The Science of Defying Gravity

By L.G. Reed

THE SCIENCE OF DEFYING GRAVITY by L.G. Reed and published by Keyes Canyon Press. This novel is a genre mashup of STEM based science learning and fictional story.

Eleven year old Cassie films her life. She loves movies and dreams of becoming a movie di

• Language: English
• Publisher: Keyes Canyon Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780985007454

L.G. Reed

Linda Reed first published an award winning short story in high school then went on to aerospace engineering in the Los Angeles area where she published numerous non-fiction magazine articles. Her poems have been published in the San Luis Obispo Tribune and her first indie novel, “The Maiden Voyage of the Maryann” won the Cygnus Awards 1st Place - Women's Fantasy/SciFi Category. She lives in San Miguel/Paso Robles California with her husband and their two active dogs, Brownie and Latte.

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To my friends and mentors in the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) especially Fran Stuart and Sue Parsons

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.   -Benjamin Franklin

THE SCIENCE OF DEFYING GRAVITY

L.G. Reed

PART 1 — HOUSTON – WE’RE READY FOR LIFT OFF!

CHAPTER ONE

October 1—Lunch Time

CASSIE’S BACKPACK SLAMMED down on the lunch table next to her best friend, Wylie, who grabbed his can of soda to prevent it from spilling.

Mrs. Taylor hates me!

She opened her lunch bag and dumped a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a bag of pretzels onto the laminate lunchroom table.

Rain pounded the roof, so everyone was inside, and the noise in the room reverberated off the walls making it hard to concentrate.

She doesn’t hate you, Wylie said.

Then why did I get in trouble this morning during the science lesson? I’m the only one she picks on. Cassie’s cheeks still burned with embarrassment.

Because you hadn’t done the homework and weren’t paying attention. As usual, Wylie said. He had a school lunch. Pizza and a brick-red apple. Cassie had been paying attention; at least she’d tried to. But the capital letters and funny symbols Mrs. Taylor wrote on the board didn’t mean anything to her.

Thick peanut butter coated her mouth when she bit into her sandwich. Her words came out muffled. Numbers are boring. Science is boring.

Wylie shrugged. You have to know science to go into space. That’s the way it is.

Cassie Williams loved movies. Especially movies about space. When she was younger she’d watch Star Trek with her dad and older brother, Brad. She loved the opening words of each episode: Space. The final frontier. Then her younger brother, Mark, came along, and overnight Cassie was cast aside. At least that’s how it felt to her. Dad would take the boys to football games and hockey tournaments and leave Cassie to do whatever it was girls were supposed to do.

Space was so big. There was plenty of room for everyone, plenty of room for dreams, for girls. Cassie’s big dream was to be the first movie director in space. She wanted to make movies like her favorite, Galaxy Quest. That would get Dad’s attention. Granted, she knew a few things stood in her way. She was only eleven, for one thing, although that was not what she considered her biggest obstacle.

To Cassie, the biggest hurdle was getting to Space Camp and setting a firm foot on her path to the astronaut corps. Her parents had promised to send her to Space Camp next summer. Everything would be easy after that. Of course, Dad had said that if her grades weren’t good, then Space Camp was a no-go. Her only obstacle to that goal was science class. She loathed science the way she loathed her older brother. Who needed it, really? Not her, for sure. Mrs. Taylor, her fifth-grade teacher, didn’t seem to understand that.

Wylie bit into his apple. It made a juicy crunch sound as he chewed. Eventually you’re going to have to learn science, he said after a minute. Astronauts need to know complex procedures and equipment specifications.

"Why? I’ll only be a rocket passenger on the way into orbit. My people will take care of the inconsequential details."

Cassie checked the angle on her phone camera, tucked into her backpack.

Don’t film this, he said. You’ll get us in trouble. Generally, Wylie accepted that Cassie filmed everything in her life, as long as she didn’t include him.

"It’s okay. It’s not like I’m using the phone to talk to friends. Shooting a movie is an academic activity. I’m learning."

She winked at the camera; he rolled his eyes and turned his chair so the camera couldn’t see his face. Several kids sat down at the other end of the table. Cassie moved her backpack, repositioned the lens, and whispered, Take two into the camera.

There could be an accident, he said. Everyone on the rocket needs to know how to pilot it. That means science. Angles, velocities, thrust. His brown eyes drilled into her like they were mining for guilt. Cassie, I know you’re smarter than you sound or act. You should listen to yourself sometime. Watch those videos you’re always making.

He could say that as her best friend, but it stung anyway. And he was wrong: she did watch the videos, but mostly to make sure her face was visible, and she didn’t look dorky.

It’s numbers I don’t like, she said. Why can’t they be stories? Like in movies?

Wylie folded his paper plate into an origami box and placed the apple core inside it. You should figure out a way to make the numbers into stories, he said. Then you would remember the math part.

What numbers would make a good story? None sprang to mind. Especially none that would help her understand the Four Forces of Flight science module Mrs. Taylor had droned on about this morning. Though actually, that did sound like the title of a science fiction flick....

Earlier that day

That morning Cassie skidded into her chair late. She’d forgotten to finish her homework the previous night and got a mark on the attendance list for not turning in the worksheet on nouns. Then Mrs. Taylor wrote an equation on the board with a squeaky black marker that smelled like blackberries. ∑F = M x A [In scientific equation the small x means that you would multiply the variable M by the variable AI.]

Cassie groaned, which earned her a glare from the teacher. Mrs. Taylor walked over to Cassie’s desk and pulled the genuine, authentic director’s hat she’d gotten for her birthday off her head.

Miss Williams, can you tell me what this equation says?

When parents and teachers used your full name, you knew you were in for it. Mrs. Taylor using her last name was a warning shot.

Mrs. Taylor wore crisp blue jeans every day. Indigo blue that looked like they had just come off the shelf at the store. As soon as a hint of comfortable fading appeared, that pair vanished, and a new one took its place. A soldierly seam scored the front, straight from the floor to her waist. Who ironed their jeans? It was through her sweater sets that she expressed individuality. If you could call a sweater set creative. Every day of the week was a different color, and the jewelry that went with it changed to match. Today being a Monday, she wore a red sweater set with a necklace of black balls on a silver chain; her ash-blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the base of her neck and adorned with a black velvet bow the size of a loaf of bread.

Cassie’s brain swirled in her skull [Brains don't actually swirl, but it can sure feel like that sometimes] until she thought she was about to pass out. Nothing was worse than screwing up in class, even though it happened all the time. The class was studying the Four Forces of Flight, a topic she didn’t have the slightest interest in. Everyone twisted in their chairs to look at her, their eyes wide. Thunder rolled across the wide Kansas sky.

Cassie? Mrs. Taylor’s voice rose irritably. Cassie slumped down in her seat in an unsuccessful effort to hide and checked the wall clock to see if the lunch bell might save her. No such luck.

No.

No what? Mrs. Taylor didn’t like incomplete answers.

No, I don’t know what the equation says. The teacher nodded, as if that was what she expected to hear and looked around for another volunteer. Emma, a red-haired girl across the room, rolled her eyes at Cassie and then her hand shot up and waved. Emma always knew the answer to everything. Because of that, Cassie hated her, even though they had been best friends—once.

Her current best friend, Wylie, raised his hand as well. Mrs. Taylor chose Emma.

The sum of the forces equals the mass times the acceleration, Emma said. [Force is shown with the letter F, mass with an M, and acceleration with the letter A. F=MA]

Correct. And who can tell me what that means?

Mrs. Taylor didn’t even look at Cassie. Wylie answered this time. Acceleration of an object depends on the mass of the object and the amount of force applied.

Correct. You each get a star on the attendance list for today.

Darn! Cassie had never gotten a star. Emma had tons, and even Wylie had a lot.

Mrs. Taylor turned to write another equation on the board. The marker squeaked out a line of strange letters and symbols. Cassie doodled in the margins of her book. This stuff wasn’t important in movie-making.

Emma’s arm went up and down like a puppet’s arm being yanked by a string, and Cassie could tell Miss