5 NEWBIES

5 NEWBIES Lunar day 188 Noon The rocket had originally been scheduled to arrive seventeen days earlier. For getting to the moon, though, seventeen days late counts as being almost on time. Even though we've been launching rockets for almost a hundred years, things still go wrong all the time. It's not like in the movies, where everyone just jumps into their spaceships and flies off whenever they want. Launching a rocket is immensely

complicated. It's, well... rocket science. And lots of things can go wrong: Any of the millions of parts can malfunction, a computer can glitch, a storm can move in, a cloud of space junk can drift into the flight path. Plus, heading for the moon isn't something you can do whenever you want. You need a window when the earth and moon are in just the right place relative to each other. Miss that window and you might as well unpack your bags— you're going to be waiting a while. Frankly, you're lucky if your rocket takes off within a week of when it's supposed to. One of the original missions for the construction of MBA was delayed for more than a year. And to think, my grandparents say they used to get upset when planes on earth were delayed an hour. But now the Raptor was almost here. Despite Dr. Holtz's death, there was excitement in the air. Almost every Moonie was gathered in the rec room to watch the rocket's arrival. Yes, that's right. Even though the Raptor was landing less than a football field away from us, we still had to watch it on TV. This was because the moon has no atmosphere. Therefore, no matter how gently a rocket lands, the

retro rockets that slow its descent will still blow away every bit of rock and moon dust below them, shelling everything nearby. NASA built a twenty- foot blast wall around the landing pad to protect MBA, but there isn't a single window oriented in that direction, just in case something makes it over. We don't want our precious glass getting shattered by a rogue moon rock. As it is, we've already lost two panels in Solar Array 2 to blast debris. Violet was seated on the floor right in front of the SlimScreen, along with Inez Marquez—Roddy's little sister and her best friend—and Kamoze Iwanyi, the only other little kid on base. The three of them were pleading for someone to switch the TV to cartoons instead of the rocket's arrival. (After hearing about Dr. Holtz's death, Violet had been sad for a few minutes but had quickly returned to her usual effusive self.) The adults weren't paying much more attention than the kids. The first time a rocket had arrived, we'd all sat riveted to the TV. But by now even this amazing event had become routine. Everyone was socializing, only keeping one eye on the screen while they talked science and gossip. Roddy was AWOL. He must still have been in the bathroom, covertly

leading raids on virtual moons from the toilet stall. The older kids, Cesar Marquez (Roddy's big brother) and the Sjoberg twins, Patton and Lily, were all clustered together as usual. Cesar is usually pretty nice to me, but the Sjobergs are jerks. Due to the Transitive Property of Jerkiness, any time they're around Cesar, he becomes kind of nasty himself. That was it for other kids at MBA, so I was watching the landing with my parents. "Looks like Katya's coming in perfect," Dad said, meaning Katya King, the head pilot on the Raptor. "Like always," Mom agreed. My parents looked around the room for someone else for me to hang out with. They weren't trying to ditch me; I think they felt bad I had no one else to talk to but them. "Where's Roddy?" Dad asked. "You don't want to know," I replied. Dad considered that, then nodded. "You're probably right. I don't." "Nina told me not to talk about Dr. Holtz anymore," I said. Mom and Dad both scanned the room to see if anyone was eavesdropping on us. No one was. "When?" Mom asked.

"Not too long ago. She called me into her office. She told me the death was an accident, not a murder, and that if I didn't shut up about it, I'd be causing trouble." Mom and Dad shared a long look. It seemed as though an entire conversation passed between them, unsaid. "How did she know you thought he was murdered?" Mom asked, keeping her voice low so no one else would overhear. "She wouldn't say." Mom nodded. "Well, I can understand her concern. Back on earth, there are a lot of people paying very close attention to this base. If a rumor spread that Dr. Holtz had been murdered, it could be a disaster." "Well, what if it's not a rumor? What if there's really a killer on the loose? Shouldn't someone at least investigate?" "I'm sure they will," Dad replied. "There's no way a death up here wouldn't be looked into. But they're probably only thinking of it as an accident." "But what if it really is a murder?" I asked. "If no one's looking for the killer, then the killer won't just get away—they'll still be living with us! How long do

you think it'll be before someone else gets bumped off?" Both my parents signaled me to keep my voice down. Before either one could come up with an answer, Chang Hi-Tech came along. Chang's real last name is Kowalski, but no one calls him that. He's MBA's resident genius. Officially he came to the moon as a geochemist, but he's really a jack-of-all-trades, able to handle everything from computer glitches to leaky rehydrators. It's always easy to find him at MBA, because even on earth he'd stand out in a crowd. He's a tall, muscular Polish-Samoan, he has a Mohawk, and his arms are covered with tattoos. All his favorite scientists" likenesses are inked on his skin—Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Niels Bohr, Isaac Newton—but they're all drawn as superheroes, clad in spandex, battling enemies like Hitler and Godzilla. Chang designed the art himself. I was worried Chang had overheard me talking about the possible lunar serial killer, but he showed no sign of it. Instead he was focused on the TV screen, watching the rocket. "Man, that Katya's an ace," he said. "I'll bet you a thou she parks that Raptor dead center on the pad."