Nelson Literacy Grade 8 Unit 2, Tech Then and Now Just Us Goldfish Introductory Reading Passage NL8 Unit 2 diagnostic passage Just Us Goldfish 1
As you read, think about: asking questions of the text to increase understanding how the writer has organized ideas in writing identifying the characteristics of narrative text pattern Just Us Goldfish Short Story by Chris Jackson Hello, my name is Claremount Alexial Spindrift, the youngest child of Alex and Clare Spindrift. My family has been in the junk business for generations. Back on Earth, my greatgrandparents owned a salvage yard and a metals recycling plant. When my grandmother was young her job after school was to sort out the recycled computers, robots, toys, and games, and take them apart. Anything that still worked or that she could get to work, she could keep for herself or sell and keep the money. She says she took apart the Maxum Tutor3000 robot the one that was so fancy and ahead of its time so often that she could do it with her eyes closed. And that getting it to work again was easier than it looked. She made a fortune selling those repaired robots. She s always been very handy that way. Well, that s the money she used to buy the family s first salvage space ship. And that s why we re now in the space salvage business mostly in Earth s galaxy. Sometimes we get a big job in another galaxy, and we ll be gone for months. That s why the whole family now lives on board, so that we re together. Out all alone in the wide universe safety lies in knowing your shipmates really well and trusting them with your life. A small ship in a vast universe you have to rely on your shipmates and they have to rely on you. That s what I ve learned. Sometimes, of course, the ship seems awfully small, even though I guess our family s not that big really. There s Mom and Dad and my two brothers and me, and Dad s siblings two sisters and a brother and their families nine more kids altogether, and Gran and Gramps. At least we re never lonely out here that s not a problem finding your own space can be! If you ve never been in space, think of a ship as a small glass aquarium in a large room. We actually have one of these in our mess hall. There are four goldfish in it they really thrive on the protein flakes that all of us humans hate to eat when we re running low on fresh supplies. Anyway that small glass aquarium is a safe environment for those fish imagine what happens if the glass breaks or the water becomes contaminated. Those poor fish don t stand a chance. That s what life in a space ship is like. Everyone on board is responsible for life support being maintained because we re all dead if it isn t. That s why Gramps is always saying, If you mess up, fess up! Because a small mess up could kill everyone on board! NL8 Unit 2 diagnostic passage Just Us Goldfish 2
Gran can still take apart and repair any robot, even the newest ones with their plastocellular-nanotechnology. She s teaching us kids how to do so, too. My older brother Blarin is the best. He ll be 16 this year. I ll be 13 in a month. We re pretty lucky, really. There s a big space junkyard just past Jupiter. We get paid to haul junk there, and we get paid to process and recycle and put back into operation most of that junk. Say a big cruise ship heads from Mars to Neptune to Earth, and then back to Mars, taking 1000 passengers on a luxury two-month vacation. Well, that many people can produce a lot of garbage. And what the cruise ship can t recycle it compresses into cubes and pushes out an air lock, with a beacon tag on it. We come along, pick the cube up, and tow it to the junkyard. The cruise ship pays us and we get to keep anything we can salvage from the cube. My life isn t really that different from a kid living on Earth or on one of the colonized planets. I have a lot of classes every day some regular classes with a web teacher from back on Earth giving all of us kids lessons in reading, writing, math, science, history, geography not that we space kids care about geography! And then we also have dozens of space lessons too. From our parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. For example, I m learning from my Aunt Selia the tricky job of towing something in space. She s our best pilot and tow operator. Besides classes, I also have one really important chore. In a family ship, everyone aboard has to pitch in even the little kids. Before and after classes I m the one who takes care of the bacteria. See, we often pick up organic waste on our trips through space. Say some ship s batch of yeast goes bad and they decide to dump it and start over, well, that might be 50 kg of yeast we pick up. We have the equipment to convert that yeast into simple organic elements and then into thriving bacteria that grow and provide us with lots of things food, water, and most important, oxygen. Bacteria cultivation is an important component in many ship systems. I m the only one on board that can tell the different bacteria apart just by smelling them I can also tell from looking or smelling if there s any problem in any of the bacteria vats. That s how I saved everyone s lives. But thinking I was better than I really was that s how I almost lost everyone s lives. Remember that goldfish bowl it s really easy too easy to upset the balance of life in that bowl. So one day, I m doing my chores. And I m rushing because Blarin and I are due for a tennis rematch in the gym. Because the gym is small, it ll be a virtual game with our muscles being worked through electronic impulses. Gramps says he once won an International Tennis Match playing for real! I can t imagine what that would be like. NL8 Unit 2 diagnostic passage Just Us Goldfish 3
Anyway, we have this one vat of bacteria that s always producing oxygen 20 people use a lot of oxygen. I m looking at the digital readout for it and everything registers as just fine all buttons are green. But the colour looks odd and it smells a bit too sour. Well, I know what that means and how to solve it. I think I know what that means and how to solve it. I add sulphur to the vat, make a notation, and race off for my game. Don t ask me why I don t stick around to see if the readout changed. Don t ask me why I can t wait even just one minute longer to make sure the colour or the smell improves. Don t ask me why I don t double check that the container that says sulphur actually holds sulphur. That s what Mom and Dad ask. I m 13-years-old sometimes chores are less important than games. Ok, that is not my answer! Do I look that new? I tell them I have learned from my mistake it will never happen again, no way. And it won t. I m just a goldfish in a small bowl in a huge room from now on, oxygen supply is priority one. Anyway, here s what happened. With this type of bacteria adding sulphur pushes the acidity back up to the right level and bingo, we re back into oxygen production to the max. No worries. But if it s not sulphur? Say for example, it s carbon which it is. Then the bacteria shut down and die quickly. And as they die, they produce carbon monoxide, not oxygen. Maybe, living on Earth, you don t know about carbon monoxide. People can t breathe it. It s poisonous and because you can t smell it, it s known as a silent killer. Dreams of all my family lying where the gas reached them still make me wake up screaming at night. Luckily, we have automatic ship systems that can detect carbon monoxide. Two strides from the gym, the ship s alarm system starts blaring letting us all know we need to mask up. Wherever you are on the ship a mask is always only a few metres away! We re goldfish remember. We know if our air is threatened, we need to fix it fast. I grab a mask, slip it on, and start racing back to the bacteria vats my gut tells me that s where I ll find the problem! Gran and Uncle Vern (Captain V) are already there, masks in place and checking every readout. Well, if it is bacteria causing the problem, I have a suspicion about what vat it will be. I bee-line there and start investigating. Readouts are all in distress, buttons are all red, and the bacteria are clearly dying a horrible yellow colour that I know they shouldn t be. My first job is containment I have to stop those bacteria from releasing any more gas. Simple, press a button, seal it off, burn it up. OK that worked. Fine. I stop shaking, take a deep breath (still through the mask). Now all we need is a new batch of bacteria to start producing oxygen really soon or we ll run out before our next planetary stop. I can see that Gran is already working on that problem now that she sees what it is. There s a back-up vat for oxygen production unfortunately it s pretty low at the moment. It ll produce about half of what we need. Gran is adding a growth accelerant to it which will help if we can all last a few days on half the oxygen we re used to. NL8 Unit 2 diagnostic passage Just Us Goldfish 4
Luckily, I ve been tinkering with something new a bacteria chain reaction. To put it simply a string of different types of bacteria that convert our carbon dioxide to hydrogen and another string that converts that hydrogen to oxygen. It s something I ve been arguing with a chem. Prof back on Earth about. She thinks my test results are faulty. So just the other day I d set up the test again I pull the testing vats out and dump more of each type of bacteria into each vat. Heat at just the right point is required to make the conversion work. I set that up, set up some digital recorders, and step back, keeping my fingers crossed. Gran comes over to take a look. Your science project? Will it work? she asks. We ll know in a minute, Uncle Vern has come up on the other side of the vat. We re all still wearing our breathing masks the digital readout in his hand still has that blinking red light that indicates we may not want to take them off just yet. I take a close look at each vat wishing I could use my nose to smell it. I ve got this feeling Something s not working, I tell them. I check the dial settings on each vat they re each showing what they should in terms of temperature, humidity. But we re still not getting oxygen. Gran, temperature on this one is critical it s got the correct reading, but I don t think it s hot enough. Let s take a look inside! Gran pulls her sonic screwdriver from her tool belt, gives it a twirl, and sets to taking off the cover of the readout to look at all the readouts inside. OK, OK, OK, she says as she carefully checks each connection and microchip. Ahh, here s the one. Let s dry this one off, she uses a small vacuum to remove some liquid from one of the connections and then checks over everything again. I think that ll do it, she says confidently and I release a breath I didn t know I was holding. When Gran fixes something, it s fixed. She s a wizard with machines of all sorts. A few minutes later the lights on my digital readout and Uncle Vern s handheld blink from red to green. There s a reassuring bing. And the background noise of the blaring alarm fades slowly away, starting with this compartment. Great job! Gran says and I know I m going to have to confess and tell her and the rest of my family why I think it s a good recovery job on a job badly done in the first place. You rely on your family in space and they rely on you. That includes fessing up when you ve messed up. NL8 Unit 2 diagnostic passage Just Us Goldfish 5
Questions for Just Us Goldfish Name Date 1. a. In the margins of the story, list all of the questions you asked yourself while reading. b. Organize those questions into the following chart. Literal Question On the Line Inferential Question Between the Lines Evaluative Question Beyond the Lines c. Did you find answers to any of your questions? If so, list the answers below. 2. Why is Just Us Goldfish an appropriate title for this short story? What else might the author have called it? 3. List the features that make this selection narrative text pattern. NL8 Unit 2 diagnostic passage Just Us Goldfish 6
4. Describe the main character. Include the evidence from the text that helps you create your description. 5. What is the problem this character faces? How is the problem resolved? 6. Use the chart to show how the author organizes ideas for this story using a goldfish comparison. Goldfish Life in an Aquarium Family Life in a Space Ship 7. Which questions do you ask yourself most frequently while reading: literal, inferential, or evaluative? What do you think that says about you as a reader? NL8 Unit 2 diagnostic passage Just Us Goldfish 7