Space Station Rat by Michael J. Daley

Author:Michael J. Daley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

CHAPTER TWELVE

DISCOVERY

Jeff crossed the threshold and stopped. The air stank of charred plastic and paint and the tingle of zapped molecules. He looked at the keyboard.

Lavender. Why did he know the rat’s fur was lavender-colored? It bothered him, that word. If only it had been a plain brown rat, then maybe he would have blasted it before Nanny interfered.

Jeff shied at the memory of the hard metal raking against his leg, the loss of balance, falling …

Falling.

Something fell when Nanny tore the grate off the vent above the bed. Jeff thought it was the rat, but that was a mistake. He snapped out of his memories to focus alertly on the room. There it was, just beside the bed: a toilet-paper tube. Jeff picked it up.

Heavy.

The weight surprised his fingers, and he almost dropped it. Cautiously he brought it up to his face. He looked in the end. His heart thumped. He looked in the other end.

“Oh, wow!” he said. “Those got me in so much trouble!”

What were the missing lenses doing stuck in a toilet-paper tube with some gum—his gum? No one else on the space station chewed gum. Who made the tube? Why did that person hide it in the vent—his vent? Did someone want to get him in more trouble? But that didn’t make sense. No one would ever look in the vent.

Jeff put the tube to his eye. He saw a tiny dot of hazy light. Backward. He turned it around. He noticed three little notches in the rim of the tube. Ah! To show which side to look in! Clever.

But who had been so clever?

Jeff stared at the tube in his palm. The notches reminded him of the teeth marks on the wire.…

Jeff brought the tube to his eye. It seemed as if he had jumped straight across the room and put his nose to the wall. He could see the seam in the wall panel and the tiny nicks in the rivets where the riveting tool had marked them. When he tried to look anywhere else, the image blurred. Jeff knew a few things about lenses and telescopes because his parents worked with them. Sometimes he paid attention when they talked. This homemade spyglass had a fixed focus. It was meant to look at one spot.

Jeff got up on the bed. This put his head almost even with the vent. He leaned against the wall. His nose wrinkled. The charred smell was strongest here. He put the tube to his eye again. The computer monitor filled the eyepiece. Perfectly clear, he saw his last e-mail to his pen pal, now in reply mode, and the beginning of a new message:

DO NOT KILL RATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT>*&%F)

The rat hadn’t just been standing on the keyboard, it had been typing. And when Jeff walked in, its little paw with the white cuff—yes, he remembered that now—the paw stood on the T key all the while it stared at Jeff.

Nanny was right. There never were any messages from Earth.

Jeff dropped the tube and leaped for the computer.

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