Standing, his dad snapped his portscreen onto the belt of his own uniform—the impeccably pressed blue-and-gray uniform of Colonel Kingsley Thorne, American Republic Fleet 186.
“Yes, and you will spend your break in your bedroom doing math homework unless you can show me, and your teacher, that you’re going to start taking this seriously.”
Carswell’s stomach sank, but his dad had marched out of the breakfast room before he could begin to refute him.
He couldn’t be grounded for mid-July break. He had big plans for those two weeks. Mostly, they involved an entrepreneurial enterprise that began with sending Boots up into the fruit trees on his neighbors’ property and ended with him selling baskets of perfectly ripe lemons and avocados to every little old lady in the neighborhood. He’d been charming his neighbors out of their bank accounts since he was seven, and had become quite good at it. Last summer, he’d even managed to get the Santos family to pay him sixty-five univs for a box of “succulent, prize-winning” oranges, having no idea that he’d picked the fruits off their own tree earlier that day.
“He’s not serious, is he?” Carswell said, turning back to his mom. “He won’t keep me grounded for the whole break?”
His mom, for maybe the first time that morning, tore her eyes away from her portscreen. She blinked at him and he suspected that she had no idea what his father’s doled-out punishment was for his low grades. Maybe she didn’t even realize what the argument had been about.
After a moment, just long enough to let the question dissolve in the air between them, she said, “Are you all ready for school, sweetheart?”
Huffing, Carswell nodded and shoved two more quick bites into his mouth. Snatching up his book bag, he pushed away from the table and tossed his blazer over one shoulder.
His dad wanted to see an improvement of grades? Fine. He would find a way to make it happen. He would come up with some solution that gave him the freedom he required during his break but didn’t include laboring away over boring math formulas every evening. He had more important things to do with his time. Things that involved business transactions and payment collections. Things that would one day lead to him buying his own spaceship. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. Just something simple and practical, something that would belong to him and to him alone.
Then his dad would know just how focused and dedicated he was, right as he was getting the aces out of here.
*
Jules Keller had hit his growth spurt early, making him a full head taller than anyone else in the class, and he was even sporting the start of peach-fuzz whiskers on his chin. Unfortunately, he still had a brain capacity equivalent to that of a pelican.
That was Carswell’s first thought when Jules slammed his locker shut and Carswell barely managed to get his fingers out of the way in time.
“Morning, Mr. Keller,” he said, calling up a friendly smile. “You look particularly vibrant this morning.”
Jules stared down the length of his nose at him. The nose on which a sizable red pimple seemed to have emerged overnight. That was one other thing about Jules. In addition to the height and the brawn and the fuzz, his growth spurt had given him a rather tragic case of acne.
“I want my money back,” said Jules, one hand still planted on Carswell’s locker.
Carswell tilted his head. “Money?”
“Stuff doesn’t work.” Reaching into his pocket, Jules pulled out a small round canister labeled with exotic ingredients that promised clean, spot-free skin in just two weeks. “And I’m sick of looking at your smug face all day, like you think I don’t know better.”
“Of course it works,” said Carswell, taking the canister from him and holding it up to inspect the label. “It’s the exact same stuff I use, and look at me.”
Which was not entirely true. The canister itself had been emptied of its original ridiculously expensive face cream when he’d dug it out of the trash bin beside his mother’s vanity. And though he’d sometimes sneaked uses of the high-quality stuff before, the canister was now full of a simple concoction of bargain moisturizer and a few drops of food coloring and almond extract that he’d found in the pantry.
He didn’t think it would be bad for anyone’s skin. And besides, studies had been showing the benefit of placebos for years. Who said they couldn’t cure teenage acne just as effectively as they could cure an annoying headache?
But Jules, evidently unimpressed with the evidence Carswell had just presented, grabbed him by his shirt collar and pushed him against the bank of lockers. Carswell suspected it wasn’t to get a better look at his own flawless complexion.
“I want my money back,” Jules seethed through his teeth.
“Good morning, Carswell,” said a chipper voice.