zack nudged me, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Do you know who these guys are? Wow!”
I came out of my dream state as I realized that these two men were staring at US in disbelief and had asked us many questions that we could not answer. We had a lot of explaining to do from their point of view.
P interrupted my thoughts. “Emma, I know who these guys are. I learned about them in school!”
The five of us stood there staring at each other, not sure what to do next. Suddenly, P’s flapping arms caused the tubing to flop off his back again, and he started to slowly drift upward. My mind worked fast this time, and in a split second, I pulled the bag from my shoulder, yanked out the book and threw it onto the ground.
A word quickly began to form on the cover. “DREAM” appeared in heavy black print. At first nothing else happened. Zack was in the process of grabbing the tubing at P’s back and holding him still when the breeze started. The pages fluttered gently at first, then the book flopped open to reveal its blank sheets. A faint lowercase “a” materialized in the right upper corner of one of the open pages. It hopped down to the center, similarly to how P was hopping across the moon. An “e” formed in the left upper corner and slid down to the center to rest near the “a”. More letters began to appear in the corners and along the sides of the page. Each letter hopped or slid to its final position.
When all the letters were in their appropriate spots we could read the quote. “Never give up. Strive to achieve your dreams. If a man can make it to the moon, YOU can do anything you set your mind to. Following your dreams and desires will bring you closer to home.”
Then the wind picked up and sand began to whip into the air. The astronauts were stunned. The air on the surface of the moon was definitely not supposed to do this.
Sandy dirt began to spin in a circle on the ground. Sand lifted upward and the center of the circle began to look like an eddy in a river, coming to a point at the center. The ring continued to lift off of the moon’s surface and slowly spun until the opening stood in front of us.
The wind then became a gale, and sand and small rocks flew through the air. The debris obstructed our view of the astronauts. I could see them holding their gloved hands up to their helmets to try to see through the flying rocks. They were so stunned they couldn’t even speak.
Suddenly, the spinning sand fell to the ground and only a filmy swirling mist remained. The center opening began to enlarge from a small circle, to kid sized, then to teenager sized. It was time. Zack suddenly took charge, pulled P’s tube closer to him and grabbed his hand, then grabbed my left gloved hand. As he dragged us toward the mist, I reached down and grabbed the book and bag in one sweep and held them tight to my chest. Well, as close to my chest as I could through my thick spacesuit.
Zack leapt first, and P and I trailed slightly behind, both of us grasping Zack’s bulky gloves firmly. As we travelled toward the silent abyss, I heard the familiar crackling of the radio from mission control.
“We lost contact with you for a while. Is everything okay? What is your status? How are the other astronauts?”
“Um, Houston…” Neil replied in a confused tone. “It’s actually just the two of us. I really can’t explain what we just saw. I think we were both hallucinating. The combination of the stress of the trip and the atmosphere of the moon must be playing with our minds. Things are back to normal now. Well
, Houston, that’s one small step for man……”
The familiar silence engulfed us before Neil completed his famous quote. As we floated, I began to feel the warmth of Zack’s hand as the thick gloves seemed to melt away. I was thankful that he was there with us. He was a true friend to P even though he was much older, and he was probably the best friend I had since we moved into the new house. I wondered if he knew how much he meant to me, then the blackness of the abyss surrounded me and my thoughts drifted away.