“This traffic hasn’t moved in twenty
minutes. Do you think there was an accident or something?
Maybe someone got run over. Look at all the people...” I
popped a caramel popcorn cluster in my mouth and rolled down the window
to look at the people camped out on the side of the road. There
were cars, trucks, vans, and campers parked for miles. Everyone
seemed strangely patient as they waited for the space shuttle launch in
the warm morning sun.
“We’re not that far from the gate,” Dad said.
“Think I’ll make it if I cut out into the other lane?”
Mom gave him a mean look from the kitchen area where
she had begun to mix up some pancake batter. “Don’t even think
about it.”
“Do it, Dad. You won’t get in trouble.
You’ve got V. I. P. status, remember?”
Dad looked in the rearview mirror. “I wonder how much room I have
to back up...”
“Leave it to me, Dad.” I jumped out of my seat
and headed for the back of the camper.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”
“Just back here, Mom.” I looked out the back
window and saw that we had about five feet between us and the next
car. “Will five feet do it, Dad?”
“No. I need more space.”
“Leave it to me.” I slipped out the door
before my mother had a chance to protest and went behind the camper to
talk to the driver of the car behind us. I told him about my
father’s plan and how he would make sure that anybody who backed up
enough to let him pass would get special treatment at the gate.
“My old man’s a V. I. P.,” I assured him. The guy didn’t believe
me
at first, but his kids talked him into going along with it. I ran
to the car behind him and told them the whole story, too. In no
time at all, I had four cars backing up for us. Then I ran back
to our camper and jumped in. “Go for it, Dad! There’s no traffic
in the other lane.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Never mind. Just get in that other lane!”
“Cal, don’t you dare—” Mom got cut off in
mid-sentence by Dad’s quick maneuvering. We were in the other
lane and flying toward the gate in a matter of seconds. Mom had
to grab a hold of the bowl of pancake batter and brace herself against
the counter. “Cal!”
“Cute, pal,” said the guard at the gate. “Now
turn this vehicle around and get back to the end of the line.”
Dad flashed his special I. D. and the guard
let
us through. The people in the cars behind us weren’t so
lucky. I saw the guard shake his head and wave them back. I
laughed at them under my breath. “Suckers!”
We found our reserved parking place near the Visitor
Center. Dad parked the camper and we began setting up our
camp. “I’ll get the cameras set up, Crystal,” Dad said.
“You can help set things up for breakfast.”
“Okay.”
Mom smiled at me as she went back to the kitchen
compartment and handed me stuff to set up outside. “I’ll start
the pancakes and eggs,” she said.
Dad unfolded his camera tripods while I set up the
folding table and lawn chairs. The people in the next lot smiled
at us while Bruce Springsteen cranked out his latest song about
unemployment and steel mill closings on their radio.
“Can we go to Disney World later? I want to
check out Epcot.”
“Sure, honey. Go wake up your brother.”
Mom was setting the paper plates and napkins on the table. I went
inside the camper and climbed up to the overhead sleeping
compartment. My brother Curt was sprawled across the sheets like
a truckload of spilled logs at the bottom of a ravine.
“Hey, Curt! Wake up! You’re going to miss the
launch. We’re at the Kennedy Space Center already.”
“Hnnnnnhhh...”
“Wake up, you stupid jock! You’re gonna miss
it!” I reached over and shook him, but he just mumbled something
unintelligible and slept on. Just then, I got a cool idea.
I cupped my hand over my mouth and spoke in a deep voice. “T
minus ten seconds... nine... eight... seven... six... five...
four... we have main engine
start... two... one... zero... we have lift
off!” Then I leaned close to his ear and did my best
impersonation of a launching rocket.
Curt woke up with a start, hit his head on the
ceiling, and scrambled from window to window looking for the space
shuttle. I broke out in a fit of laughter when I saw the look of
sheer panic on his face.
“Gotcha, you big dope! That’s what you get for
locking me in the bathroom last night!”
He clobbered me in the head with a pillow and slid
out of bed. “Little brat!”
“Don’t take forever in the bathroom, Fruit of the
Loom.” I snapped the elastic on his underwear. “We’re
having breakfast in a few minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah...”
I checked on the progress of the pancakes, then went
back outside to watch my mother struggle with the canopy extending from
the side of the camper. Dad was busy taking pictures of the
launch tower with his telescopic lens. “Beautiful...just
beautiful. Crystal, come here and take a look.”
I went over and checked it out. Through the
zoom lens, I could see everything in perfect detail. The space
shuttle was clearly visible and everything was focused just
right. “Make sure you have posters made of this. It’s a
good shot.”
“Atlantis,”
Dad sighed. I knew he was going to get sentimental. “This
baby’s named after the mythical continent of Atlantis. Have you
ever heard of it?”
“Sure, Dad. There’s that old T.V. show
on cable...The Man From Atlantis?
You know, the guy with webbed fingers...Bobby Ewing...” I was
already munching out on the first sausages to pop out of the microwave.
“A real civilization is said to have existed
thousands of years ago. Plato wrote about it in great
detail. He described it as a Utopian culture with technological
advancements far beyond anything of its time. Most men were
running around in animal skins back then.”
“No kidding.”
“The continent it occupied was supposed to have
spanned the entire Atlantic Ocean. That’s why there’s such a
similarity between the pyramids of the Aztecs and the Egyptians.
They may have come from a common source: the Atlanteans.”
“What happened to them?” I asked.
“According to legend, the entire continent sank
beneath the ocean.”
“Do they live underwater now? Under big glass
domes? I saw it in a Sub-Mariner
comic once. They all had scales on their skin, I think, and they
could breathe underwater.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Give me a break, Dad!”
“The psychic Edgar Cayce talked about it in a number
of readings he gave. He said they were more technologically
advanced than we are today, with lasers, solar power, aircraft, and
nuclear weapons. Their lands broke up after the people became
corrupt and misused their power. An entire civilization vanished
without a trace. It completely disappeared!”
“I still don’t believe it.”
“It’s not there for you to believe.”
“It isn’t there, period! You said so yourself it
disappeared thousands of years ago. How can I believe in
something that I know doesn’t exist?” (I like getting my father
into corners whenever he gets philosophical.)
“Maybe some of them survived. Who knows?”
“Who cares?”
Mom walked over with the first batch of
pancakes. “Are you two having another one of your brainstorming
sessions?”
“No, Dad’s just trying to sell me some story about a
lost continent. I’m not buying it, though.”
“Oh, you mean Atlantis. I read something about
it once,” Mom said. “It seems some divers discovered a road made
of square blocks beneath the ocean somewhere. Nobody knows who
made it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not you too!”
“Somebody discovered the ruins of an old temple,
too. It had big stone columns and was buried underwater. I
also remember reading about somebody finding a pyramid at the bottom of
the Bermuda Triangle.”
“You’re serious?”
Curt appeared in the doorway to survey the
discussion. “This doesn’t look too healthy.” Neither did he
in his big debut. He’s going to kill me if he reads this, but he
didn’t look much like a young Greek god after a night of driving.
The bags under his eyes looked like they were ready to give birth.
“Hey, look what crawled out of the garbage
disposal!”
“Shut up, brat.”
“Curt thought he missed the launch when I woke him
up earlier,” I told my folks. “He even hit his head on the
ceiling trying to look for it!”
He ignored my teasing and walked over to the table
to grab a sausage from the plate. Dad gestured to the launch
pad. “I was just telling your sister about Atlantis.”
“You mean the place with legalized gambling?”
“That’s Atlantic City, you airhead!”
Dad gave me a sour look. “We’re talking about
the lost continent, the one the space shuttle is named after.”
I turned to my father. “For your information,
Dad, the space shuttle is not named after the lost continent.
It’s named after a research ship used by the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institute. I read it in one of my space shuttle books.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” he admitted. “But that
research ship was named after the lost continent.” He popped a
sausage into his mouth, confident and self-assured. He had a
point.
“Where’s the syrup?” muttered Curt.
“It’s right in front of you,” I said. “What
happened to your famous ‘eagle eye?’”
“Give me a break. It’s seven o’clock in the
morning.” He ran his fingers through his hair and yawned.
Dad looked at him over his cup of coffee and frowned.
“If you take that Air Force Academy Scholarship,
you’ll be getting up a lot earlier than this.”
“I told you, Dad. I’m going to S.U.”
Mom looked puzzled. “I thought it was Saint
Lawrence University?”
“That was last week,” said Curt. He had about
ten football scholarships to choose from and changed his mind more
often than he did his underwear.
“But son, an opportunity like the Air Force Academy
doesn’t come along every day. What about all of those letters we
wrote to the Senator? We busted our butts to get you this
appointment.”
Curt just stuffed a forkload of pancakes into his
mouth. “I know. I want to play football.”
“The Air Force Academy has a football team.”
“Don’t you want to become an astronaut?” I
asked him.
“I thought that was your ultimate ambition,” he
said.
“Oh, it is. After all, somebody has to show
you the way, don’t they?”
He laughed for the first time and plunged his fork
into a pancake hidden beneath a napkin. “Don’t eat that
one. It fell on the ground.” He ignored my warning and
began spreading butter and syrup on it. “Don’t believe me then.”
Dad considered my brother for a moment and smiled to
himself. Then he raised his binoculars to his eyes and scanned
the launch pad. “It’ll be another hour and a half until the
countdown ends. Why don’t you two go take a look around the
Visitors Center?”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Maybe I can
stow away for real this time.”
“Just make sure you’re back in time for the
lift-off,” my mother said. I thought about the illogic behind
that statement and decided to ignore it. Curt snorted an entire
fried egg down his throat and burped like the swine that he is.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
