“But I checked,” Dave yelped, then bit his tongue. He knew that wasn’t a question he was supposed to answer, but he had checked.
“It was a non-scheduled out of Osaka,” Mr, Montgomery put in. “It filed only minutes before you launched and it hadn’t made it to the public bulletin board yet, David.”
Dave shut up; he’d take his medicine like a man. But I’ve touched the stars. He tried to listen as Ms. Harrison plowed on, describing the international treaties they had broken, but it was hard. His eyes kept filling with stars, stars he knew. For two hours he had soared among them, shared their freedom, felt their clear light. Nobody putting me down. How do I get back up there?
The fax machine beside the principal beeped and oozed out a page. She grabbed for it, another bucket of gas to throw on the stake where she was burning them. Her silence pulled Dave out of himself like her anger hadn’t.
Ms. Harrison’s eyes were wide in disbelief as she half mumbled, “This is from the headmaster at Stephen Hawking High.”
Dave blinked. “Hawking?”
She turned on them, her voice shrill. “Which one of you young terrorists had the gall to brag about your escapade of yesterday?”
Dave shook his head, glanced at Joe and Terry. Their mouths hung open.
Mr. Montgomery coughed. “I, uh, considered this one of the more noteworthy physics projects this year, and I passed a complete backgrounder to Hawking last week.”
Ms. Harrison glanced at her subordinate, then at the fax. “But this is talking about the results of Sunday’s fiasco?”
“I was getting a full data dump from the payload,” Mr. Montgomery shrugged with both hands. “I had a relay set up to Hawking. I guess I forgot to kill it when things took off on their own.”
“We will talk about this later.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The principal turned back to David, the distaste on her face one teachers usually saved for lectures about social diseases. “For some reason, they have seen fit to give you second place.”
“Second place,” Joe groaned.
“Who got first?” Terry asked.
“There is no reason why I should answer you, but I will.”
Dave figured the answer would be given with a two by four.
“Three young men orbited a satellite the proper way on Saturday. They launched it from Cape Canaveral with the approval of the test range there. They also designed their satellite properly. Any deep space probe will not have people to control it. Theirs was no souped-up joy ride. Theirs was properly operated by its onboard computer.”
Dave risked a glance at Terry. Go outside and play.
Terry gave him a who-knows-what-grown-ups-want shrug as the bell rang for first period.
“Report to your classes. I will expect to see you at detention every Saturday for the rest of this year. Mr. Montgomery will oversee you.”
The boys couldn’t have evacuated the room faster if it had been a holed space station.
“Sir, we’re sorry we got you in trouble.” Terry was mending fences, a good idea if they were going to spend their Saturday mornings with Mr. Montgomery.
“Don’t worry, fellows. I’m on leave of absence from Boeing. I can go to a lot of places. But there is something I’ve got to say to you.”
Dave and Joe gathered around, ready for one more dressing down.
“That was one beautiful piece of work. The headmaster at Hawking has his honors physics class chasing down the change you spotted in the cosmic background. Nobody’s got a clue why, but they’re all excited.” Mr. Montgomery looked squarely at each one of them. “I’m going to keep my eyes on you fellows. I expect you to go far, if you don’t kill somebody first. Remember, safety before anything else.”
“Yes sir,” Dave answered with the others. Dad had said they’d done good too, once he was sure no one had been hurt. Dave hadn’t really heard much of what his Dad said; Mom had sent him to his room with a block on all access—even games. Now, Dave tried to soak in Mr. Montgomery’s words, hear them, feel them, believe them all the way down to his toenails. We did do a pretty fantastic bit of work!
“Now get to class, you bozos.”
As they hurried down the hall, Joe spoke first. “Second place is half a scholarship. Damn! My folks still can’t make that.”
Terry worried his lip. “My Dad told me last night he’d been saving his bonuses the last two years. He thought that would cover me next year. With the scholarship, that would stretch maybe two years. But I’d miss you guys. I don’t know, maybe I won’t go.”
Dave shook his head. I’ve touched the stars, danced with them, fast and free as light. Nothing’s going to keep me down here now. “Hey guys, there’s this paper route. It’s not much, but with the scholarship, it ought to pay for Joe and me.”
Compromises. My friends aren’t stars, but where would I ever find a better bunch of guys? Delivering papers to old folks who made a world that hardly talks to them—I can relate to people stuck on the outside looking in. It might be dm getting to know them. Maybe all compromises weren’t so bad.
Joe shrugged. “I don’t mind a little work. Why not.”
Dave put his arms on his friends’ shoulders. “If we pull together, there’s nothing we can’t do. We can even touch a star.”