The last brassy note was dying when Dad surprised Dave by showing up on time for dinner. “Sorry I’m late. That smells good. How’d your day go at school?”
Dad said that every night. Dave wondered if this was a holo program, too. Then Dad reached over, punched his shoulder, and grabbed the two biggest slices. “Us growing boys got to share.”
“Yeah, but I’m growing up. Some people are just growing.”
That got Dave another punch, but Mom gave Dad one of those wide-eyed looks. She’d quit adding, “From the mouths of babes,” after Dave told her he wasn’t a baby.
Dave got one of the big slices back.
The first slice of pizza disappeared in a silence that drained it of taste. Dad paused, looked at his second piece and folded hands. “Mom tells me you did quite well on the entrance test to Stephen Hawking High.”
Dave pulled out the letter, glad to get it out of his pocket. He forgot to wipe his lingers and pizza smeared the address. Dave hadn’t handled many letters; everyone just sent e-mail. But the school board was old fashioned; test results came by U.S. mail.
Dad spread the letter under the dim light above the kitchen table. “Damn good,” he beamed, but his smiled wavered around the edges; he knew. “Fourteenth out of five hundred, and only the best even try. That’s something to be proud of.”
“I know.” Dave said the empty words, anything to fill the silence.
Mom stared at her plate as she patted pizza sauce from her lips. “I ran into Ms. Salvador in the e-mail last night. Her boy graduates from Hawking this year and is going into the Air Force. He’s looking for someone to take over his paper route.” She focused on Dave. “It supported his stipend all four years.”
“Mom, we agreed. My job is school. I’m getting straight A’s.” Almost. Gym didn’t count. “And besides, everybody gets their paper on line. Only the old folks at the retirement park need newspapers. They’re too dumb to use a computer.”
“Now, honey, I know it would mean less time for your games, but you could—”
“Lisa,” Dad cut Mom off, “enough.” Their eyes locked for a long moment. At the same instant, Mom’s gaze fell to her plate as Dad pushed back from the table. He stood, back to them, eyes staring at something beyond the picture window, his scowl reflected back by the black night. Was Dad that mad at him?
When Dad finally spoke, it was to his reflection. “I started saving for college the day you were born. Seven years back, I could tell the damn voucher wouldn’t cover a good high school. When the levies kept getting voted down, some politician was bound to let schools opt out and charge extra.” He clenched his fist. “I saw it coming.”
Dad turned back to the table. “I thought I’d be ready when you needed money for school, but the next generation of chips came out a year early. I had to retool just to stay in business. It took everything we had. I was sure we could make it back, right up until the recession hit. Now I’m bidding contracts at cost.” Dad slumped back into his chair.
Dave said nothing. He’d sat through the VR’s in civics class, telling about the wonders and freedom the information revolution brought to the American worker. Dave aced the test, but there was nothing on them about Dad scrounging for contracts or Mom scrimping to pay the health insurance. Around the house, the right answers felt wrong.
Dad picked up a fork. “Damn it, we’ve got two people working their butts off to make ends meet. It ought to be enough.”
Dave couldn’t just sit there. “It’s OK, Dad, Terry, me and Joe figure the science project scholarships belong to us.”
That got Dad’s attention. “What do you have in mind, son?”
Dave had never lied to his Dad. Carefully, he explained Terry’s idea without quite telling an untruth. Dad wasn’t nearly as thrilled as he expected.
“Dave, I was your age when Cosmic Background Explorer hit the news. I hate to say it but Terry might not have such a good idea.”
“Huh.” Dave had expected Dad to be excited, especially since he hadn’t told him the half of it. A chill ran through him, turning the pizza to acid. Did every grown-up have to put down kids?
“Son, it’s been a long time since I read anything on how they found the leftovers from the Big Bang, but, if memory serves, you’ll need cryogenic cooling.”
Relief swept Dave. Dad wasn’t against him; he was just problem solving. That was fun. “The glasses don’t need any.”
“Right,” Dad nodded, “but when you’re hunting for something only two or three degrees above absolute zero, you need cold sensors. You might want to check it out; I could be wrong.”
Dave could count on one hand the number of times Dad had been wrong. He was just trying to go easy on Dave. Terry hadn’t mentioned just how cold the cosmic background was—and Dave hadn’t asked.
“I better do some more homework. May I be excused, Mom?” Polite words like those Dave usually kept between himself and grandmother. Tonight he needed them at home.
Mom smiled through a worried shadow. “Yes, son.”
“Dave, if there’s anything I can do to help with your project…”
Dave groped for the words his Dad needed to hear, but the whirling inside his own head could only give up a “Thanks,” that seemed worse than nothing. He left the letter on the table as he fled down the hall.
Back in his room, a window on the monitor was flashing, announcing the analysis he’d been running of “Ultimate XXI” was finished. Dave had the program cold this time. He was going to save the six princesses, capture all the gold and kill the dragon—while beating the official best time. He’d run the paths of each of his adventures through the labyrinth one last time. No one had yet been able to beat ten waits, but Dave was sure he could. The program was ready to run, inviting him.
Dave closed down the window; he had a project to build. It took him ten minutes on net to find out that Terry had once again come up with a great idea—that couldn’t be done. Dave spent the next hour doing what he did best, figuring out how to make it happen.
Dave met his friends next morning at their usual place under the tree outside school. Terry handed him a full project plan; he’d used his Dad’s project management software. It was a beautiful plan—and all wrong. Dave tore it in two.
Terry grabbed for it. “What’s the matter with you, you on something?”
“Infrared astronomy ain’t anything like heat management. We’re not looking for 60 degree air seeping out of a house. We’ve got to find the difference between 3 degrees Kelvin and 2.99999 to the zillion degrees. We’d have to use cryogenics.”
Terry didn’t back down. He never did. “No we won’t.”
“Want to bet?” Dave cut him off. He waved three hard copies he’d taken off the net. Two minutes later, even Terry could see they had a problem.
Joe took the two pieces of Terry’s project plan and wadded them up. “Now what do we do?”
Terry kicked the tree. “But I told Mr. Montgomery we’d turn in a science project plan today.”
“Tell him your Dad’s printer went down and you’ll have it tomorrow.” It was neat how two heads swiveled around to lock on him. “There were three sensors on COBE. Two required cryogenics. We do the third.” Dave pulled a report on the Differential Microwave Radiometer from his backpack and handed it to his friends. They were still studying it when the bell rang.
“We can do this,” Joe said slowly.
“I can redo the project plan tonight. We’ll be all set for tomorrow,” Terry crowed.