Luciana: Braving the Deep Read online

  FOR MEREDITH, MIKAELA,

  SOFIA, AND MOLLY

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1: GOOD-BYES

  CHAPTER 2: WELCOME TO CAMP

  CHAPTER 3: MARS EXTREME

  CHAPTER 4: TREADING WATER

  CHAPTER 5: PAIRING UP

  CHAPTER 6: LEFT OUT

  CHAPTER 7: THUMBS-UP, THUMBS-DOWN

  CHAPTER 8: SEEDLING

  CHAPTER 9: MAKING WAVES

  CHAPTER 10: CLOUDED OVER

  CHAPTER 11: FOR THE MISSION

  CHAPTER 12: PRACTICE DIVE

  CHAPTER 13: TEAM MEETING

  CHAPTER 14: THE STORM

  CHAPTER 15: SEA MONSTER

  CHAPTER 16: PUSHED TO THE LIMIT

  CHAPTER 17: LUCUMA MERINGUE CAKE

  CHAPTER 18: CLAIRE

  CHAPTER 19: FAREWELL BONFIRE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND SPECIAL THANKS

  LEARN MORE ABOUT LUCIANA

  PREVIEW OF TENNEY

  REQUEST A CATALOGUE

  COPYRIGHT

  My best friend, Raelyn, and I sat on my front lawn under a mulberry tree. It was August in Virginia, which meant it was as hot as the surface of Venus outside. At least, that’s what it felt like. We were watching my little sister, Isadora, play with her wagon, filling it with pinecones and dandelions while Mom and Dad packed up the car. We were also supposed to be saying good-bye. In just fifteen minutes, I would be on my way to a two-week youth astronaut training camp.

  “So, you’re sure this camp is safe for kids?” Raelyn asked, picking at the grass in front of her.

  “Yep.” I smiled at her. “I’m sure.”

  Raelyn laid back in the grass. “At least promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I joked, and she threw some grass at me.

  “I’m just saying this camp sounds like serious business,” Raelyn explained.

  I felt a streak of excitement go up my spine. After I went to Space Camp over spring break, I wanted more. Sure, I had my ups and downs being away from home for the first time, but the experience was awesome. So, as soon as I heard about this training program from my friend Ella from Space Camp, I knew that I had to go. Ella and I applied to the program and in the end, only six kids from across the country were accepted. I was so proud—and okay, a little bit nervous.

  “You’re right,” I told Raelyn. “It is kind of serious. Anyway, art camp isn’t always completely safe either.”

  Raelyn gave me a questioning look. She’d be going to the art camp down the street at the rec center, a camp we normally did together.

  I put on a serious face. “You know, all those pointy paintbrushes and sharp drawing pencils, not to mention the highly flammable kiln in the back room.”

  Raelyn laughed, sitting up. “Yeah, I’ll try not to run with scissors.”

  I knew Raelyn was just trying to make me smile, but I would miss her. A lot.

  “Did you pack your flippers?” Raelyn asked.

  “Do you mean my fins?” I said with a laugh. “No, I don’t even have any. Besides, they will give us all the equipment there.” Our mission at camp would be to dive to Cetus, an underwater habitat where real astronauts train for life in space. We’d live there for twenty-four hours, perform experiments, and practice space walks on the ocean floor. Going to Cetus would take me one step closer to being an astronaut and my dream of being the first girl on Mars.

  Just then, Isadora came barreling over, a dandelion in her hand. “Flor!” she said, using the Spanish word for “flower.” My parents had adopted her two months ago from an orphanage in Chile, the country where my family was from. I had wanted a baby sister my whole life and I still couldn’t believe she was here.

  I took the dandelion from her and pretended to gobble it up, smacking my lips. She giggled and ran off to her yellow plastic car by the front walk. Dad was just coming out of the garage with a diaper bag, Mom close behind with Isadora’s stuffed penguin and a handful of toys. My bag was already in the trunk.

  “By the way,” I said to Raelyn, “my parents scheduled Izzy’s surgery.” My heart throbbed with worry. Adoptions usually took a long time but we were able to bring Isadora home so fast because she had a heart defect and needed treatment. Not to mention surgery.

  Raelyn looked up. “When is it?”

  “It’s a few days after I get back from camp,” I said.

  Raelyn shimmied closer to me in the grass. “Try not to worry about it while you’re at camp, okay? You’ve been excited about this program all summer.”

  We were quiet for a second, watching my little sister try to ride her car over one of the garden beds. It was hard to get the surgery out of my head. She was so little. The thought of her—

  “Seriously, are you thinking about it now? Stop,” Raelyn said.

  “I’m not thinking about anything.” But I had pulled every petal off my dandelion without even realizing it.

  “Seriously. Don’t ruin your time at camp. Izzy will be fine while you’re gone,” Raelyn said.

  I sighed. “I know. Thanks, Rae. What am I going to do without you and your advice when I’m away?”

  Raelyn took hold of my hand. We flopped back in the grass and lay in the shade of the tree, twirling the purple stripes in our hair. We had each dyed one little section of our hair to match. A friendship stripe.

  “Five minutes!” Dad called from the driveway.

  “Lulululu!” Isadora called. She pedaled in our direction and parked her yellow plastic car next to us. “Lulu.” She opened the door and patted the seat.

  Raelyn laughed. “Aw, she wants you to get in.”

  Isadora bounced.

  I draped one of my legs over the door of the car. “Lulu is too big!” I said to Isadora, but she wasn’t convinced. She got out of the car and pulled my arm.

  “Come on, big sister,” Raelyn said. “Get yourself in there.”

  I folded myself into the car, backing butt-first through the toddler-sized doorway, my head hitting the yellow plastic roof. Isadora clapped.

  “One of your legs is still out!” Raelyn said, snorting with laughter as if this was the most hysterical thing she’d ever seen.

  I pulled my other leg in close to my chest and wedged it inside the toy car, giving Raelyn a look. “Your turn next,” I threatened.

  But Raelyn was laughing so hard, I couldn’t help laughing too, which was difficult to do while jammed inside a toy car.

  Isadora stopped clapping and tried to climb in with me, getting mad when I couldn’t make room. “Lulu’s too big,” I told her. Then, somehow, she managed to tip the car over—with me still inside.

  I face-planted into the grass, my arms and legs too packed into the car to catch myself. “Rae!” I called, my words muffled in the ground. I was trapped in the yellow plastic car. “Raelyn-this-isn’t-funny-help-me.”

  I pushed against the car, my head hitting the top and my knees locked against the steering wheel. I didn’t like this game anymore. What if I was really stuck? Like, so stuck nobody could even help me? I felt a flash of panic. My heart thumped in my ears, beating too fast, and all of a sudden I couldn’t catch my breath. I pushed my knees against the steering wheel harder. “RAELY—”

  “Can I help you?” She grinned, lifting the car up enough to dump me out onto the lawn.

  I took deep breaths, sprawled on the grass, Raelyn next to me still laughing her head off, the sun bright in our faces. “Seriously, you okay?” she asked, catching her breath.

  “Yep,” I said, thankful she couldn’t hear that my heart was still racing.

  Sometimes my heart just leapt into panic mode. Like that time Raelyn and
I rearranged her room during a sleepover and I got wedged between the wall and her bed or when I accidentally locked myself in the girls’ locker room at school. But I could always count on Raelyn when I needed a rescue.

  Isadora toddled over and squeezed into the little space between us, putting her head on my shoulder and her feet in Raelyn’s face. It wasn’t long before she was sleeping.

  “Time to go!” Dad called.

  Raelyn helped me carry a droopy Isadora over to the car. Who knew a toddler could be so heavy?

  “Oh dear, is Izzy sleeping?” Mom flitted around her, feeling her forehead and taking her pulse to check for any changes.

  “Mom?” I said, feeling a spike of nerves.

  “She’s okay. Pulse is fine.” She kissed Isadora’s rosy cheek. “I just worry when she sleeps so soon after waking up from her morning nap, you know?”

  Sleepiness. Weak pulse. Those were the symptoms of my little sister’s heart condition. “Just two more weeks,” I said. “And then she’ll be all better. We won’t have to worry anymore.”

  Mom gently tugged my hair. “A mother always worries.” She took Isadora, who was snoring little baby snores. “I’ll get her into her car seat,” she said, leaving Raelyn and me alone.

  Raelyn and I hated saying good-bye. It took us almost an hour to say good-bye when she went to Colorado one summer for three weeks for her uncle’s wedding, and even longer when I left for an entire Christmas break in first grade to visit Abuelita in Chile. But Mom and Dad and Isadora were already in the car waiting for me.

  “I’ll bring you back a shell from the bottom of the ocean, okay?” I said.

  “And I’ll make pinch pots for us in the highly flammable kiln.” She smiled.

  Then we did our secret handshake from second grade and hugged each other until Dad tooted the horn.

  The training program was a two-hour drive to the coast. It shared a small peninsula of land with a space flight facility, with the bay on one side and the ocean on the other. I cracked the window as we got closer, the steamy salt air floating into the car.

  Isadora still slept, even when we turned off the main road of shopping centers and big stores full of beach stuff and headed toward the bay. The road narrowed and we passed a sign for the space flight facility with a rocket pointed to a starry night sky. And then we passed a banner for the youth training program, and I got so excited I could barely stay in my seat belt.

  “I’ll stay here with Izzy. You go with Dad to get checked in,” Mom said.

  “Dad,” I said, looking around as we got out of the car, “it’s beautiful.” There was a large grassy area with a giant airplane hangar and a dozen or so yellow cottages at the water’s edge. The cottages were stuck right in the sand, the bay calm and blue green behind them. It looked like a resort, not a youth astronaut training camp, even with all the kids walking around.

  “Luciana!” It was Ella, running out of the hangar. I dodged a group of kids lugging their duffel bags across the grassy area and raced to meet her. We’d been sending postcards back and forth for the past few months, but I hadn’t seen her since we left Space Camp.

  “Ella!” She looked nearly the same—brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and greenish-hazel eyes—except with more freckles across her nose, probably from the summer sun.

  “Hurry and go check in,” Ella urged. “I can’t wait to show you our cottage!”

  I grabbed Dad and pulled him toward the hangar where there was a giant “REGISTER HERE” sign. Inside the hangar, equipment and workstations filled an open space wide enough for the biggest planes. As I took in the enormous room, from its cool concrete floors to the stories-high ceiling, the entire place echoed with the voices of kids and families. There was a greenhouse in the middle of the hangar; a computer station with monitors climbing up the wall; something that looked like an engine, all falling apart on a table; machines big and small everywhere; and a cylinder as tall and wide as a house in the corner of the room. I was pretty sure that was the underwater astronaut training pool.

  Dad squeezed my hand and we followed a mom and kid toward the front of the hangar with a wall of windows looking out to the bay. Registration was on a long table with three signs. “AVIATION.” “ROCKET SCIENCE.” “CETUS.”

  I marched us over to the “CETUS” sign where a woman holding a clipboard stood up. Her name tag said “Sarah.”

  “I’m Luciana Vega,” I said, waving.

  “It’s so nice to meet you.” She made a check next to my name and shook our hands. “I’m Sarah, one of your Cetus counselors. Here’s the key to your cottage, a map of the camp, and your name badge.” She tapped her clipboard. “We’re just waiting for one more person and then we’ll beach-buggy over to the ocean side together for a welcome bonfire on the beach.”

  I was going to ride in a beach buggy! For a welcome bonfire! I clapped. I couldn’t help it.

  Sarah laughed. “Go ahead and unpack and get settled. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  When we got back outside, Mom waved to us from the beach.

  Isadora was awake, pressing her little toes deep into the pale sand and when I sat next to her, she plopped into my lap. I hugged her and kissed her cheeks. Suddenly, sitting here with my new baby sister made beach buggies and yellow cottages in the sand feel not so exciting.

  “I’m going to miss Izzy so much,” I said.

  “This program is an amazing opportunity for you,” Mom said. “You’ll have a wonderful time.”

  I nodded. The underwater habitat was normally reserved for training real astronauts who were preparing to go to space. The youth training program had special permission to use the underwater habitat so kids could feel what it was like to be an actual astronaut. It was an amazing opportunity for someone like me.

  “Want us to help you unpack?” Dad asked as Mom stood up and dusted the sand off her legs.

  I shook my head. “It’s okay.” The sun was starting to get low in the sky. I knew they had a long drive back. I took a breath. “I’ve got it.”

  “Don’t forget, you can call us anytime,” Mom said. We hugged, and then I watched my family as they walked to the parking lot, Isadora laying her head on Dad’s shoulder. For a minute, watching them leave, I felt overwhelmed with homesickness, but then Ella burst out of one of the cottages and ran to me. “I saved you a bottom bunk. Come on!”

  I jogged along the sand with her to the first cottage, squinting past the bright yellow paint to read the sign over the door: “Chincoteague.” Inside there were two sets of bunk beds pushed against the wall, a bathroom, and a dresser for all of our clothes.

  Ella patted a bottom bunk. “Take this one so we can be next to each other.” She had already claimed the other one, her stars and moon bedding neatly laid out.

  But just as I was about to throw my sheets onto the bed, we heard a helicopter. The whirring sound got closer and closer until it seemed as though the helicopter was right overhead. We bounced up and looked out the window. Kids were gathering around the grassy area where I saw a helicopter pad.

  “I think it’s landing here!” I said.

  “Does that say Mars Extreme?” Ella asked, her mouth open.

  “Mars what?” I asked.

  “It does. It says Mars Extreme!” Ella hopped up and down, something I’d never seen Ella do before. The Ella I knew from Space Camp was serious. And definitely not prone to overexcitement.

  “Are you feeling okay?” I asked, laughing.

  “You don’t know Mars Extreme?” Ella said. “The company owned by Lance Jacobs? The famous space inventor?”

  “Oh!” I said. Suddenly, I knew who she was talking about: the guy I’d seen on TV with all of his fancy electric cars and on the cover of a science magazine wearing a space suit. He was the guy who promised to send the first people to Mars.

  “Do you think it’s really him?” Ella said.

  I tossed my sheets and blanket onto my bed. “Let’s find out.”

  We ran out of the ca
bin just as the helicopter touched down. Ella grabbed my hand, and we held our breaths, waiting to see who would come out.

  We didn’t have to wonder long. When the helicopter doors popped open, a man wearing a leather jacket covered with space patches jumped out, ducking low to avoid the rotors. I would have recognized his curly, wild hair anywhere.

  Ella made a squealing sound next to me.

  “What’s Lance Jacobs doing here?” I wondered. Did he work for the training program? Was he looking for a kid to take with him to Mars?

  “Good afternoon!” Mr. Jacobs said, striding up to the cluster of kids from all the different camp programs who were crowding on the lawn. “Beautiful day to start your space training!” And it was. Even the heat felt less suffocating by the water with the soft breeze coming from the bay. He shook hands, starting down the line, and when he reached Ella and me wearing our Cetus name badges, he stopped.

  “I hope you know what it means to be part of this program,” he said. “I’ve been to Cetus myself many times.” I noticed a few other kids with Cetus badges push to the front of the crowd to hear better. “You should feel lucky to be here. You’ll be ahead of the rest of your astronaut class when the time comes. Not many kids get the chance to train where real astronauts train.” For a second it felt like he was talking only to me.

  That’s when I noticed the girl standing behind Mr. Jacobs. She was tall with the same thick, wavy hair as his.

  “Dad?” she said.

  Lance Jacobs had a daughter?

  “Are you going to check me in and help me unpack?” she asked.

  And she was coming to camp?

  Our counselor, Sarah, jogged over. “I’ve got her, sir. We’ll get her all set up.”

  “She’s in the Cetus program!” Ella whispered in my ear, obviously thrilled.

  Mr. Jacobs kissed his daughter on the cheek and with a wave, joined the rest of his team on the helicopter. We all watched it take off and glide through the clouds.

  The kids from Aviation and Rocket Science dispersed until there were just six of us left on the lawn with Sarah.

  “Welcome to the Cetus program,” she said, looking around at our now-gathered team. “As Mr. Jacobs mentioned, you are taking part in a unique training program for future astronauts that will give you real training experience.