Free Anton's Odyssey by Marc Andre Page A

tears.
    “It was good meeting you,” I said to Hammond.
    Hammond let the kid go, clearly more interested in me. The kid ran off down the passageway, passing up the perfect opportunity for a sucker punch.
    “Yeah, you seem cool,” he said. “If you’ve got nothing to do later, it’s open rec at the gym at seventeen hundred.”
    “Okay,” I said, “maybe I’ll see you there.”
    I arrived home to find our living quarters empty. Mother was probably still scrubbing vomit. I worried that Cotton got lost on the way home from school. To kill time, I flipped though the channels on the vid screen only to discover that the entertainment programming and video gaming options had been deactivated. Bob the Steward had found yet another way to stick it to my family. All I could access on the vid were ship announcements such the mess hall menu and washateria closings due to IASAS contamination. Cotton would have to walk an extra three hundred meters next time he wanted to pinch a loaf. He was not going to be happy.
    Cotton finally arrived and I asked him crossly where he had been.
    “Detention,” he said indifferently.
    “You serious, it’s the first day of school!”
    He shrugged his shoulders.
    “How many days?” I asked.
    “Every day for two weeks.” Cotton hadn’t just pissed off a single teacher. Somehow, he had offended the entire system.
    “What did you do?” I asked.
    “Cuttin’ class.”
    “Why did you cut class?”
    “Dunno.” Cotton said, shrugging his shoulders again. No doubt he had acted out on some hare-brained impulse.
    “Come on!” I cried. “I told you a thousand times before. You should only cut class if it’s really nice out, which is never going to be the case out here in deep space or if some goon in school wants to beat your ass and you have no chance at winning.”
    “Yeah, I know,” he said, unapologetically.
    “Then why did you cut class?”
    “I guess I was hungry.” On cue he burped. Ever since he had recovered from IASAS, Cotton had spent almost all his free time at the mess hall, pushing the expression “all you could eat” to new limits. He was careful only to eat those foods that Dr. Zanders would describe as having a high caloric density and low nutrient value. He completely avoided vegetables, unless they were deep fried. My brother had gained quite a bit of weight in a short period of time. His shirt was way too tight. His gut pushed the fabric upward, exposing his unwashed midriff and filthy belly button. His stomach always full, he burped and belched constantly, even while asleep.
    “How did you get caught?” I asked.
    “The fat security guy,” he said.
    “Makes sense,” I said. “He’s the only person who spends more time at the mess hall than you.”
    “Yeah but he just seemed to ignore me most of the day. He didn’t do nothing for hours until we were both in line to get a refill of deep fried corn nibblets. He was all like, ‘These corn nibblets are good, and I don’t even really like corn.’ And I said, ‘Yes, they are tasty,’ although they tasted a bit like fish because I guess they never change out the oil in the deep fat fryer. Then the server guy put down a dish and said, ‘This here is the last of the nibblets,’ so I grabbed them before the security guy did, and he got really mad because he was ahead of me in line. His face turned all red and he was like, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I gave him the reason we always told the cops back home. I told him it was an administrative teacher work day.”
    My jaw dropped, and I buried my face in the palm of my hand. “That trick’s not going to work up here!”
    “Yeah, I was wondering why he knew I was lying.”
    “Cotton, back home there are dozens of schools, and it’s a real pain in the ass for the cops to look up your school and call the principal. Also, back home the cops have real crimes to deal with, people getting knifed and hoodlums