Chapter 11

Wow. The landing bay of the space station was the biggest thing I’d ever been in in my life! I couldn’t even see all the way to the far end. And it was loaded with shuttles just like ours. There must have been hundreds of them. And lots of other ships, too. Some looked barely big enough to hold one person, but most of them seemed large enough to carry a whole bunch of passengers. And equipment, too. Weird things. Like the kind of stuff my dad would come up with.

“If you’ll follow me, folks, I’ll take you to your living quarters. But first you’ll need to remove your clothing.”

“Please, sir. Not out here. I’ll show you to the changing area, where you’ll find a new uniform with your name on it. You can toss your old clothes in the marked disposal bin.”

Uniform? Wait a minute—nobody ever mentioned anything about a uniform! I really liked the clothes I already had. It took a lot of effort to look that good. And I really didn’t want to start out at a new school wearing some dorky uniform. I asked Dad what the deal was.

“Contamination, son. Contamination. There are many different species from many different planets aboard the Science Hub, and germs that might be harmless to you and me could prove disastrous to someone else. And vice versa. There’s no telling what the effects could be. You wouldn’t want to be brushing your teeth and have your head fall off into the sink, now would you?”

“No. I guess not.” Head fall off? Into the sink? And no “HAR!” at the end? Holy cow, he might actually have been serious! I quickly changed into my new outfit, sadly tossed my ultracool stud duds into the bin, and met everyone back outside the changing rooms.

Hey, you know what? The uniforms weren’t half bad! In fact, they were so sweet they could probably make anybody look good.

Well…