My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich: Chapters 8–16

When the operator says, “Hold please,” after I repeat several times that this call is from E-Grace Starfleet, lieutenant on the Mothership Uhura, I pull the receiver all the way into an empty nook between the refrigerator and the sink.

Maybe then I’ll be able to see Granddaddy, and if I press my forehead against the screen, we’ll mind meld and he’ll be able to read my thoughts.

What’s coming through the windows is not the sound of whispering leaves on oak trees, singing cicadas, the squeak-squeak of Granddaddy’s rocking chair on the porch, or Momma’s soft humming.

He sounds just like Momma, and just like my neighbors and the kids in my neighborhood in Huntsville who don’t like to venture into their imagination locations.

“It’s Sunday,” he says, coming down the last few steps wearing a dingy T-shirt and cut-off blue jeans.

This is not my new home, and I will not get acclimated.

She rolls her eyes. A sure sign that some otherworldly entity has gotten ahold of her mind.

But if Momma ever heard me say those words out loud, I would get a licking right in front of the whole congregation.

Momma is not around to see me fib. Granddaddy once said that fibs are like deflector shields.

It’s okay to protect yourself or someone you love with a deflector shield.

“Those kids from yesterday. All of them are nefarious—evil, despicable little street urchins.”

Its bright red doors are like hearts pumping loud gospel songs, tambourines, and a preacher’s shout to the rest of the block.

“Calvin,” I repeat with disgust, as if I’m saying cauliflower or cabbage or callous. “Callous Calvin. Stone-Cold Calvin.”

Momma is all the way down in Huntsville and she won’t see me act insolent or unbecoming or discourteous.

Momma is all the way down in Huntsville and she won’t see me act insolent or unbecoming or discourteous.

A long, narrow walkway leads to the pulpit where there’s an organ, a drum set, a box of tambourines, a pile of spare bibles, and six grown-ups in black graduation gowns—the choir.

She walks ahead of me and I follow her through the hallway church, past the pulpit, and through a secret door that opens up to a portal—a steep staircase leading down to a musty basement.

Who knew that Bianca was plotting along with the nefarious minions to overthrow the king? Maybe she even obtained a complete tactical readout of his battle station!

I have to know who exactly is leading this rebellion. I have to understand the terms of this impending war.

I didn’t have to pretend to like church dresses or ballet class or etiquette lessons anymore.

I pulled out one of the suits and ran my finger along the circular NASA logo. I traced each of the letters as I whispered the whole words that make up the acronym. National. Aeronautics. Space. Administration.

I pulled out one of the suits and ran my finger along the circular NASA logo. I traced each of the letters as I whispered the whole words that make up the acronym. National. Aeronautics. Space. Administration

On the right side of the suit, is the NASA 25th Anniversary commemorative logo where the red letters against the white patch look like they’ve been drawn by aliens, and the number twenty-five in red and blue separated by a small white star.

She smoothed down my skirt and my hair and looked at me with her scrunched up face and said, “Don’t you go meddling in your grandfather’s things.”

On the days leading up to my sixth grade graduation and dance, I had to listen to all the girls in my class talk about how they were going to coordinate their dresses. The only colors allowed were pink, yellow, sky blue, and lavender.

Her smile returned when she pulled out a frilly lavender dress that looked like a birthday cake.

And since Momma would be sitting in the audience as all the sixth graders lined up backstage to walk down the aisle to Billy Foster’s very bad alto sax rendition of Pomp and Circumstance, I’d have enough time to change out of that ugly lavender birthday-cake dress and slip into the E-Grace Starfleet space suit.

I’d been announcing to my not-friends that I’ll be revealing a very special surprise during graduation. I practically begged that everyone keep their eyes on me.

So I did what I always do during church or any one of Momma’s fancy formal affairs: I folded up my imagination location into a tiny square and tucked it into one of my thick braids, or into my small pocketbook, or inside the fold of one of my frilly socks.

“Don’t worry, baby girl. We’ll hold off on the adventures of the Uhura for a few days. I’ll activate the impenetrable force field so that she’s protected out there in deep space,” Granddaddy said to me as Momma brought out his suitcases for his long trip.

He’d patted me on the shoulder and had not scooped me up into his long, wiry arms like he usually did at the end of a Uhura story.

It becomes so tiny that there isn’t room for any new ideas, even though the old ideas are still there, compact and dense like a tiny star.

Bright gold earrings shaped like giant trapezoids hang from each ear, and her lips are as shiny as sunlight reflecting on glass.

I want to say something really mean but the words don’t form quick enough in my imagination location, and soon, I’m distracted by two girls unraveling a telephone cord.

The rest of the nefarious minions laugh at Stone-Cold Calvin, but it doesn’t faze him.

“I can read straight through that thick peanut head of yours and ain’t nothing in there but a black void!”

“Is this from Dapper Dan’s?” one of the girls asks while touching the stripe on Diane’s jacket.
“You know Dapper Dan ain’t gonna make something cheap like this,” Diane says.

The questions are at the tip of my tongue, but I’ve been completely disarmed by this strange proclamation.

Finally, my No Joke City best friend, my fellow space cadet on the Uhura, Bianca Pluto, is not an intergalactic astronaut after all.

And this isn’t like Huntsville where everyone knows that I’m the granddaughter of Jeremiah Granville Norfleet, pioneering aerospace engineer.