Famous-Shmaymus
Out of hand.
Out of control.
Crazy.
Don’t believe me? Just check out hallway 765-E, four days later. (That would be AstroDate 09-25-2175.)
"Hey, congratulations, DeeBee!" A tekkie in a bright blue jumpsuit came up and gave me a big hug.
I almost couldn’t breathe.
Thing is, I hardly knew her. Sure, she worked with my dad in the data lab. But now, all of a sudden, she acted as if we were VBGFL. Very Best Girl Friends for Life.
What was up?
"You’ll be sure to tell Neta Neutron we’re good friends, won’t you?"
"Uh ..."
"See, I have this nice little song I’ve been working on, and I know she would just love it if she heard it."
The tekkie started to belt out a powerfully sorry version of "Ya Saturn My Achin’ Breakin’ Heart Till It Done Broke in Two."
"And there ain’t no way in the galax-ahye ..." She planted a hand on her heart.
Oh dear. I had to get away from her.
Fast.
Either that, or my ears would be scarred for life.
"I will wear your RIIIINGS," she screeched. Zero-G howled, and I did my best not to scream in pain.
"I, uh, have to get going," I told her. "Thanks for sharing."
Even MAC couldn’t take it. His overload lights were blinking. Poor drone. He doesn’t handle those kinds of noises very well.
"Oh, my aching circuits," he said.
The tekkie didn’t seem to notice. "So what do you think?" she asked. The smile never left her lips.
"Well, that’s a lovely song, I’m sure." I tried to be polite.
Only, the way she sang it wasn’t so lovely. I walked faster down the hallway. Get me outta here!
But you know the old Earth expression: It’s like going from a nova to a supernova. By the time I reached my lab, another bunch of people was already there to mob me. Yes, me, space nerd DeeBee.
Nothing wrong with being all of a sudden popular. But they all wanted me to talk to Neta Neutron for them, too. Like I had an "in" with the most famous holo-vid star in the solar system!
I tried to tell them I’d never met Neta Neutron. In fact, I had only talked to her once on a far-space interface. Naturally, she was between shows on her Moon Colony 12 set.
Want to know what she said? Imagine this really thick lunar accent.
"You’re just poifect for the show, dahling. Beeyooteefool. I just a-DORE the way you talk to the camera. That face. That voice. You’re a natural."
Right. A natural nerd. (I didn’t say that. Just thought it.) She had caught me at a bad time.
"You really want to talk to me?" I had said. "You want to talk to me about being on your show?"
"Of course, dahling. I need a new co-star. Someone with a science background. An inventor might be poifect."
"But how did you... ? And why are you... ?"
I sure didn’t sound too smart just then. But how often do you talk to the most famous vid star in the solar system?
"Never you mind, precious. We’ll chat next week when I come to your cozy little station. I’m going to put you on my show for a week. We’ll see if you work out. In the meantime, you just get ready to be famous."
Suffering satellites! A week with Neta Neutron!
"But what about my friends?" The other AstroKids would have been proud of me for saying this. They would have liked that I didn’t forget them. "Can they—"
"Oh, you mean the other ones on the holo-vid? Of course, bring them along if it makes you feel better. Toodle-oo, dahling."
Right. Toodle-oo.
Before I could ask her anything else, Neta hung up, just like that. Gone.
I guess vid stars do that sort of thing. But this was too weird. So, ladies and gentlemen, space travelers, astronauts, cosmonauts, argonauts, and kilowatts, here’s ...
The "Something Weird Is Going On at CLEO-7 " Countdown:
Weird 04: Somehow Neta Neutron had a vid of me and my friends.
Weird 03: But I didn’t send her the vid.
Weird 02: So where had the vid come from?
Weird 01: And who sent it to her?
* * * I didn’t know the answers—forget about Tag always saying I’m a GEEN-ius.
I was confused.
I was confounded.
I was mixed up, muddled, and befuddled.
And for once, I didn’t have the foggiest what was going on. I mean, what was the deal with being a natural and making me famous and all that?
Right.
Famous-shmaymus.
YG2BK. As in, You've Got 2 Be Kidding.
But I found out a week later that Neta Neutron wasn’t kidding about coming to CLEO-7.
Not at all. And that’s when my troubles really began.
