Chapter Text
“So, how come we’re never over at your place?” Peter asked. He had somehow managed to use the couch the exact opposite way of how it was meant, with his feet against the wall above the back rest and his head slowly turning more and more red from hanging down. With his arms, he gestured wildly above his body, for apparently no reason in particular.
“I don’t have a game console,” Janae said.
“Then what do you when you are done with school- ehm, uni? Work? Whatever thing you have to do before you do what you want to do?”
“Read,” Janae answered. “Watch documentaries, help Titch with his work, sometimes take a stroll through the greenhouse. Maybe play football with Johnny and James, if the mood strikes.”
“A troll through the greenhouses? Wait, I said troll, not stroll, lol! But, you have greenhouses? I feel like that should be greenhice, like mouse, mice. Right? I want to go through a troll through the greenhice!”
Janae furrowed his brow, trying to understand what Peter was saying.
“They’re just rows and rows of aubergines,” Janae said, after he felt he had grasped the meaning of Peter’s words. “Not that exciting. Plants underneath a glass roof.”
“It would be like living on Mars!” Peter exclaimed, clumsily sitting back up the right way and blinking wildly. “Whoah, headache! No, but, like, on Mars, we would have to live in greenhice too, because there’s no oxygen and atmospheric pressure, so we would have to grow our own vegetables with nothing to go on. Like, the soil is toxic too, so…”
He went on with his little speech about Mars and Janae was listening half. Taking Peter to the greenhouses? If Titch was okay with that, sure, why not? But they weren’t half as exciting as the games they could play at Peter’s house.
“So yeah, no, greenhice are awesome! I can’t wait to see yours! Mum doesn’t even let me in the garden, usually!”
Janae raised his eyebrows at that.
“Seriously? What’s she scared of? Fresh air?”
“No, I dug up the whole garden with my toys one time and now she doesn’t trust me anymore…”
“You better not dig up the plants in the greenhouses…” Janae warned. “That’s my family’s income.”
“I’ll tie my hands to my back so I can’t touch anything!” Peter exclaimed excitedly and Janae shook his head.
“Just be calm about it, that’s all I need, really. I can see you headbutt a plant anyway, especially with your hands tied.”
That night, after dinner, Janae decided to ask Titch whether it was okay to take Peter into the greenhouses. After all, if Titch said, no, it was a no. The greenhouses were his.
“Why does Peter – Peter, right? Why does Peter want to see our greenhouses?” Titch asked.
Janae shrugged.
“He said it’d feel like being on Mars. But he doesn’t get out of the house much, so I thought inviting him over would be a nice thing to do.”
“Mars?”
“It’s a sci-fi-thing, dad,” Janae said, and then put his hand in front of his mouth, shocked by his own words. “Titch,” he corrected himself.
Johnny had been calling the two farmers ‘dad’ and ‘pop’ for months now, but this was the first time Janae had done it. Not on purpose either, it was more like one of those moments where he would accidentally call Peter ‘Johnny’, but Titch looked almost as shocked as Janae felt.
“Ehm,” Titch uttered. “Yeah, okay… So… Mars then… When is Steven coming over?”
“Peter,” Janae said. “Steven is his last name. And I don’t know when yet. I thought I’d ask you first, like a civilised person.”
Titch smiled. He looked a little emotional, unlike his usual self.
“He can see the greenhouses, but he’ll have to realise it’s no playground. If you want to play, you should do that in the yard.”
“Thank you,” Janae said, and a short silence fell. Titch? Dad again? Was this a thing now? The silence was too long to comfortably say either of those, so he just nodded at Titch and went up to his room.
A few days later, Janae was walking to the farm with a disproportionately excited Peter, who kept talking about different sci-fi movies he had seen where somebody had lived in some kind of dome and how cool it was that he would now get to be in an actual greenhouse. Janae didn’t want to squash his enthusiasm, but he did wonder how a person could have never been in a greenhouse before. Granted, they were very young – a fact Janae regularly forgot about – but surely, Peter and his mum had picked up a plant from a garden centre at some point?
“Whoah!” Peter yelled out as they got the farm in sight. “All that is yours?!”
“Titch’s,” Janae said. “And James’ I suppose, but he likes football more than farming. There’s the farmhouse, the barn, where all the equipment and big machines are kept, the yard and the greenhouses.”
“Whoah,” Peter repeated. “You have a yard?!”
As a way of answering, Janae gestured at the land around them.
“I guess you could call all of this a yard?”
“And you get to play here?!” Peter asked, incredulously.
“In theory, yes. Johnny does so more frequently.”
“Whoah…” Peter said one more time and then took a sprint towards the greenhouses, his arms wide. He had long legs and an abundance of energy, so Janae didn’t even bother trying to keep up.
“So, when we go inside,” Janae said when he finally joined Peter at the greenhouses, “Please don’t touch anything. Titch puts a lot of trust into us right now, the equipment is expensive and the plants are his income, understood?”
“Yeah, yeah!” Peter answered, which wasn’t all too convincing, so Janae took his shoulders and try to press him down gently.
“Understood?” he asked again and Peter seemed to understand he was being earnest.
“Understood,” Peter said with a salute. Good enough. Janae opened the door.
He had been here often. It wasn’t as if Titch never let anyone near his aubergines. Derek and Philip worked in the greenhouses a lot. Johnny and Janae helped as well when they had time. Still, Janae was a little apprehensive taking Peter here. The boy was so unpredictable sometimes…
But he was also completely fascinated now, to the point he didn’t move at all, so that was good. He did look around though, at the glass roof, at the rows of plants, at the irrigation system on the ceiling, at the different meters next to the door, that showed temperature and humidity, among other things.
“It’s really like sci-fi, isn’t it?” he said breathlessly. “Imagine being trapped here, on a different planet! We have to keep track of the oxygen levels!” he pointed at one of the meters. “and make sure we keep all the windows shut! Oh no! One is open! All the oxygen is escaping!”
Janae looked at the meter Peter had pointed at, which showed pressure in some kind of tank, probably the water used for irrigation.
“What do you mean?” Janae asked and Peter’s jaw dropped.
“Wait, have you never played pretend before?”
“Like, acting? No, that’s not really in my wheelhouse,” Janae said. Maybe he had, at some point, played pretend, but not that he could remember.
“Here!” Peter held his hands out to Janae. “Put on your space suit! This is the helmet! We’re going outside and search the planet!” Peter opened the door of the greenhouse back up. Apparently he had looked at the irrigation system for long enough. “Quick, put your helmet on, or you will die!”
Janae sighed and then put his hands over his head, as if he was putting the invisible helmet on.
“Good! Now, we need to go outside, so the oxygen stays in the dome!” Peter ran out of the greenhouse and into the yard of the farmhouse. Janae followed him, getting curious about where this would lead. “There’s so much vegetation on this planet!” Peter yelled. He talked with his hand over his mouth, making sounds as if he was speaking through a radio and Janae decided to answer in the same fashion. Apparently, this was part of it.
“We should take samples of it and take them back to the lab.”
“Yes! Before the planet gets sucked into the black hole!” Peter pointed up and Janae followed with his gaze.
“That’s not how black holes work though,” he said.
“This one does work like that! It’s getting close.”
“We’re orbiting a black hole,” Janae said. “We won’t get sucked in, but if it’s that close, we will orbit it faster and faster, the temperature will increase and the escape velocity will at some point exceed the speed of light.”
“And then we’re sucked in!”
“So we need to get samples and then get away from this planet?” Janae asked. He felt like he was starting to get the hang of this. “But what about the gree- eh, the ‘dome’?”
“Our lives are more important than the dome,” Peter said. “Quick!” he plucked some grass from the yard and put it in the pocket of his trousers. “Let’s get samples!”
Janae smiled, he carefully plucked a leaf from the hydrangea and a few needles from the yew hedge.
“I have them,” he reported. Peter, who had his pockets full of grass at this point, smiled broadly.
“Good, let’s analyse them! Where is our lab?”
Janae was tempted to point at the greenhouse, but with the amount of energy Peter had at this point, the barn was probably the safer option. Sure, there were some sharp tools in there, but it was harder to accidentally break a tractor than an irrigation system.
There was a woodworking table in the barn that became their lab. Janae figured Titch wouldn’t mind it if the table got a little dirty and otherwise, he could just clean it off again.
“Oh, I see! Good find!” Peter exclaimed, looking at the yew needles. “These are needles of a permapepperdonk plant!”
“A what?” Janae asked and Peter tried to repeat the name he had made up, but couldn’t quite manage, so Janae just went along with it. “Ah yes, and this is a Hydrangea Janaeum!” he said, lifting up the leaf he had taken. He felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, naming the plant after himself.
“Wow, those are rare!” Peter said. “They only grow on this planet!”
“And what you found, those are… ehm… Grassae Peterarum? Ehm, if you crush those and mix them in with rocket fuel, they make the fuel super powerful!” It felt weirdly good spewing this nonsense and having Peter react so enthusiastically to it. Janae was used to people nitpicking every phrase he uttered at Oxford, or just not really listening at home. Sure, Titch, Derek and Johnny were nice, but there were so many topics Janae felt like he couldn’t talk about with them, simply because they didn’t know enough or didn’t care about them. With Peter, he could talk about anything and it didn’t even have to make sense! What a world to live in!
They crushed the grass leaves and put them on the back of the tractor as a way of ‘mixing them in with the rocket fuel’. Feeling daring, Janae tried to see if the Tractor was unlocked, but it wasn’t. That was probably for the best. Johnny had been driving it quite a lot, but Janae didn’t trust himself and definitely didn’t trust Peter to operate such a huge machine. So they just stood next to it, pretending like they were in a spaceship.
“The black hole is getting closer!” Peter yelled.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Janae answered. “We’ll have to slowly increase our orbit around it, until we’re free of its pull!”
“Bye bye, dome!” Peter yelled at the greenhouse. Janae pulled an invisible lever.
“Initiating warp speed!” he said, not feeling like acting out orbiting a black hole with increasing speed, even though he had just said they had to. “We’ll be back on earth in no time!”
“We’re there!” Peter called out, running out of the barn. “Fresh air! How I missed that!”
Janae went after him and took a deep breath of fresh air, which weirdly actually felt better than usual. Peter sank to the ground and laid himself on his back in the grass.
“Ahh, grass! We’re really back on earth!”
Something bleeped and for a second, Janae thought it was some kind of scientific device from their space ship, before realising it was Peter’s phone.
“Oh, that’s my alarm,” Peter said with regret in his voice. “I often lose track of time, so mum has me set an alarm when I’m out, so I can be home in time for dinner…” He got up and tried to wipe as much grass off of his clothes as he could manage. “Thank you so much for inviting me!” he said, spreading his arms at Janae, who kind of awkwardly accepted the hug. He wasn’t a hugger, but it meant a lot to him that Peter liked him enough to hug him. “I haven’t had this much fun in so long!”
“Me neither,” Janae said and noticed he meant it. Peter smiled broadly.
“Let’s do this again soon! Gotta go now! Bye!”
“See you,” Janae said, raising his hand at Peter, who was already running away.
Janae smiled. They hadn’t broken the greenhouse and they had had so much fun. Today was a good day.