22 SECRET IDENTITY

22 SECRET IDENTITY Lunar day 217 Dinner time It was an hour before Chang felt Nina had recovered enough to get her back to the base. During that time, Chang left me with her briefly to go to the surface and call everyone else on his radio. He announced that we'd found Nina and that all search parties could return to base, then came back down to the pod and repaired Nina's helmet. Nina slept the whole time. When we finally woke her back up, she seemed to have completely recovered her strength. I had expected that we'd have to help her return to the base, but she wouldn't hear of it. She suited up and walked back all by herself.

By the time we returned, all the other adults were back from the search. Everyone was gathered in the staging area and cheered Nina's arrival as we came through the air lock. "Welcome home!" they all whooped. "Congratulations on not being dead!" Roddy said. "This calls for a celebration!" Dr. Marquez exclaimed. "No," Nina said sharply. "There's no need for that. I haven't done anything worth celebrating. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a great amount of work to catch up on." With that, she slipped through the crowd and headed up the stairs toward her residence. "Work?" Mom asked. "Nina, if anything, you need time to recover." "And you should eat something," Daphne added. "I whipped up a special welcome-back dinner for you! I rehydrated all of your favorite foods!" "That was a waste of resources," Nina told her. "I had plenty of emergency rations in the pod. Now, I'm retiring to my quarters for the night—and I'd recommend that the rest of you do the same. Due to today's events, I assume that many of you have fallen behind on your projects, so tomorrow we're

all going to have a great deal of work to catch up on. Good night." With that, she slipped into her residence and shut the door behind her. "Boy," Kira said, "talk about your party poopers." "Yeah," Violet agreed. "She really pooped this party good." "She's upset that we're behind schedule?" Dr. Alvarez muttered. "We're behind schedule because of her!" "Maybe we should have just left her out there," someone muttered, though I didn't see who it was. With the celebration dead, everyone began to drift back to their rooms. It had been a long, stressful day, and Nina was right that tomorrow would be busy too. I was pretty sure I was going to have extra schoolwork to catch up on. I was still hungry, though. I hadn't eaten any emergency rations. In fact, I hadn't eaten much of anything since breakfast. So I took some of the food Daphne had rehydrated for Nina and scarfed it down in the mess hall. It tasted like damp cardboard, but for once, I didn't care. Mom sat with me, while Dad hustled Violet off to bed. "Nina didn't even thank everyone for helping look for her," I said, once I'd polished off my

dinner. "I think she was embarrassed by all the attention," Mom told me. "And by the fact that she had to be rescued at all. By a twelve-year-old boy, no less." "I guess," I agreed. "Ready for bed?" Mom asked. "You must be exhausted." "Actually, I feel grimy," I told her. "Do you think I could have a shower tonight?" "Yeah, I think you've earned yourself a shower." Mom proudly tousled my hair, then grabbed my dirty plates. "I'll take care of these. See you back in the room." That's life on the moon. The biggest reward you can get is a shower. It wasn't even a good shower. It was merely standing under a trickle of lukewarm water. But I wasn't really sticking around to shower anyhow. "Charlie" was still near the mess as well. I cleaned myself off anyhow. It might have been lame compared to an earth shower, but it was better than nothing. Then I toweled off, dressed, brushed my teeth, checked to make sure no one was inside the control room or the mess hall—and headed into the

greenhouse. I wasn't supposed to go into the greenhouse without permission. No kids were. But I figured it would be all right because Dr. Goldstein was in there. She was leaning against a table full of potted seedlings, staring at her ruined tomato plants. She wasn't crying anymore, but she still seemed kind of sad. There was a faraway look in her eyes, and she didn't even hear me come in. "Dr. Goldstein?" I asked. She turned, noticed me for the first time, and started in surprise. I wondered if I looked that way every time Zan appeared to me. Then she forced a smile onto her face. "Hello, Dashiell," she said. "What brings you in here?" "Are you Charlie?" I asked. Her smile faded. Then she seemed to realize this was a mistake and tried to cover. She didn't do a very good job of it. It took her a few moments to figure out what the right response might be. She finally put on her best blank look and said, "What are you talking about?" I'd already seen enough to know I was right,

though. "I won't tell anyone," I said. "I only want to know why you did it." Dr. Goldstein simply stared at me now, seeming unsure what to do. "Was it to get Nina demoted?" I asked. "So that Chang would become the base commander?" Dr. Goldstein's eyes widened in surprise. She seemed to forget all about faking innocence. Or maybe she was tired from hiding what she'd done and ready to own up to it. "How did you ever figure that out?" "Well, Chang and Nina said they were the only ones who knew that Chang was the temporary second in command. They never discussed it with anyone else, and the only place they ever talked about it was in the control room. But when I was in the control room earlier today, I realized you can hear anything in this greenhouse through the wall. So I figured if you're in here, you can probably hear everything in the control room, too. And you're in here all the time, while no one else is supposed to be." Dr. Goldstein looked at me curiously. "And that was all the evidence you had?" "No. I also know you had some problems with