19 FACE-OFF

19 FACE-OFF Lunar day 252 T minus 11 hours to evacuation It took another two and a half hours to repair the base oxygen system and another thirty minutes to confirm that it was safe to allow everyone back inside MBA once again. During that time, we had little to do but wait on the lunar surface. Since more than half my oxygen was gone, I didn't want to exert myself too much and burn through the rest of it. I also didn't want to turn my back on anyone. Dr. Balnikov was keeping a very

close eye on Lily Sjoberg, but that didn't mean someone else might not take a crack at me. Lars was one of the few Moonies who hadn't witnessed at least some of Lily's attack on me. Most everyone had missed the beginning of it, where she unplugged my oxygen hose, but they had seen what the fight had devolved into. However, Lars had been on the other side of the base; in his haste to evacuate MBA, he had abandoned his own children and raced off to the emergency backup air lock. Now, Lars tracked me down and spent much of our remaining time on the lunar surface shouting at me. I think he might have been accusing me of starting the fight and of possibly even trying to kill Lily, but I don't know for sure because I switched off my radio three seconds into his tirade so I didn't have to listen to him. Lars didn't notice. Instead he continued gesticulating angrily for another hour, until he had screamed so much that his own oxygen supply dropped to dangerous levels and he had to stay silent simply to keep from asphyxiating. To conserve my own energy, I sat by the air-lock door. It occurred to me that I was squandering some of the last, precious time I had on the lunar surface, and that I should have been off exploring the moon

or at least enjoying the feel of wandering around on a foreign celestial body while I could still do it. But I was too exhausted, physically and mentally. It had been a very long day, and, frankly, there wasn't too much to see around MBA anyhow. It was the one part of the entire lunar surface that had been polluted by humans, and thus it looked more like an industrial wasteland than a pristine moonscape. Meanwhile, Kira and Violet were relishing every moment of their time outside. If Violet was upset at all by our ordeal, she didn't show it. But then, Violet hadn't been out of MBA since we'd arrived, so it was possible that the excitement of this trumped any other emotions. First the girls made history by being the first humans to do cartwheels on the moon, and then they attempted several other gymnastic moves as well, with varying results. After that, they tromped off to a nearby patch of virgin moon dust and made the first human footprints there. I thought about radioing them and telling them to stay close to base, but I could still keep an eye on them from where I was, and I figured Violet deserved some fun after our near-death experience. Once we were given the all clear to come back inside, I was allowed to enter first due to my

depleted oxygen supply. The other kids—Violet, Kamoze, Inez, Kira, Roddy, and Cesar—were also given priority status. After a normal trip onto the surface, we would have spent at least fifteen minutes in the air lock, trying to vacuum the moon dust off our suits before returning them to storage. However, there were too many other people waiting to come in behind us. Plus, keeping MBA free of moon dust wasn't such a big priority anymore, seeing as half of us were scheduled to evacuate the next day. So we passed through the air lock as quickly as possible, then removed our suits in the staging area instead, getting moon dust all over the nice, sterile moon- base floor. Mom was waiting for us anxiously in the staging area. She had heard almost immediately over the radio that Lily Sjoberg had tried to kill Violet and me, but she hadn't been able to come to comfort us because of the urgency of the repair work on the oxygen system. Now she looked exhausted and racked by guilt. She wrapped her arms around both of us tightly and sobbed, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." "Why are you sorry?" Violet asked innocently.

"You didn't do anything. Lily Sjoberg did." "I'm sorry you had to go through that at all," Mom explained. "We weren't in that much danger," Violet said reassuringly. "Well, Dash kind of was, but I saved him." "You did," I said, tousling her hair. Violet then told Mom everything that had happened. In truth I knew Violet had been a lot more scared than she was letting on. When she got frightened, she had a habit of overstating her bravery. On our rocket to the moon, she had been so scared during liftoff that her hands had gone cold, but she later insisted that she hadn't been scared one bit and that the ride had been a hundred times better than any roller coaster on earth. While she chattered to Mom, I noticed Cesar Marquez close by, trying to figure out how to unlatch his helmet from his suit. I wandered over to him. "Thanks for helping Violet out there." Cesar shrugged. "I saw someone picking on a kid and thought it wasn't cool. I had no idea it was Lily. I figured it was someone psycho, like Patton or Dr. Goldstein." "Dr. Goldstein?" I repeated, surprised by this

accusation. "Yeah. She's so weird, always working with her plants." "Well, she is a botanist...." "She talks to them." "Lots of people do that. And it especially makes sense here. It gives them carbon dioxide." "Carbon what?" Cesar asked dully. "It's what plants take in to make oxygen...." "Whatever," Cesar said, already seeming bored by the conversation. "I still can't believe it was Lily." He shuddered. "I can't believe I fought a girl." He tried to yank his helmet off without unlatching it first, which was impossible. "I can help you with that," I said, reaching toward him. "I can do it fine by myself," Cesar said curtly, even though he couldn't. It seemed that the whole idea of fighting Lily had put him on edge. Or maybe he was upset to find out that Lily had tried to kill someone. After all, she and Cesar had spent a lot of time together at MBA. Cesar stormed away from me, straining against his own helmet, oblivious to the latch that was still connecting it to his space suit. When he couldn't get