Space Hostages by Sophia McDougall

hanging there in midair, but it felt as if I was falling.
    â€œAww, guys,” said the Goldfish anxiously. “Let’s calm down a moment here. I’m sure if you take a deep breath, and hug—”
    â€œI’ll, um, I’ll leave you guys,” said Carl. “But . . . we can hang later? . . . Both of you?”
    He squeezed my arm, but neither Josephine nor I replied. Josephine blinked several times. “Yes, Alice, you’ve done something. Do you remember a book called Mars Evacuees ?”
    I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t seem to rememberhow my voice worked. I thought it had hurt enough when she’d said the book was too melodramatic.
    â€œThis is why I wasn’t going to say anything,” Josephine went on wearily. “I mean, it’s done now. You can’t un write it. Everyone’s already seen it.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with it?” I asked. It came out like a whisper. “I thought I wrote you as . . . amazing. People who’ve never met you think you’re amazing. I just . . . it was all true.”
    â€œ That’s what’s wrong with it!” said Josephine, flinging out her arms wildly, so various floating objects went flying. “Alice, I told you things—things I’d never told anyone— about my mum—and you go and tell the whole world.”
    The cat statue bounced off my forehead. I didn’t really feel it.
    â€œSharing problems, sharing fun,” sang the Goldfish hopefully.
    â€œTwo can get more done than one,
    There’s no need to scream and shout,
    That’s what friendship’s all about—”
    â€œShut up, Goldfish!” we both said in unison.
    â€œYou talk to me about telling you things,” went on Josephine. “You could at least have told me whatyou were going to write.”
    In a strange way, I felt a little better when she said that, though it was a nasty, poisonous kind of better.
    â€œI emailed it to you,” I said. “The whole thing, before it was published. But you never answered. I guess you didn’t have time for that either.”
    Josephine’s eyes widened for a second; then she looked away. She pushed off against the ceiling and went floating away from me until she hit the opposite wall. “Well, what now?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t know. Like you say, it’s done now.” And oh, damn, I was going to cry again. I pivoted toward the door. “Helen, turn on the gravity, for god’s sake!”
    Everything hit the ground, not quite violently enough to be a relief to my feelings.
    â€œAww, Alice,” said the Goldfish dolefully.
    â€œYou made everything worse ,” I shouted at it, and I went running blindly, as if I could run back into my familiar bedroom in Wolthrop-Fossey. Short of that, I plunged into the nearest elevator and hit blindly at the control screen.
    I lurched out onto whatever deck it happened to be and nearly crashed into Christa.
    â€œOh, hi, sorry,” I said mechanically. Apologizing to Christa had not been on my to-do list for thejourney or, indeed, the rest of my life, but Christa was not in a state to notice. Christa, confusingly, was also running around crying. And yelling at someone in Swedish.
    I backed into the elevator again and peered around the door as she fled down the passageway. Rasmus Trommler followed her wearily. Neither of them noticed me.
    I seemed to be on the Trommlers’ private deck again. I can’t speak Swedish, but, it occurred to me that my tablet could. Feeling nosy at least distracted me from feeling miserable, so I unfolded it from my pocket and opened a translation app:
    â€œWhy did you make me come?” Christa was shouting. “I hate space, I don’t want to go to some horrible freezing Morror planet. I wanted to stay with Mama. Why did you put me on this ship where everyone hates me?”
    â€œNo one hates you, sweetheart,” he said,