Read The Universe Versus Alex Woods for Free Online

the answer they gave would be no answer at all – ‘because it just is!’ or some equally frustrating variant. But with Dr Weir, there was no cut-off point. She seemed quite capable of explaining everything, right down to the smallest detail. And the more questions you asked, the more willing she seemed to bombard you with information; she couldn’t utter a ten-word sentence without making it sound like an excerpt from a Royal Institution Christmas Lecture. She also dressed kind of funny. Not funny like my mother, who dressed ‘alternatively’, but more old-fashioned and mismatched, as if she’d selected all her clothes at random from a 1950s jumble sale. I suppose, really, she dressed like her mind was on Higher Things, which was fine by me – although I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure of her at first, mainly because I still felt like she’d stolen my Rock. And I was not alone in this sentiment.
    It turned out that quite a few people – quite a few other astrophysicists – felt this way too. Once they learned that she’d swooped across to Somerset to claim possession of the meteorite, mere hours after the news had broken, there was quite a backlash. The words ‘insensitive’ and ‘unethical’ came up quite a lot. Then there were several stroppy emails written by various scientists at the universities of Bristol and Bath, who were furious that such an important local fall had been whisked away to London before the dust had even settled. But Dr Weir didn’t seem particularly bothered by any of this. She would later tell
New Scientist
magazine that ‘the most important thing was that the fall was recovered promptly, undamaged and uncontaminated. If I’d left it any longer, there was a real chance that it could have been taken by a private collector. After all, this wasn’t a normal situation. Everyone in the country knew precisely where this fragment had landed. And you have to remember that within twenty-four hours the whole county was swarming with meteorite hounds. I felt it my duty to claim it at once in the name of Science!’
    Once she’d explained her actions to me, I was very pleased that Dr Weir had arrived so promptly to claim my meteorite in the name of Science. In the two weeks she’d had it, she’d managed to find out an incredible amount about my Rock. And the first thing she was eager to point out was that it was
not
a rock in any ordinary sense of the word.
    ‘You see, Alex,’ she said excitedly, ‘your meteorite is largely composed of metal. It’s actually a member of the iron–nickel subgroup. They’re much rarer than the common chondrites and achondrites – the rocky meteorites. They’re much denser too. That’s one of the reasons it was able to pass through your roof so easily, without fragmenting. Your meteorite weighs just over two point three kilograms and would have been travelling at a terminal velocity of almost two hundred miles per hour when it struck the top of your house. You know, Alex, it’s an absolute miracle that you’re still here.’
    ‘Yes,’ I agreed, rolling my body weight across my knuckles. I was sitting on my hands because I felt very fidgety, and I had my eyes fixed on that scruffy sports bag. I know that it’s rude not to look at someone when they’re talking to you, but I couldn’t help it. I was mesmerized. I was staring at that bag so hard it was in serious danger of bursting into flames.
    ‘Dr Weird—’ I began.
    ‘Actually, Alex, it’s Dr
Weir
.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Call me Monica if you like.’
    ‘Dr
Weir
,’ I said, ‘have you got my iron–nickel meteor in that bag?’
    Dr Weir smiled patiently. ‘What I have in this bag, Alex, is your iron–nickel meteor
ite
. That’s what we call it once it has dropped to Earth. It’s only called a meteor while it’s burning in the Earth’s atmosphere. And before that, while it’s still in space, it’s called a meteoroid. Would you like to hold your meteorite?’
    ‘More than