Prologue (Introduction)
"Aiden, come down here this instant! I've been waiting for you like... what? An hour? Please! Come down!" shouted Mom as her voice carried all the way upstairs to my room.
"For Pete's sake, I am not going to any university or college at all!" I yelled back.
"Aiden?" Dad said, who was in my room doing some computer work. In the family, I'm the only one who has any type of computer. Well, Dad has one, but it's in his office and it's ancient. "Just.. y'know, obey her and she'll let it go."
"Fine, fine," I said grudgingly and left the room.
I don't want to go to an university or college. Well, I'd like to go, but as far as I know there isn't a college in U.S. that has astronomy section. You see, it was my ambition to become an astronaut or at least an astronomer forever. Well, since I was in first grade and I visited the planetarium. I was fascinated by the Solar System and stuff, and I quickly figured out more. For example, the closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, which is 'bout four-point-two lightyears away.
When I found out there wasn't an astronomy-based college, I totally freaked out and tried to convince Mom and Dad to let me go straight to NASA after I graduate high school. Dad was all good about the idea, but unfortunately, Mom wasn't. And her opinion's awfully high if you ask me and she's forcing me to enter Harvard or MIT ever since. She says: "But you are waaaaay smart to waste your brain in space," and "Space is dangerous." Maybe she is right but still, I want to go to the universe. Not college. Or university.
"What's this?" I asked Mom as she handed out about ten A4 paper. When she used A4 papers instead of letter, which is used in U.S. in case you don't know, it means she has something in mind. A big something.
She stapled them casually and said, her voice bright, "You're officially going to Harvard."
I spit out the water I was drinking and chocked. "What?! You mean you slipped the papers without asking me?"
"Yes," said Mom casually. I couldn't believe it, she had gone way too far. "Here are some things about it. Make sure you read it, because in a month you'll go." She hummed Under Pressure by Queen and walked off.
This got to be kidding me. No way. I'm dreaming—or imagining. There is absolutely no way this was happening. But come to think of it, I guess it's no big surprise because... well, there's a thing in the Davises that's like a motto: Every Davis has to go to a decent university. I guess I'm a typical Davis for doing that.
Wait. I'm not typical in a second thought. I hate to say this because it sounds like bragging, but I'm... kinda, you know, extraordinary. Please don't think me as a show-off.
It was dawn, and I woke up by my phone buzzing off in an alarm. For a second I thought maybe Mom or Dad would wake up and found out what I was planning, but all I could hear was snore, snore, snore. I quietly put on a jacket and jumped out of the window.
You may say, Are you insane? But I couldn't help it. I can't stand being in Harvard or any other universities.
I went to the bus stop and climbed one that went to the local airport.
I was going to Washington D.C. and go to NASA. I already did what I was supposed to do, slipping a request to NASA. And they permitted it.
I took one last look at the house as the bus zoomed off.