The Lion of Mars Read online

  “We are not going to discuss this again!” Sai said, cutting him off.

  Then there was the sound of feet walking fast down the corridor. A moment later, I heard Phinneus and his cane slowly following the same way.

  I waited a few minutes, then went to the mess hall. Everyone was already eating. I watched as Phinneus and Sai calmly discussed which vegetables to put on rotation. You wouldn’t have known that they’d just been at each other’s throats.

  * * *

  Eliana was giving us lessons today. She was my favorite teacher because she was fun. She’d taught us how to drive the rover and make rockets. Lately, she’d been teaching us to speak French. Sai didn’t approve of this, but she said knowing different languages was important.

  “All right,” Eliana said. “Let’s run through our basic phrases. Repeat after me.”

  Bonjour. (Hello.)

  Je voudrais de l’eau. (I would like some water.)

  Où sont les toilettes? (Where are the toilets?)

  Vera made an annoyed noise. “I don’t know why we have to learn French. French people aren’t very nice, you know.”

  “I think you have the wrong idea about them,” Eliana said.

  “I remember them chasing us with those weapons,” Vera muttered under her breath.

  Before anyone could respond, the emergency alarm started blaring.

  “Again?” I said.

  We followed the sound to the mess hall. Sai was right behind us, which meant this was a real emergency.

  “Who pushed the alarm?” he demanded as everyone else rushed in. He swiftly disabled it.

  “I did!” Salty Bill shouted, waving a spatula.

  “Fire?”

  He shook his head wildly. He looked terrified.

  “Then what?” Sai demanded.

  “It—it—it’s in there!” he said, pointing his shaking spatula toward the storage closet.

  It?

  I turned to the rest of the kids and silently mouthed, “Alien?”

  Trey’s eyes widened, Albie shook his head, and Flossy’s mouth opened into an O. Even Vera seemed a little scared.

  But Sai just grabbed a plastic broom that was leaning against a wall (what good was a plastic broom?!) and walked into the large closet. A moment later, we heard him yelp.

  “Sai?” Darby hollered, and ran in after him. He grabbed Salty Bill’s prized rolling pin. It was made of real Earth wood and was solid.

  We waited breathlessly.

  “Are you kidding me!” Darby shouted.

  That was it. As if on cue, we crowded into the storage closet like an invading army. I struggled to get a good look. Nothing seemed out of place.

  “Over there,” Sai said, pointing to a counter where a plate of muffins was cooling on a rack.

  A small, furry creature with a long tail and whiskers was nibbling on a muffin.

  “I thought aliens would be bigger,” Vera said, clearly unimpressed.

  “That’s not an alien,” Sai said.

  “It’s a mouse!” I exclaimed. “A real, live Earth mouse!”

  “Awww, it’s so cute!” Flossy cried.

  “But how did it get here?” Albie asked.

  “Must have hitched a ride,” Eliana said, and chuckled.

  “More like an entire family hitched a ride,” Darby said, nudging an open bag of flour with his foot. A bunch more mice ran out.

  “Can we keep them?” Flossy asked.

  “They’re little monsters!” Salty Bill shouted. “Look what they did to my muffins! I just baked them!”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Eliana began. “Mice eat through wiring.”

  “Just one mouse?” Flossy wheedled, her brown eyes wide. “Pleeeease?”

  Meems’s face softened. No one could resist Flossy.

  “One mouse,” Meems agreed. “You’ll have to put it in a box with a lid and air holes, to keep Leo away from it.”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  The mice raced madly around the floor.

  Sai snorted. “Whichever one you can catch.”

  * * *

  Eliana helped us design a plastic habitat for our new pet. It had podlike buildings and tubes for the mouse to run around in. We lined it with torn-up algae paper (Phinneus’s suggestion) and a little bowl of water. It looked like a mini Mars settlement, fit for a mouse.

  That turned out to be the easy part. The hard part was coming up with a name we could all agree on. We’d been debating names for the last hour. Nobody was happy with any of them, although Trey was pushing hard for John Glenn.

  “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” Flossy said, clapping her hands. “Let’s name him Muffin!”

  “Muffin?” Trey asked.

  “We found him eating the muffins!” Flossy insisted.

  We all stared at the mouse. With its soft-looking fur and twitching whiskers, the name fit perfectly. Except something was missing.

  “We need to give him a last name, too,” I said.

  “A last name?” Flossy asked.

  “He needs a last name so that he knows he’s part of our family.”

  “That sounds like a dumb—” Trey started to say, but Flossy elbowed him.

  “What were you thinking, Bell?” Albie asked me.

  I stared at the mouse’s twitching nose. “What if we called him Muffin of Mars?”

  “Simple,” Flossy said. “I love it!”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Welcome to the American settlement, Muffin of Mars,” I whispered.

  One inhabitant of our settlement wasn’t happy about Muffin.

  Leo.

  He prowled around Muffin’s habitat like the mouse was a piece of chocolate cake he couldn’t wait to taste. After he almost knocked the habitat off the table in the recreation room, we decided to move it somewhere with less cat traffic: the algae farm.

  Phinneus was delighted to have the mouse there. He even made special peanut-butter algae mouse treats.

  “You like these treats, don’t you, darling?” he crooned as he fed the mouse. I think he loved Muffin even more than we kids did.

  “He’s a good mouse,” I said.

  “He?” he asked. “That’s a female.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How can you tell?”

  “Grow up on a farm, and you’ll learn fast,” he said with a wry look.

  “Do you think we should have saved two mice?” I asked him. “Won’t Muffin get lonely without a friend? He—I mean she—doesn’t have anyone to play with.”

  Kind of like me these days.

  “Ah, I see,” he said, and gave me a knowing look. “We’ll just have to give her a lot of love and attention, then, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  We watched Muffin scratch at the edges of the walls of the habitat as if trying to get out.

  “Poor thing wants her freedom,” Phinneus observed.

  “But it’s not safe outside for her,” I said.

  He gave me a long look.

  “I suppose,” he said. “But living in a cage is no kind of life, even for a mouse.”

  * * *

  Flossy poked her head through my door. “Pssst! Come to our room!”

  I looked up from my book. I’d been reading about mice.

  “No way,” I said. “Last time I did that, I ended up in a sling.”

  “Oh, come on, silly. This is about Meems’s birthday. It’s perfectly safe!”

  “Okay,” I said. “But if any of you talk about stealing a rover, I’m leaving.”

  When I got to the older kids’ room, she shut the door. Albie and Trey and Vera were already there.

  “It’s Meems’s birthday next week,” Flossy said. “We’re going to throw her a surprise party!�
��

  “We are?” I asked.

  “Yes! I have it all figured out!” she said. “And you’re going to help!”

  * * *

  The next morning, I nosed around the shelves in Sai’s workshop. We needed duct tape to hang the decorations on the walls. Flossy figured I could grab a roll on my dust rounds. When I’d left the mess hall, Sai was still eating breakfast.

  The duct tape wasn’t in the usual bin, so I started to dig around in the supplies. Finding where Sai had hidden it didn’t take long; it was next to a box marked “Sai—Personal.” I was curious, so I opened it.

  The box was full of random things. A pirate hat. A folded piece of paper that said Je t’aime. A red T-shirt with the words “We Did It!” And a dry, crisp-looking plant. It was purple and looked like an Earth flower. When I lifted it to my nose, it still held a faint perfume.

  At the bottom of the box was an award of some kind.

  I heard footsteps coming down the hall, so I shoved everything into the box and pushed it back. Then I rushed to the wall where the filter was and pretended to empty the dust.

  Sai stopped short when he saw me. “Well, you got an early start today.”

  I grinned. “Yep! Already done!”

  When I went to walk past him with my bucket, his hand came down on my shoulder. Luckily, it was my good one.

  “I don’t recall giving you that duct tape,” he said.

  Aw, dust it.

  “What are you up to?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Bell.”

  “We’re throwing a surprise birthday party for Meems and need tape to hang the decorations,” I said in a rush.

  “I see.” He studied me. “In that case, you may take the duct tape.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “By the way, I’m looking forward to trying your carrot cake,” he said, and turned away.

  My mouth dropped open.

  Like I said, it was impossible to keep a secret on Mars.

  * * *

  The night before Meems’s birthday, I went up to Salty Bill as he was putting things away in the kitchen.

  “Would it be okay if I did some cooking tonight?” I asked. “I just thought I would make some cookies.”

  He gave me a hard look. Finally, he said, “Make sure you clean up when you’re done. I don’t want to find a sink full of dishes tomorrow morning.”

  “Sure, no problem,” I told him.

  “Also,” he said, “use toasted pecans in the batter. That’s my trick for a great carrot cake.”

  I shook my head. Honestly, was there anyone Phinneus hadn’t told?

  Albie offered to help me bake the cake. He was the best cook of all us kids. He patiently walked me through the recipe step-by-step. It was late by the time I’d finished spreading the white icing on the cake. I stood back to admire my work.

  “What do you think?” I asked him.

  “Hmm,” he said. “What if we decorated the top with some more carrots? Stick them in the cake so they look like they’re growing out of the icing?”

  “Oooh! That’s a great idea!” I said. “I’ll go grab a few from the farm.”

  “I’ll start cleaning up this mess,” he said, looking at the pile of dirty bowls we’d used.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Leo was sniffing and scratching at the door to the algae farm when I arrived.

  “Mwar!” he said, which meant Let me in! in Cat.

  “Sorry, Leo,” I told him. “You can’t eat Muffin.”

  I opened the door and slid inside, closing it quickly so Leo couldn’t follow. That didn’t stop him from yowling.

  A familiar sight greeted me: Phinneus was asleep at the table, his head pillowed on his arms. Across from him, Muffin darted around her habitat.

  I headed back to get the carrots. The tops were tall and fuzzy and green. I pulled one up from the container. It was fat and perfect.

  In short order, I’d harvested my carrots. I was carrying them out when I paused by the table where Phinneus was sleeping.

  “Did you tell every single person in the settlement that I was making this cake for Meems?” I asked him.

  Phinneus slept on.

  “It’s supposed to be a surprise,” I said. “Please tell me you didn’t tell Meems.”

  He didn’t speak.

  Across from him, Muffin started running madly on the wheel we’d made for her habitat. The wheel rattled noisily, but Phinneus slept on.

  It was odd.

  “Phinneus,” I said, shaking him gently, and then froze.

  Because something was very wrong. His body was so still. Too still. I leaned closer and touched his chest to see if it was moving.

  It wasn’t.

  That’s when I started screaming.

  DATE: 6.2.2091

  FROM: CDR Dexter

  TO: US Terrestrial Command

  MESSAGE: Situation Report

  Yesterday at approximately 22:05 hours, Mission Specialist Phinneus Peck was found unresponsive in the algae farm. Attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. He was declared deceased at 22:44 hours.

  Please notify next of kin.

  Sai Dexter, COMMANDER

  Expeditionary & Settlement Team

  United States Territory, Mars

  Instead of a birthday party, there was a funeral.

  We put on environmental suits and climbed to the surface. It was a shockingly beautiful day. The sky was clear and light. Albie and Sai carried the bag with Phinneus’s body to the little graveyard. They buried him in the dusty red Martian soil, wrapped in his favorite thing—a thick piece of algae paper.

  “You were our teammate, our companion, our family. We will miss you, Phinneus,” Sai said, his voice crackling over my headset.

  I looked at Meems. Tears were running down her face, the same way they were running down mine.

  “Rest now, old friend,” Sai said. “You’ve earned it.”

  Then we piled rocks on top of the grave, and everyone cried.

  * * *

  After the burial, we gathered in the mess hall to have lunch. I couldn’t stop looking at Phinneus’s empty chair, remembering what had happened yesterday. It was a fuzzy blur, like a digi-reel on fast-forward, all jumbled images. Sai and Eliana running into the algae farm. Phinneus’s still body. The look of horror on Sai’s face. Eliana hitting the alarm. Meems running in with her bag. Her holding my shoulders and telling me I had non-med shock, then giving me a shot in the arm as I cried and cried and cried. How everything seemed to drift away into darkness.

  Phinneus was dead.

  “Are you okay?” Flossy asked me from across the table.

  I shook my head. How could I possibly be okay when Phinneus was dead? I would never be able to talk to him again. Never hear his laugh. He was gone, and nothing would ever be the same.

  After Meems’s shot yesterday, I slept for a while. When I woke up, I was back in my own bed. For a moment, I thought maybe it had all been a bad dream. But then I saw Albie’s tearstained face and knew it had actually happened.

  Something else was bothering me, too. Meems said Phinneus had died from a heart attack. She said it was typical for old people. I know she thought she was being reassuring, but I was horrified. Because when I looked at the grown-ups, all I could see was gray hair and wrinkles.

  Under the lunch table, I felt fur brush my ankle and looked down at Leo.

  “Meow,” he said. He looked sad, too.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if Leo had known all along. Was that why he had been scratching at the door? Had he been trying to save Phinneus?

  At the far end of the table, Sai took a deep breath. “I’ve informed Command of Phinneus’s death. They�
��ll notify his next of kin.”

  “Is his brother still alive?” Eliana asked.

  “He died last year,” Meems said. “But there’s a nephew, I believe. I’ll send a personal condolence message from all of us.”

  That sounded nice, but who would send a condolence message to us? Who would tell us how sorry they were that we’d lost a member of our family? Because that’s what Phinneus had been—family.

  A wave of sadness washed over me.

  Darby laughed. “Do you remember the time Phinneus thought he had discovered a new species?”

  Salty Bill chuckled. “I’d nearly forgotten about that.”

  “What happened?” Flossy asked.

  Meems turned to me with a smile. “He’d gone outside and collected a sample of something. He was convinced it was some new organism.”

  Darby picked up the story. “He put it in a dish, and lo and behold, something grew from the sample. He was so excited!”

  “When he studied his new species, he realized it was just a, ahem, booger,” Meems said.

  “A booger?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Meems said. “One of you children had stuck a booger in the sample.”

  “Whose was it?” I asked.

  “Put it this way: he told us he would name this new organism T. vera,” Meems said.

  Vera reddened, and everybody laughed.

  Around the room it went. One story after another. And with each story, my heart felt a little lighter.

  I had so many favorite memories of Phinneus. It was hard to pick just one. But I think it was the time he’d taught me how to plant seeds. Dig a hole, drop the seed, cover it with soil, add a little water, and wait. I still remembered my amazement when the green sprouts had finally burst through the soil.

  Flossy walked out of the kitchen, carrying the cake.

  “Happy birthday, Meems,” she said with a sad smile. “We were going to throw you a surprise party, but…”