Space Hotel

Chapter One: Ups and Downs "Check it out, Sandy," I said, looking at my younger sister upside down. Like a spider, I used my fingers and feet to slowly "walk" across the padded surface of the plane's ceiling and then back again. "I've always wanted to be a 'fly on the wall'!" Sandy looked up at me. She was hovering in a cross-legged sitting position a good six inches off the plane's floor. "Ho, ho, ho, it's Tom Swift Jr., the king of comedy," she replied into her Swift Speak, the miniature microphone-and-earpiece combo that allowed us to communicate in normal voices over the roar of the plane's engines. "Just don't fall on me when the plane finishes its arc!" We were passengers aboard theSwiftStar,, the latest invention of my dad's business, Swift Enterprises. It was a special jet astronauts used to get a feel for what it would be like to be in outer space, where there was very little gravity. Microgravity, it was called. Scientists used the plane too; some of their experiments work best in a weightless environment. My dad showed Sandy and me the plans for the plane months ago, and it didn't take long for me to become as excited about it as he was. "The plane's the size of a small air tanker," he explained, pointing to diagrams on the paper. "It'll make a steep, graceful climb to a high altitude, then descend in that same arc." Sandy nodded. "Coming down, the people inside will become weightless!" "You got it, Sandy," Dad said, squeezing her shoulder. "But only for about a minute." "A minute?!" I repeated, unable to believe my ears. "That's more than twice the time you can float in a 'Vomit Comet'!" My dad was too caught up in the excitement of the project to realize I had called the plane that the air force and NASA used for the same purpose by the nickname they used. "And the 'Vom...'" He paused, catching himself. He cleared his throat and scratched his graying temple. "The plane the government uses can only make thirty to forty parabolas," he said, dipping his hand up and down to mimic the plane's flight path. "TheSwiftStar,has increased fuel capacity, so it can stay in the air for six hours!" "Twice the ups and downs, twice the training!" I said, shaking my head. "And twice the science," Sandy added. "Sweet!" I exclaimed. "Sweet, indeed," Dad said, nodding firmly. Suddenly, my arms and legs felt as heavy as oak tree logs -- gravity was coming back. Captain Lisa Ryder's voice crackled over the plane's intercom. She was Swift Enterprises' chief test pilot. "How's my honorary crew?" she shouted above the engines' roar, and I could tell from the way she said it that she was smiling. "Anybody need an airsickness bag?" "No problems back here, Lisa, we're floating like feathers," I answered lightly...then bumped my head against the fuselage. Good thing the main cabin of the plane was heavily padded. For takeoffs and landings, we'd be strapped in to the traditional airplane seats that were in the rear cabin. And they were safely bolted down. A member of theSwiftStar,'s real crew smiled at Sandy and me. He was there in case one of us got hurt, or sick. "Feet down, coming out," he yelled. I stretched out my legs and grabbed on to a padded handle on the side of the fuselage. My feet lightly touched the floor, then slowly gained more and more weight. Even though I'd only been weightless for less than a minute, it felt like a sumo wrestler was pressing down on the top of my shoulders. All of a sudden I found myself missing that free-floating sensation and I couldn't wait for that feeling again. Once you'd had the chance to fly, it was hard to give it up, even for a little while. Sandy, too, drifted down to the floor of the plane, her legs still crossed in a sitting position. She grasped handles set into the floor on either side of her. "What's the deal?" I asked her. "You just sat when we went zero-G!Appleton, Victor is the author of 'Space Hotel ', published 2006 under ISBN 9781416917519 and ISBN 1416917519.