8 Sweegling in Space

Chapter 8 SWEEGLING IN SPACE As the ship closed in, the moon just about filled the window. Its surface was silvery with millions of craters of all sizes, and dark and light patches of gray and brown. There were no other colors, but it was a beautiful thing nevertheless. Coke's and Pep's jaws dropped open as they gazed in wonder. Decades ago, it took the Apollo astronauts about three days to travel 239,000 miles to the moon. In 2006, the NASA Pluto probe took a little over eight hours to get there. Onboard the alien spacecraft, Coke and Pep had made the trip in twenty-four minutes. The moon may look like a perfect sphere from our vantage point, but it's not. As the ship got closer, the twins could see huge mountains and valleys.

"Approaching the Sea of Clouds," said Moe. "Steady as you go." Curly and Larry busied themselves with the controls, which they carried in their clawlike hands. Coke and Pep couldn't tear their eyes away from the window. "Only a few human beings have walked on the surface," Pep mused out loud. "Twelve," Coke replied. "How do you know that?" "Doesn't everybody know that?" Coke asked, then reeled them off. "Armstrong, Aldrin, Conrad, Bean, Shepard, Mitchell, Irwin, Scott, Duke, Young, Schmitt, and Cernan." "What possible reason did you have to memorize those names?" Pep asked. "I didn't try to memorize them," Coke replied. "It just happened." The ship was slowing down. The twins could feel the weightlessness wearing off. Through the window, they could see the surface more clearly now. Some of the craters had debris around the

circles that fanned out in a pattern like rays of sunlight. Something must have hit the moon hard to create those. Coke informed his sister that one crater, called Clavius, was 146 miles wide. "Prepare for landing," Moe announced. "Why are they taking us here?" Pep whispered to her brother. "Beats me." As the ship descended to the surface, Coke spotted something familiar off in the distance—a lunar module that was used by our astronauts back in the 1970s. It had four "legs" and was partly covered with gold foil that stood out from all the black and white. It looked a little bit like a spider. There was other equipment strewn near the lunar module, and an American flag sticking in the surface of the moon. "Look!" Coke said, pointing out the window. "It's the stuff left behind by one of the Apollo missions." The ship touched down with a gentle clunk

and the engine vibrations suddenly stopped. For a moment, all was silent. "Flog slab," the aliens began to chant. "Flog slab. Flog slab." "Oh no," Pep groaned. "Not with the flog slab again." "Flog slab means 'golf balls,' remember?" Coke reminded her. "So what?" Pep said. "What do golf balls have to do with the moon?" Coke knew exactly what golf balls had to do with the moon. He had watched a TV documentary about it when he was in first grade. It was all because of Alan Shepard, who was the first American in space, back in 1961. A decade later, in February of 1971, he became

the fifth human being to walk on the moon, as a member of Apollo 14. When the mission was nearly complete, Shepard took two golf balls he had hidden in his space suit and dropped them on the surface. He had brought along a collapsible golf club—a six iron, to be specific. He thought it would be fun to whack golf balls on the moon. Don't believe me? Look it up. That's why they invented the internet. "Alan Shepard was the first and only interplanetary golfer," Coke told his sister. "He was also the first and only interplanetary litterbug," Moe said. "What he did was disgraceful." "It was just a couple of golf balls," Coke told Moe. "What's the big deal?" "Do you think the universe is your toobleshmoot? Your garbage can?" asked Moe. "Hey, don't look at me," Coke said. "I didn't litter on the moon." "Wait a minute," Pep interrupted. "Are you

saying that you came all the way here to pick up a couple of golf balls that Alan Shepard left on the moon back in 1971?" "No," Moe told her. "I am saying that we came all the way here for you two to pick up the golf balls that Alan Shepard left on the moon back in 1971." "You gotta be kidding me," Coke said, laughing. "Sweegling in space is a serious offense!" Moe said. "I mean, littering." "But we'll die if we go out there!" Pep said, clinging to her brother. That was certainly true. Aside from the fact that there's no air to breathe on the moon, the temperature during the day can reach 250 degrees. At night, it gets down to 290 degrees below zero. Nobody could survive that. Curly and Larry came into the room with two bulky suits and helmets, not unlike the ones the Apollo astronauts had worn. "Put these on," Moe instructed the twins.