Blast Off! by Nate Ball

grape soda bottle whizzed around in a circle and showered a stunned Olivia with huge purple dots.
    The root beer bottle hissed for an instant and shot straight across the floor, hitting Skip the Skeleton in his unmentionable area. Skip leaned dangerously forward, like he was about to jump over a creek. Then, to my horror, Skip’s neck broke, leaving just his skull dangling.
    The still-fizzing two-liter root beer bottle was on the floor, trapped up in Skip’s rib cage.
    As the fizzing petered out, the room got eerily quiet.
    The lab was now covered in cheese balls, M&Ms, stale chips, plastic cups, magnets, batteries, marbles, dominoes, bones, soda slime, and empty bottles.
    â€œThat could have gone better,” Amp said quietly.
    â€œWhat just happened?” Olivia whispered, holding her dripping arms out to the side. For a second I thought she was crying, but it was just grape soda dripping down her face.

    â€œI’m think I’m going to jail for the rest of my life,” I squeaked.

16
    What a Blast
    O livia finally broke the silence. “That was awesome,” she said, looking around the now destroyed science lab.
    She walked over to an empty bottle and picked it up. “The cap split open,” she said, “which must be why the soda fizzed out like that.”
    â€œAre you crazy?” I yelped, still standing on my stool. “We killed Skip!”
    â€œSkip’s a skeleton. He was already a goner,” Olivia said, lifting his head up for a moment to look him in the eye sockets.
    â€œExcuse me, but I think your Mr. Hoog is coming this way,” Amp said. “He must have heard the commotion.”
    â€œMy life is over,” I whispered.
    â€œThis way!” Amp shouted. “We need to escape!” He headed for the emergency exit at the back of the lab, which opened onto the playground.
    â€œAren’t we going to clean this place up?” I croaked.
    â€œThey’ll just think the robot club made this mess,” Olivia hissed. “Besides, we don’t have time. Remember?”
    â€œWhat about our fingerprints?” I said. “They must be everywhere.”
    â€œYou watch too much TV,” Olivia said.
    â€œWe really should go now,” Amp warned us, picking up one of the magnets off the floor and waving it at us.
    Olivia took the broken cap off the bottle and tossed it on the floor. She reached into a container of black rubber stoppers and found one that fit the bottle. “Hey, maybe we could use this to launch Amp’s ship—sorta like the booster rocket they use on the space shuttle.” She shook the bottle and the soda fizzed up again. “What do you think?”
    â€œI think I’m going to be sent to a camp for troubled youth,” I said.
    â€œYou’re overly dramatic,” Olivia said.
    â€œGUYS!” Amp shouted in an even higher pitch than usual. “NOW!”
    Olivia ran for the door. I followed her through the door.
    â€œWAIT!” I had forgotten my backpack on the lab table!
    I spun and grabbed the door just before it locked me out. I dashed across hundreds of cheese balls, crunch-crunching the whole way, and grabbed my backpack just as I heard Mr. Hoog’s keys jangling on the other side of the door. In a matter of seconds, I made it back out the door, scooped up Amp, hid him in my backpack, and took off after Olivia across the school’s soccer field.
    We squeezed through a hole in the gate at the back of the school and ran next to a dry creek alongside the back of the school.
    We jogged for half a mile or so. After cutting across an old muddy field, we reached our street. Olivia spoke for the first time. “I’ve been thinking,” she gasped.
    â€œOh no,” I said, pressing my palms onto my knees as I tried to catch my breath.
    â€œNo, seriously,” she said, hitting me with the soda bottle. “If we can get the fizz to come out really strong, the bottle will