Blast Off! by Nate Ball Page A

fly into the air. It could launch Amp’s ship.”
    â€œBut how do we force the air in and the fizz out the bottom?”
    â€œWe poke a hole in the stopper,” she suggested, “and we shake up the soda so that it’s super fizzy.”
    I thought about that for a second. “I don’t think that’ll be enough force to push Amp’s ship into the air. It’s pretty small and not very heavy, but still . . .”

    We both stood there thinking about it. I couldn’t think of anything. Apparently, Olivia was stumped, too.
    â€œWe’ll think of something,” she said.
    â€œThe sooner the better,” I said, not thinking of anything yet.
    â€œIn the meantime, I’ll make a hole in the stopper,” she said, jogging off. “I’ll meet you in your backyard in ten minutes,” she called back over her shoulder.
    â€œHurry,” I said, focusing on the task in front of us and already forgetting about the mess we had made back at the school’s lab. “We have exactly forty-five minutes to save the world!”

17
    Smart Stuff
    T he more I thought about blasting Amp’s ship into the air, the more nervous I became.
    Amp was encouraged when I told him about our idea, but he was also distracted with worry, mumbling to himself as he punched numbers into a small calculator-looking device that he had pulled from his belt. He also sent about ten “Council Notes” off, each one sounding more and more worried. For the last one, I overheard him say:
    â€œCouncil Note: Propulsion. It means creating enough force to cause movement. Gravity. It is the Earth force that holds me to the ground. I am going to try, but I fear the propulsion from this experiment is not going to be nearly strong enough to overcome gravity. If I don’t make into orbit, please have someone water my plants at home.”
    We waited for Olivia to come back, and Amp tried resetting a device on his spaceship with the magnet he had picked up from the classroom floor. He shouted what sounded like Erdian curse words a few times and huffed off into the house. He emerged moments later with his helmet on, looking slightly more optimistic.
    And while he was doing that, I thought about that bottle. The fizzing soda didn’t seem to be powerful enough to lift Amp’s ship into space. Not to mention how we’d keep the soda in if we used a stopper with a hole in it. And that’s when an idea danced into my brain: What if we jammed air into the bottle, like with a straw, until it was ready to burst? That would increase the pressure in the bottle, so soda would shoot out the bottom. It would also keep the soda in until we were ready to release it.
    I looked at Amp. He was shaking his head. “What?” I said.
    â€œKeep thinking,” he said, nervously adjusting his tool belt.
    The straw probably wasn’t the ideal strategy. That might work for a balloon to fly around the room, but if you’re building a rocket it’s just not enough energy, or power, or force, or whatever.
    â€œReady for takeoff?” Olivia said from behind me. Her head was poking through a break in the fence between our houses. “Check it out,” she said handing me the bottle. “The hole is tiny.”
    I looked at the stopper and started to violently shake the bottle as hard as I could.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Olivia asked.
    I quickly turned the bottle over and looked at the stopper. The soda left in the bottle had gotten all foamy, but just fizzy drips were coming out the hole. “See, this isn’t going to work,” I said. “We need more air in there. Like a ton of air. I was thinking of using a straw.”
    â€œThat’ll never work,” she said, looking at me with half-closed eyes.
    â€œI know,” I said. We both stood staring at the bottle.
    â€œAre you helping, or just watching?” Olivia asked when she noticed Amp watching us.