Cosmic Callisto Caprica & the Missing Rings of Saturn Read online

  “Congratulations, Miss Caprica. I’m sure you’ll make the Federation proud,” Mrs. Elara said as she fastened my armband just a little bit above my elbow. I finally had my dark blue armband with the tiny gold shield on it. I could finally say with confidence that I was entering basic training to become a detective for the Lunar Federation! Before I left the stage, I placed my left hand on my hip and I pulled my right arm up to my chest. I turned around just enough so that the audience could see my armband. The crowd exploded with loud whoops, raised fists, and screams of congratulations. I felt like I was on Cloud Nine.

  “Don’t move a muscle, Cosmo!” someone with a squeaky voice commanded. Two seconds later, I was blinded by three flashing lights. The only thing I could see were several large black dots dancing in front of me. After blinking my eyes four times, the dots disappeared and I could see again. “This is going to look really great in the school newspaper!” I looked down. Gloria Morningstar stood in front of the stage with a silver camera that was attached to an enormous flash. She grinned at me, then she readjusted her thick dark brown hair into her turquoise-colored snood before she slipped back into the crowd.

  With a spring in my step, I made my way off the stage. Martha glided her finger across my armband. “It’s so beautiful,” she said with a smile. As soon as her fingertips left my armband, Mr. Nova called forth the row of graduates Martha was in to the stage. As expected, Martha cried from the moment she left her seat to when she finally came back to it. When she returned, I gently took her into my arms and patted her on her back. But it seemed like the more I patted her, the harder she cried. She had every right to cry, though. Being the only Martian in this school and having to deal with people who thought she didn’t belong there because she was a Martian would be enough to drive anyone to tears.

  “I told you that you would make it to graduation.”

  She sniffled a bit and then we both turned our attention back to the line of students walking up to the stage. Martha tugged on my shirtsleeve as she pointed toward the line. “Cosmo, look! It’s Vicki!” As soon as I caught sight of Vicki, my mouth flew open. Her hair, which before graduation had been jet black, was now a rich shade of cinnamon red and she had it swept up into a beehive hairstyle. Her hair color was outlandish, but it did complement her coloring well, with her bright brown eyes and dark brown skin. She had painted her nails, lips, and eyelids to match the color of her hair. Vicki had also made a change to her uniform. She was wearing the standard white button-down shirt with the navy blue tie and the matching pencil skirt that stopped below the knees. But she had modified the skirt and given it a split in the back, which was pretty close to being inappropriate for this occasion. Her entire getup, from the skirt to her hair, was against school policy and I was one hundred percent certain she was doing all of this on purpose because she knew she could get away with it. I mean, what were they going to do? Not give Vicki her certificate and armband over some red hair and a skirt with a split in the back? As she walked past Martha and me, Vicki gave us a flirtatious wink as if to say, “I don’t care if I get in trouble for this because I know I’m fabulous.” There was nothing I could do but laugh. Only Vicki would have the nerve to show up at graduation like this.

  “Go, Vicki, go!” I hollered. The look on Mr. Nova’s face was beyond priceless.

  “It looks like Mr. Nova is getting ready to explode,” Martha said. Although Mr. Nova was a wonderful principal and would do anything to help us be the best students we could be, he also had a very horrible temper. I could literally tell how angry he was by what shade of red his ears and a portion of his face turned to. Right then, the tips of his ears were a light shade of red. He was only slightly angry. Hopefully, Gloria would catch all of this with her camera. Mr. Nova was such a stickler for the rules, and seeing Vicki like this was no doubt driving him insane. I was sure if he could stop the graduation just to pull out the school rulebook and give Vicki a lecture from the chapter on the schools dress code, he would.

  Mrs. Elara patted Vicki’s red beehive hair before putting her purple armband on her.

  “I can’t believe she showed up to graduation like that,” I heard someone whisper. “God, that girl is such a mess.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and scanned the crowd in the hopes that I would find the source of those nasty comments. Just two rows away from me was Empress Ami Wu; she was not royalty or anything, but she acted like it. It was pathetic the way some of the girls in my class groveled at her feet, hoping she would let them into her inner circle. Amy and her half brain-dead cohorts were chuckling to themselves. There was no doubt in my mind that she or one of her mindless henchmen had said those awful things about Vicki. Whatever; it was no matter. I was not going to let them ruin this night for me. Row after row of students was called forward to accept their armbands and certificates.

  Finally, the last member in our little quartet made her way to the stage. Towering over everyone at six foot one and nervously twisting her long fingers in her dusty brown hair was Patty. She waved at me and Martha as she walked by. The line came to an abrupt halt. Aysun, who was standing directly in front of Patty, accidentally stepped on Patty’s foot with her thick heel. Aysun turned around—there was no doubt in my mind that she was going to apologize immediately—but Patty proceeded to chew her out. “Watch it, Aysun!” she growled. I bit down on my upper lip, crossed all of my fingers, and hoped that Patty wouldn’t lose her composure and start arguing with Aysun during graduation.

  “Oh, by the Goddess, let her make it to the stage safely please!” Thankfully, between my hope and Martha’s prayers, that was enough to get Aysun to simply turn around and say nothing to Patty.

  “Looks like the crisis has been averted,” I said. When Patty reached the stage, it was not Mrs. Elara but Mr. Nova who reached toward the table to give Patty her armband. Both Martha and I watched in complete horror as Mr. Nova picked up one of the three black armbands. In one rapid motion, he placed the armband on Patty and she rushed off the stage with her head hung down.

  “Oh, poor Patty. I thought she was doing well. I mean, we were having weekly study groups and everything!” Martha said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Martha. I thought she was doing okay too.” I was definitely going to have a talk with her after graduation. I really thought she had that black armband because she couldn’t decide what field she wanted to go into and not because she was failing her classes. My thoughts on whether or not Patty was failing school were interrupted by a dozen high-pitched shrills.

  Slowly strutting up to the stage and making a complete fool of himself was Astro Ace. Martha looked up at me with a huge smile on her face. I guess she was expecting me to join in with everyone and scream in ecstasy over Astro and his silly shenanigans, but I absolutely refused to. Martha fanned her flushed face with her right hand. “Doesn’t Astro look cool with his jacket on and everything?” she exclaimed.

  “No, he looks like a fool,” I snapped. Just like Vicki, Astro was taking advantage of the fact that it was graduation and he was wearing what he wanted to wear instead of our school uniform. While Vicki had made a few minor modifications, Astro had ditched his school uniform entirely for his greaser clothing. That idiot was actually wearing a white shirt, dingy jeans, and his signature leather jacket to graduation. Etched onto the back of his jacket in silver studs were the words “Men on the Moon.” Sitting in between those two words was a crescent moon also made out of silver studs. The Men on the Moon was the name for Astro’s little biker gang. And I was absolutely using the term “gang” out of context when referring to them. They didn’t do much outside of loitering in parking lots and driving their loud bikes through suburban neighborhoods just to get under people’s skin. They were more of a nuisance than anything else. How in the world did he manage to not only get in line for graduation but to also sit with the class? I was sure he was doing all of this just to impress the girls in our class, who, for some reason, found his silly antics charming. Astro
brought his black boot down onto the first step, thrust his head back, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his thin silver comb. He slowly ran the comb through the black curls on the side of his head. For an added extra effect Astro slid his hand across his brown skin, just below the bottom of his hairline. Even more squeals and declarations of love came forth from the crowd. If I rolled my eyes any harder, I’m certain I would have ended up staring at the bottom of my brain. How could anyone find all of this charming?

  I glanced toward the stage. Mr. Nova was on the verge of a full-blown explosion. The red sea of anger that had washed over his neck was crashing against the bottom of his face and over his lips. “Excuse me, son, could you come to the stage please?” Mrs. Elara asked while placing her hand on Mr. Nova’s shoulder.

  “Sure thing.” Astro grabbed hold of the collar to his black leather jacket and gave it a slight tug forward. Once more, the girls in the crowd shouted out in ecstasy.

  “Move it along, Astro!” I bellowed. A few girls with overly teased hair that had been smothered to death with Stick and Stay hairspray shot a few mean looks my way. Honestly, I could barely see their eyes because they had outlined them with thick black charcoal eyeliner. Some of them were wearing black ascots with little pins on them that looked exactly like the crescent moon emblem on Astro’s jacket. Astro called these girls his “moon babes.” Most of them were probably dating someone in his so-called biker gang. I didn’t care if they were offended by what I had to say. It was truly ridiculous the way Astro was holding up the ceremony. After strutting across the stage like a peacock, Astro took his black armband from Mrs. Elara and sat back down.

  After Astro, there was only a handful of kids who had to come up on stage to receive their armbands. Lola Perez was the last person to cross the stage. As soon as her feet reached the floor, Mr. Nova congratulated our class for graduating. With that, the ceremony was officially over.

  Martha latched onto my arm. “I’ll be right back. I’ve got to go find my folks so we can take some photos and then I’ll go get Vicki and Patty.” I watched Martha disappear into the crowd.

  From out of nowhere, I felt something cool and metallic scraping across the back of my neck. I jumped up onto my tippy-toes and turned around. It was Phuong. “You really need to stop rubbing your fingers on people’s necks. You’re going to give someone a heart attack one of these days,” I said.

  Phuong clicked her metal fingers together. “But I love scaring people with my club.” Club was the weird nickname that Phuong had for her prosthetic arm. I had no idea why she called it that. I never asked her. I felt like it might have been rude of me to do so. “Hey, uhhh, Cosmo, I was wondering if I could ask you something.” Phuong nervously started to rub her thin metal fingers across the back of her neck.

  “Yeah, sure. Go ahead, Phuong.”

  She hunched her shoulders, “When school gets back in session, I was thinking about starting a club for people who are interested in politics and I was kind of wondering if maybe you could get your dad to come and speak at one of our meetings,” she asked hesitantly. “Look, I know we’re not like friends or anything and if you don’t want to, that’s fine, and if you hate my guts for asking you, that’s fine too.”

  I placed my hand on Phuong’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m sure that Dad would love to come to your meeting.”

  Phuong grabbed hold of my right hand with her metallic one. “Oh, thank you, Cosmo!” To be honest, I’d never had a problem with Phuong. She was actually pretty nice. If it weren’t for Phuong’s overbearing sister, who was literally a carbon copy of their mother, Mrs. Kepler, we could actually be friends.

  “Phuong, get over here!” Cam, standing on the edge of the crowd with her arms folded, shouted.

  Phuong let go of my hand. “I got to go. My boss is calling me,” she whispered before running off. I’d talk to Dad later about Phuong.

  “Cosmo! I looked over my shoulder. Martha and the girls were charging toward me. Patty, with her long legs, was the first one to reach me. She grabbed me by the waist and lifted me up high into the air. “Ya did it, Cosmo! That was one heck of a speech!” When she finally put me back down, I almost lost my footing.

  “Are you guys almost ready to go?” Patty asked.

  “Yes, I’m ready to go to Uncle Sal’s,” Vicki chimed in.

  I was ready to leave as well. I couldn’t wait to celebrate with the girls, but I also kind of wanted to leave for another reason. There was this interview that I’d been dying to watch and I was hoping that I could get the chance to see it tonight. Walter Dailey was going to interview the beautiful Princess Rhea, the Martian princess from Planet X. I adored Princess Rhea. She was so progressive and ahead of the curve. We’d learned a lot about Martian culture because of her. Most of the royal Martian family members stayed out of the public light and refused to do any interviews with humans. Tonight was the start of the princess’s jewelry showcase tour around the solar system. In an effort to better educate humans and to show how rich Martian culture was, Princess Rhea would have various pieces of Martian jewelry out on display. But the one piece that most people were looking forward to seeing was The Rings of Saturn. Not many people outside of the royal family had been given the opportunity to see them. It would have been nice if I could have attended this event, but you had to have a ticket and I was sure they were probably all sold out. For now, I’d just have to make do with watching Princess Rhea’s televised interview. I was so excited about this interview! I’d actually been looking forward to this more than my graduation ceremony.

  “You guys realize that Princess Rhea’s interview is tonight!?!?” I squealed.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to watch it on the TV at Uncle Sal’s Diner?” Martha mentioned.

  “I can’t believe you two are in a hurry to watch an interview on the night of our graduation,” Vicki commented.

  “Yah. I’m with Vicki on this one. Let’s go out and celebrate! We go to Uncle Sal’s all the time!” Patty said. It was true, but Moonsville was so small, there was literally nowhere else to go and I was sure other people from our class would be there too.

  Martha gently wrapped her fingers around both Patty’s and Vicki’s fingers and she swung both of their hands back and forth. “Oh pretty please, you guys! Let’s go to Uncle Sal’s.” It was so hard to say no to Martha. When I looked at Vicki, I could tell she was ready to cave in to Martha’s request, but not Patty. That darn Patty was so hardheaded, there was only one thing I could do to fully convince her to go and to seal the deal with Vicki as well.

  “If we go to Uncle Sal’s, dinner is on me.”

  ”Uncle Sal’s it is then!” Vicki said.

  “I already know what I’m going to get! The steak hamburger and I’m getting extra gravy on top!” Patty said as she licked her lips. I knew them all too well; when in doubt, all I had to do was bribe them with food.

  “The interview is at eight o’clock and it’s going on seven twenty, so we need to leave as soon as possible,” I replied.

  “Okay, but how are we going to get off of this giant ship and back down to the colony?” Vicki asked. A hush fell over our group. No one had to say anything. I could tell what they were silently hinting at. It probably wouldn’t work, but I’d ask my dad if we could borrow his saucer. The girls rallied behind me for support as I walked toward him. My dad was a pretty open-minded guy. But there was one thing my dad would probably not open his mind up to and that was letting me borrow his brand-new flying saucer. It was not that he didn’t trust me, it was just that he really loved his flying saucer. It was the latest model and he just picked it up a few weeks ago as a gift for himself. This was going to be tough, trying to convince him to let me borrow it for just a few hours.

  I prepared myself for battle as I got closer to Dad, who was surrounded by a group of parents at the hors d’oeuvres table. It was almost time for senate elections and I was sure Dad was using this as an opportunity to sell himself and gain a few votes. I didn�
��t know what he was so worried about. He’d held on to his position as first representative for the Moon in the Federation Senate for eight years now. He always ran unopposed each year. I know that speaking with people about your campaign ideas is necessary, but I really wished Dad wouldn’t do this at my graduation ceremony. It was my time to shine, not his.

  “There’s Daddy’s little detective!” he called out to me. With his right hand firmly grasped on the top of his shiny chrome cane, my dad hobbled toward me at top speed. Once he reached me, he gave me a small peck on the forehead. He was already in a good mood, which meant I didn’t have to do any prep work. This might not be as hard as I thought it would be. “Let me see that armband of yours.” I pulled my arm up so Dad could get a closer look. He rubbed his thumb over the tiny golden badge.

  “My little girl is going to be a space detective.” I watched as his eyes started to turn glossy from his tears. He blinked a few times to help keep his tears at bay. “I’m so proud of you, Cosmo.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close. “This is what I’m fighting for every day in the senate. Every child has the right to a great education and the opportunity to be the best person that they can be.”

  I pressed my lips together, then I pulled as hard as I could to bring my cheeks up so I could form a smile. I loved my father, the wounded war hero/senator, but sometimes I couldn’t take it. Every step, every hand gesture, every word that came out of his mouth was carefully calculated to help make him look good. I knew this for a fact because I’d watched him put on this show numerous times. He was so good at it I could hardly tell when he was being genuine or when he was acting. Like right now—was he truly proud of me or was he happy that he could use me for his political advantage?