Page 12 of Paradise

Cody

“How close are we now?” Cody demanded, staring intently out at the blackness beyond the viewport.

“Close,” his dad said for the millionth time as he checked the gauges that monitored the ship’s velocity and angle. Cody knew all about those. He could name every single gauge on the flight console, and he could read most of them too.

“Can’t we go faster?”

“Nope,” his dad said cheerfully. “This is as fast as it gets until we get a little closer to Paradise.”

“And then can we speed up?”

“Then we slow down, bucko. Gotta be safe.”

Cody flopped across the back of the copilot’s chair with a sigh. “Safe is so boooring.”

“Poor kid,” his dad crooned. Cody frowned. Whenever his father used that tone of voice, Cody knew he was being sarcastic. “Doomed to a life of dullness and despair by being forced to obey all the safety rules and regs. Angels weep for you, my son.”

“You’re not funny.” Cody pouted. It was a dumb joke; his dad wasn’t funny at all. He stared ahead again. “How close are wenow?”

His dad gave that slow, special sigh that Cody knew meant he was running out of patience. “Not close enough for you to be askin’ me that again. How about you go finish gettin’ ready to land?”

“I’m ready,” Cody replied quickly. He was too; he’d showered and brushed his hair and dressed in his best clothes, the ones Garrett ordered him that made him look kinda like a Space Ranger. They were blue and green and so cool. He even had shoes to match.

“Then how about you go help Garrett get ready? I’ll holler as soon as there’s somethin’ to see.”

“Fine,” Cody huffed, rolling his eyes. He knew a dismissal when he heard it. He jumped down from the chair and marched off toward his dads’ room, where Garrett was probably still picking what to wear. He had more clothes than Cody and his dad combined, and it took himforeverto get dressed.

The door was closed. “Garrett?” Cody asked as he knocked. “Are you ready yet?”

“Almost,” Garrett called out.

Cody thought about that for a moment, then said, “Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

He pressed his palm to the door, and it swung open immediately. The room was kind of a mess; there was a pile of clothes on the bed, another heap thrown over the chair, and the whole place smelled moist, like the shower had been going for a really long time. No Garrett, though. “Where are you?”

“In the bathroom.”

Cody picked his way across the floor and squeezed into the tiny bathroom next to Garrett, then looked up at him. His mouth dropped open. “Wow.”

“Wow, huh?” Garrett teased, smiling at Cody through his reflection on the mirrored wall. “That’s nice.”

“You look really pretty.” He did, too, in some kind of bright-blue suit that was just as soft as it looked and sharpened his corners so much that he almost looked like a Build-A-Bot toy. He’d styled his hair into weird crisscrossing layers that reminded Cody of waves, and his skin was almost glowing. Plus, he smelled good, like some of the flowering trees in the arboretum back home.

“Pretty. Well, that’s acceptable, I suppose, although I was going for stunning.”

Cody frowned. Stunning? “Like you want to knock people down?”

“Metaphorically speaking, yes.”

“Oh.” Cody considered that for a moment, then patted Garrett’s back. “Maybe you will, then.” He didn’t want Garrett to think all his work was for nothing, but Cody didn’t really think he was going to actually start knocking people down. “Um, what’s ‘metaphorically’?”

Garrett opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, the ship’s com sounded. “Passenger vessel, this is Paradise Tower 115, please identify yourselves.”

“We’re here!” Cody yelled. He ran out of the bathroom and almost fell over a pile of shoes on his way back to the cockpit.

“Tower, this is theIcarus, registration number PD37592, out of Pandora,” his dad said into the com as Cody launched himself into the copilot’s chair. His dad looked over at him and made a “shhh” motion, and Cody obeyed even though he didn’t want to. He could see Paradise now, a bright orangey-brown circle in the distance, dotted with swirls of white.

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