Astrotwins — Project Blastoff by Mark Kelly Page B

they’d seen anyone matching Mr. McAvoy’sdescription,” said Egg.
    â€œAn old man wearing a hat,” Howard clarified.
    â€œThanks a lot!” said Grandpa, and Egg said at the same time, “Howard!” Then she added, “An old handsome man, Mr. McAvoy.”
    Asking for help had never occurred to either Scott or Mark. And surely they couldn’t get points for that, right? An astronaut was all alone in space.
    â€œEgg and Howard get ten points each,” said Tommy. “So now the scores are—”
    â€œNo fair!” Barry protested.
    â€œWhy not?” Lisa asked in her quiet way.
    â€œWhose side are you on?” Barry asked. He and Lisa had worked together to find—or more accurately, not find—Mr. McAvoy.
    Lisa raised one shoulder. “It was just a question.”
    Mark said, “We were wondering, too. Don’t astronauts have to be independent and work on their own?”
    â€œBeing independent doesn’t mean not asking for help,” said Tommy. “All the astronauts have had Mission Control—a huge team of people—helping them when they were up in space. At one time or another, on every mission, they have needed the help from the ground. Look at Apollo 13. It was Mission Control that figured out what went wrong with the oxygen in the command module so that the three astronauts didn’t suffocate or become stranded in space.”
    Tommy then announced the new point totals. Pinballhad given Mark and Scott a big boost, so that Mark was in the lead with thirty-seven, then Scott with thirty. After that came Howard with twenty-nine, Lisa with twenty, Egg with nineteen, and finally Barry with seven.
    â€œHow many more points can we earn, anyway?” Barry asked.
    â€œUh, not sure,” said Tommy. “Why?”
    â€œI want to know if there’s any chance of my staging an amazing comeback, or whether I should just surrender,” Barry said.
    â€œTime for lunch?” Mark asked Grandpa.
    â€œUp to Tommy,” said Grandpa, “our fearless leader.”
    â€œFirst Big Fury, then lunch,” said Tommy. “Think about it. Do you really want to ride a roller coaster on a full stomach?” He bent from the waist and mimed retching. “Bleeeah!”
    â€œBut I’m starving,” said Barry.
    â€œMe too,” said Mark.
    â€œThat’s a negative point for each of you,” said Tommy. “Come on.” He headed for the Fury, tall and purple in the distance.
    â€œIs he just making this up as he goes along?” Egg whispered to Scott as they walked.
    â€œMaybe,” Scott said. “But we can’t ask him. We’ll lose more points!”
    While they waited in the long line for Big Fury, Tommy gave them a lecture about the virtues of patience.
    â€œBut aren’t you even hungry?” Barry asked his brother.
    Tommy shrugged. “I’ve been through enough discomfort that a late lunch doesn’t bother me.”
    That reminder of what Tommy had endured in the war made Mark and Scott look at each other. Then something occurred to Scott. Maybe Tommy was trying to toughen them up with this game? Not just find out who had skills and physical prowess, but mental toughness, too? Maybe he was even trying to improve their mental toughness.
    â€œThe change in G-forces on the roller coaster are like the change in G-forces when you’re accelerating in a fighter plane,” Tommy explained.
    â€œ G stands for ‘gravitational,’” Mark said. “So G-forces measure how heavy you feel. One G means you’re as heavy as you are here on Planet Earth.”
    â€œTechnically, a G is the gravitational acceleration of an object near Earth’s surface, if the object were in a vacuum,” Barry said. “One G is right around 32 feet per second per second. But your body feels the force as weight, so that’s where the idea of gravity comes in.”
    Tommy