It Came from the Sky - Chelsea Sedoti Page 0,1

the lab.”

“Oh, come on,” he said.

In my lifetime of being Ishmael’s brother, I’d learned to pick and choose my battles. Food in the lab was a battle I always chose. I crossed my arms and waited.

“Seriously?” he whined. I watched strawberry ice cream drip down the side of the cone and threaten to fall on the clean floor. Finally, he sighed. “Okay, fine.”

He turned back to the open door and tossed his ice cream cone into the field. I watched its trajectory with a scowl. “Was that necessary?”

“What?” Ishmael asked. “It’s degradable, right?”

“You mean biodegradable.”

“Whatever.”

My blood pressure was rising. I just wanted to test my seismograph. “Can we get started now?”

Ishmael grinned, the ice cream already forgotten. “Let’s do this.”

I moved toward my equipment.

“Oh, wait!” Ishmael said. I turned back to him. With a dramatic flourish, he fastened the topmost button on his Hawaiian shirt—even in the chill of the September evening, Ishmael’s personal style trended toward ’80s beach movie. “All right. I feel professional now.”

I ignored my brother’s theatrics, because the moment had finally arrived. I forgot about him showing up late, with ice cream. I forgot about the questions he’d asked in the past two weeks, an eager glint in his eyes: How big will this explosion be? Are you sure a bigger explosion wouldn’t be better for your research? But, if you did want to make it bigger, could you? I forgot everything except the task at hand.

I walked to the table where the equipment was set up and picked up the detonator.

“Dude,” Ishmael said, “this is just like a movie.”

It was not like a movie.

It was science.

“Are you sure I can’t go outside to watch the explosion?” Ishmael asked.

“My answer is the same as the other twelve times you asked.”

I wasn’t expecting a large blast, and the explosives were set up decently far from us, but safety came first in all scientific pursuits.

“Can I press the button at least?”

“Shut up, Ishmael,” I said.

I licked my lips. I took a deep breath. I looked affectionately at my seismograph, a machine I’d poured so much energy into.

Then I pressed the detonator.

The explosion rocked my lab. Shelves shook. A book fell off the table. Dust flew into the air.

And the sound.

It was loud.

Even after the noise subsided, my ears rang. A burnt smell filled my nostrils and dread twisted my stomach in knots. The explosion was larger than I’d anticipated. Much, much larger. How had my calculations been so inaccurate?

I looked at Ishmael. His eyes were wide, his face ashen.

“Shit,” he said.

We turned and jetted for the door.

Ishmael beat me outside. I followed, racing across the field, choking on dust and smoke. When Ishmael stopped short, we collided. I moved around him to see what had caused his sudden halt.

There was a crater. The explosion caused a crater.

My brother and I stood side by side, gazing at the new geological feature of our parents’ farm.

“Ishmael?” I said in an even tone that didn’t betray my rising panic.

“Yeah?”

“Can you explain this to me?”

He hesitated. “I… Well, I thought the explosion should be a little bigger. You know. To help with the sizeograph or whatever.”

“Goddammit, Ishmael.”

In front of us, a patch of dry grass burst into flame. Ishmael and I rushed over and frantically stomped the fire out. I was so focused, I didn’t see my parents running through the field toward us. It wasn’t until I heard their shouts that I looked up and saw their horrified expressions.

My father immediately joined the fire stomp. My mother gaped at the hole, one hand pressed to her chest. Across the field, I saw my sister, Maggie (Magdalene Hofstadt, age thirteen), also making her way over to us.

By the time the fire—and the smaller fires it spawned—were extinguished, I was panting from exertion. My brother and father were hardly winded.

As I watched, Father’s expression shifted from concern to rage. “What the hell happened here?”

“Vic—” Mother began.

“No,” Father stopped her. “I want to hear what the boys have to say.”

My heart sank. I was going to get my lab taken away. After the mishap last May, I was warned I was on my last chance before losing all out-of-school science privileges. (The mishap involved the FCC contacting my parents regarding unlicensed radio broadcasts coming from our house—I’d been attempting to communicate with the International Space Station.)

“Let me see if they’re okay first,” Mother replied.

“They look fine to me,” Maggie said, joining the rest of us. She nonchalantly pulled her brown ponytail through the back