Lost In Translation Read Online Free Page A

just beginning.

Chapter 2
    Katy pushed the mashed potatoes on her plate up and up into a shape like Mount O’Bagnon, framed in the dining room window just across the table from her. Then she began picking up her peas one at a time and sticking them into the potato-mountain, pretending they were the dekla trees that covered Mount O’Bagnon, although they were entirely the wrong shape and not even close to the right color. She pretended really hard that they were the right shape and color, because pretending really hard helped her not to feel how worried and scared her parents were. When they were scared, she got scared, and she didn’t like being scared.
    Pretending really hard sometimes helped her not to hear them when they argued, either, but they were right there at the table with her and she couldn’t help it, even though she pretended Mount O’Bagnon suddenly turned into a volcano and all the dekla trees got covered in the thick brown lava she poured from the gravy pitcher.
    â€œI can’t believe you’re letting them go ahead with this carnival,” Mama said, her voice all tight and strange. “After the news from New Atlanta? My God, Mike, just before we left Earth the Sootangs said they were planning to move to New Atlanta. They could be dead!”
    â€œThey could have been dead since the day we left Earth,” Daddy said. His voice stayed really calm and low, but it didn’t fool Katy; she could feel his worry just as strong as Mama’s. She decided the peas didn’t look anything like dekla trees and had to be punished. One by one, she started squashing them.
    â€œYou know what I mean. Mike, we’re at war!”
    â€œEarth is at war. We’re a thousand light years from Earth. We’ve got nothing anyone would want.”
    â€œWe don’t know what these monsters want. We don’t even know why they attacked the colony on Petra to begin with!”
    â€œThey’re still intelligent creatures. They won’t attack a place just to be attacking. Luckystrike has no strategic value. We’re just a farming planet.”
    â€œWhat strategic value did New Atlanta have? They killed a quarter of the people in the colony, Mike! Over three thousand dead!”
    Daddy took a deep breath, and Katy could feel a little bit of anger inside all his worry. She squashed another pea, lining it up carefully under the middle two tines of her fork, then pressing down little by little until the green skin burst and the inside gushed out. It made her think of squashing the little green worms that kept trying to eat their garden, and she giggled, thinking how shocked Mama would be if she said that out loud. Daddy glanced at her. “That’s still no reason to cancel the carnival. You know how Katy’s been looking forward to it. Not having the carnival won’t make us any safer.”
    â€œIt just doesn’t feel right. Having fun when all those people—”
    Daddy reached over and squeezed Mama’s hand, his anger receding and the undercurrent of love Katy could always feel welling up. “How’s this, then: we’ll have the carnival, and we’ll all go, just like we planned, but we’ll try really hard not to enjoy ourselves.”
    Just for a minute Mama got a little angry, and Katy stopped squishing her peas and looked up. Sometimes when they both got angry together, they argued and she wanted to be ready to run up to her room where she couldn’t feel them quite so much. But then Mama’s anger faded away and amusement replaced it, and Katy relaxed. No fight this time!
    â€œIt’s a deal,” Mama said. “But Mike, what if they do come here?”
    â€œWe’ve got shelters set up, just like Earth told us. If we get enough warning, they won’t be able to do anything but burn some buildings.”
    â€œAnd crops, and livestock, and . . . how would we survive the winter?”
    â€œEarth would