I follow Mom down the hall through the dining room and into the kitchen It doesn’t take long I can walk the length of the whole house in fifteen or twenty steps Mom whips up the cookies while I heat up yesterday’s soup She won’t let me anywhere near them probably because she doesn’t trust me not to snitch some of the dough As soon as we’ve gulped down some of our lukewarm minestrone we slide on our solar jacks short for solar-resistant jackets and shuffle out the door Mine crinkles like the brittle grass we have to crunch across The program keeps saying they’ll replace it but they’ve been saying that for years Not that I blame them for delaying They’re kind of busy settling Mars to ensure humanity’s survival Besides if they did plant new grass it would probably just die too Do we really have to wear these things I ask pointing at my solar jack Halfway down Armstrong Street the Cooper twins are playing hide-and-seek in their front yard without their solar jacks and even Abbott Nash who has celiac disease and some kind of skin condition is playing astronauts and aliens in the middle of his driveway also without his solar jack I don’t know Mom says too brightly Do you really want to get sun poisoning But it’s almost sunset I reply as beads of sweat drip down my back It only feels like 85 down from the day’s high in the mid-nineties Abbott doesn’t have his solar jack I’m not Abbott’s mom I’m yours and I say we’re wearing them A sharp wind whips down the street sneaking through the ventilation slits built into my solar jack ruffling the strawlike hairs that aren’t plastered to my neck Mom says it used to freeze this time of year in Minnesota where Base Ripley is located She’s even described this stuff called snow I’m not sure I believe her though It sounds too much like a fairy tale We approach the Tripathis old place which looks exactly like our house and every other one on Base Ripley The tank has disappeared but the new Electrocar is still parked along the curb It makes the house look alien like
someone from the outside lives there now The Tripathis old grass is just as dead as ours is but Mom still makes us walk around the lawn and up the driveway The east side of Armstrong Street sits slightly higher than the west so the driveway’s less of a driveway and more of an inclined plane It doesn’t take long for my shins to start burning Once we reach the porch Mom stops Do you want to do the knocking or the talking The knocking I reply I’m not here to make new friends I just want to drop these cookies off and get back over to the JICC She motions toward the door All right then Go ahead I squeeze my hand into a fist then before I can chicken out thump the door once in the middle I lower my fist but no one bothers to answer Even if they didn’t hear me I don’t want to knock again I’m just starting to think I should have agreed to do the talking when the bio lock hums softly there are thumb pads on both sides and the door swings slowly inward I was hoping for the dad but it’s the angry-looking girl Mom puts on her kilowatt smile Are your parents here she asks Mom’s not and Dad’s busy I may not be an expert on interpersonal communication but I know a brushoff when I hear one I start to turn around but before I can retreat Mom holds out the plate of cookies Then we’ll give these to you Mom says When the girl just stands there glaring Mom hurries to add We’re the O’Malleys by the way I’m Mina and this is Jameson We live across the street The girl pokes the plastic wrap camouflaging the cookies Are these chocolate chip she asks They’re butter cookies Mom replies But I made them with sugar grown right here in our shadehouses I’m not sure why Mom thinks the sugar’s origins will be a selling point Ever since the sun turned on us everything is grown in the shadehouses
The girl perks up anyway I haven’t had a cookie since before Mom left she says I glance down at my toes Our sugar allotment may be small but at least it’s more than nothing What if it really were nothing Mom holds out the plate again Then you’d better have a few This time the girl takes the cookies which is the kinder way of saying she snatches them out of Mom’s hands Her nostrils get as big as lima beans and I honestly think she’s about to shove them in her face plate cookies plastic wrap and all But then she seems to remember that her parents taught her manners Thanks is all she says She slams the door shut in our faces I send Mom a sideways glance Is it supposed to work like that We don’t get many new neighbors The Tripathis only left because the program asked them to move out after their daughter quit her training She pats me on the back Sometimes you just have to be patient
2 I WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING with the sun shining in my eyes The first thing I do is panic I overslept-slept-slept-slept-slept but the second thing I do is consult my alarm clock According to the blinking numbers it’s only 5 19 But it can’t be 5 19 We may be drifting closer to the unforgiving sun but the Earth’s decaying orbit has only shaved three or four days off the calendar so far It’s February seventh so the sun should still come up I calculate it in my head at 7 26 I fall out of bed and stumble over to the window The sun gets brighter as I stumble and for a second maybe more I’m positive that some new horror has been unleashed on the planet But when I sweep the drapes aside I don’t find a mother ship waiting to vaporize all life-forms just a barrel-shaped spotlight emblazoned with the familiar words UNIVERSAL NEWS NETWORK It’s sitting next to a news van which explains the person-shaped shadows that are scurrying around in the middle of the street I let out a held-in breath Base Ripley is supposed to be the most secure location on the planet but UNN is free to go wherever it wants to go freedom of the press and all that jazz I’ve never really understood why freedom of the press is so important The only thing reporters do is stick their noses in where they don’t belong I let go of the drapes and collapse back onto my mattress but whether it’s the spotlight or the stomachache that came out of nowhere I can’t fall back to sleep Before long I give up climb out of bed for the second time that day and drag myself into the bathroom But even though I shower fast I don’t beat Mom to
