Real Facts

I think for our science project we should have a poster listing a bunch of interesting facts about Mars. Not your everyday facts, like Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, I want to have cool things that nobody really knows.

Facts though, not made up stuff. Last year Eddie Spithausen did a project on Komodo Dragons and he had a poster called "Things you should know about the Kimono Dragon." First of all, a Kimono is a kind of dress and second everything on his poster was made up! I guess he thought that everyone would be so impressed with his paper maché dragon model that they wouldn't check his "facts."

Well, that might have worked, if the model had been any good. It didn't look like a Komodo Dragon. Actually, it didn't look like any kind of dragon at all. Mostly it looked like a cross between his bulldog, Puddles, and a rabid turkey—only green. With Chiclet teeth.

I mean, I know I can be lazy about school projects, but the least he could have done was look up what a Komodo Dragon looked like. Eddie's judgement can be a little off at times. He once got detention for calling Mr. Mulligan, the gym teacher, a meat puppet.

I still don't know what that is. I think it was in reference to Mr. Mulligan's muscles—the guy's got like 23" biceps—which is more to the point, why would you say anything stupid to a guy that could pop your head like a pimple?

You gotta wonder sometimes.

Mrs. Applebaum announces a class project.

Something happened at school today that will definitely speed up production on the rocket and of the Mars trip. Our teacher, Mrs. Applebaum, announced our Spring project. It's a science competition that we will exhibit at parent's night.

Parent's night is when everyone's mom and dad, and sometimes grandparents and aunts and uncles are invited in to school to see that we haven't just been fooling around all year. But mostly it's an opportunity for the teachers to prove that they are actually teaching us something—that they aren't "glorified  babysitters," as Mrs. Applebaum is always telling us that she is not.

Everyone in class has to pick a partner to work on the project with, then we have to research and construct a scientific experiment and show it off at parent's night.

Well, I already have a partner—P.J.—and we are so far ahead of the rest of the class, it's ridiculous! Me and P.J. are sure to win. Apparently, there are going to be some prizes for the best projects, "as of yet, undetermined," as Mrs. Applebaum put it.

I sure hope it's money, going to Mars has got to be expensive.

Anyway, Mom can't complain anymore that I should spend half as much time cleaning my room as I do on planning a trip to Mars - because now it's a school project!

A new kid at school

There's this new kid at school whose name is Billy, but for some reason he makes everyone call him Bubba. He's really tall. Well, I guess he's not that tall for his age - it seems he's been left back a couple of times, maybe three. He also has this kind of dull mean look about him. 

P.J. ran into Billy - uh, Bubba -  in the hallway and tried to make some small talk, trying to avoid being beaten up. He told Bubba about our rocket and the trip to Mars. Bubba told P.J. that wasn't anything big, that he'd been to Venus three of four times and that the girls on Venus were much better looking than the girls on Earth. He also told P.J. that he had a girlfriend on Venus and that she is way prettier than Molly Pinkston (the prettiest girl in our grade).

Venus! Come on! Now I see why this guy's having difficulty getting to the next grade. Does he realize that it's about 900˚ F on Venus? I guess that would make his girlfriend really hot!

At first I thought Bubba might be trouble, I don't really think that anymore.

Cafeteria Pizza!

For lunch today at school they were serving something they called "Pan Pizza." This was rectangle slabs of thick dough with dried up sauce and this grayish white stuff on top that I think was supposed to be cheese.

The only other choice was tuna salad, which was so dry it had started to crack.

I chose the pizza. I guess everyone else did too, because there was a wait while the cafeteria ladies made more. But they tried to make too many at the same time and the ovens caught on fire. It wasn't that big a fire, but the cafeteria monitors made us stand outside while it was put out.

I guess it wasn't a bad idea, because it took over ten minutes to put the fire out. The amazing thing was the pizza slabs looked exactly the same as they did before they caught fire. The cheesy stuff was a little more gray and the sauce was as dry as the tuna salad, but all in all, they were intact.

This gave me a great idea. The rocket's gonna need some kind of heat shield and me and P.J. have been experimenting with what to use—now we know:

Cafeteria Pan Pizza.

I told P.J. all about it, so now whenever the cafeteria is serving Pan Pizza we'll order extra until we have enough for a shield!

Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything we can use the tuna salad for.

Something to do with all those ball bearings.

P.J. helped me attach the fins and nose to the rocket today. 

But remember I said me and P.J. weren't sure what to do with the can of ball bearings he brought over? Well, Donald sure did. 

Mom said we had to let him help, so we sat him in the corner with the can of ball bearings and told him to start counting them. We told him it was an important part of the project and that he'd better count carefully.

He counted carefully alright, except he only got to ten. It seems he didn't know where to put the ones he had counted, so he decided a good place would be in his nostrils. Yup, five in each, crammed in nice and tight.

When he started crying I thought it was because he can't count much higher than 15 or 20 - and there must be hundreds of ball bearings in that can. Donald ran inside and I thought we were finally rid of him. But Mom came out yelling something about how it's not funny to make your brother do stupid things and she sent P.J. home.

Donald doesn't really know how to blow his nose, so we spent the next few hours in the emergency room. The doctor didn't have any trouble getting the ball bearings out - they were pretty greasy.

Anyway, P.J.'s not allowed to come over for a couple of days.

Great, now everyone wants to go to Mars.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm not grateful for the help P.J.'s been giving me - I mean the rocket is really awesome - but I think he wants to go to Mars, too! He keeps dropping these hints that are so obvious. He keeps talking about how cold and lonely Mars must be and who knows what kind of monsters there might be and wouldn't it be good to have someone to back me up.

He hasn't come right out and asked, but when he started to make the cockpit large enough for two, I knew what he was getting at.

So now I've got Grandpa trying to bribe his way into going, P.J. nudging his way in, and to top it off, Donald keeps stuffing his toy monkey, his blanket and his binky into the front of the rocket.

Out of all of them, Donald is definitely the last one I'd let go with me. The last family trip we took to the beach all he kept asking was when are we going home? When are we going home? We hadn't even got there yet!

And then when we did get to the beach, he kept taking off his bathing suit and running up to strangers shouting FRWEE! FRWEE! I'm not sure exactly what he meant, but it was totally embarrassing.

I don't need that happening on Mars.

My friend P.J. is going to help me with the rocket.

My friend P.J. came over today. I told him about my trip and the rocket and he asked if he could help build it. P.J.'s always been good in science and math, so he'll be good to have around. Plus his Dad is some kind of a mechanic with a workshop full of springs and wheels, rubber belts and hooks and things that I have no idea what are used for. His Dad also has lots of tools that P.J. said he was sure we could use.

P.J. brought over a big can of ball bearings, a greasy cog and two old hub caps. I think it was his way of showing me he was serious about helping. I'm not sure what we'll use it all for, but you never know - a rocket is a complicated piece of machinery.

Grandpa dropped off his old flying jacket and an old leather football helmet. He said I could use them on my trip. The jacket is really cool - it has all these patches on it that have something to do with flying old planes.

As far as the helmet goes, I can't imagine it was much protection for playing football. Grandpa says players were tougher back then. I think after getting hit in the head wearing that helmet you just didn't care because you probably couldn't feel much anymore.

Anyway, like I said, Grandpa's a great guy, so I just said thank you and let him ruffle my hair.

I have to say, I'm a little concerned about him, he seems very eager to go to Mars with me.