“To be fair, everyone lies about their age. Adults pretend to be younger. Teenagers pretend to be older. Children wish they were grown-ups. Grown-ups wish they were children.”
Quite a smart observation coming from a 12-year-old boy named Liam Digby. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. The main character of Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Cosmic is already around 6 feet tall and growing a beard. He may be getting closer to his 13th birthday, but plenty of other people mistaken him for a 30-year-old adult. Gather round, a fun new read has been revealed. But then again... there’s more to it than meets the eye.
As I sit and reconsider the main ideas of the plot, I can only reach the following conclusion: the story itself is not meant to be taken too seriously since it has been written with the desire to highlight the concept of parenthood in a light-hearted way. If you happen to question bits and pieces of Liam’s journey as I initially did, then plenty of the plot’s magic will slowly flow away. Thankfully, the hidden messages have the ability to keep the beautifully inscribed charm altogether.
The book is in fact a collection of Liam’s recorded messages for his parents, describing his adventure in space and the twisted road that led to the unwanted spatial exile. Surely, no one would have expected that Liam would get the chance to go to the Infinity Park, the world’s supposedly most thrilling theme park in China. In order to go there, the boy has to pretend to be a father and persuades one of his friends, Florida, to go along as his child. Upon arrival, the theme park turns out to be a training site for the first children going into space. It’s a mission held by neither NASA nor SpaceX. It’s an entirely secret organization with plenty of resources to come up with such an extravagant ideal. Deal with it.
Expectedly, things slowly get out of Liam’s control as time passes by. He’s not the only lucky “father” to have this opportunity. He has to compete against 4 other dads in order to become the adult chaperone during the trip to space. His determination (and child-like dream to experience something amazing) propel him directly into space. However, as a natural element, trouble occurs. It’s no longer a matter of being stuck between two worlds (more precisely, childhood and adulthood). It’s an actual crisis of being lost in space, between Earth and the infinite universe. Don’t even bother to ask how Liam got himself in this state without having his identity checked. Just... deal with it.
“Mum, Dad – if you’re listening – you know I said I was going to the South Lakeland Outdoor Activity Centre with the school?
To be completely honest, I’m not exactly in the Lake District.
To be completely honest, I’m more sort of in space.
I’m on this rocket, the Infinite Possibility. I’m about two hundred thousand miles above the surface of the Earth. I’m all right... ish.”
The beginning of Cosmic is one of the many proofs that Liam shares the traits of both a kid and an adult. As a child, he’s correspondingly scared and intrigued by the unknown (thrown at him in such a short amount of time). As a faux father, he does feel a certain responsibility to constantly keep his head on and take care of the 5 kids relying on him.
There are moments when the boy makes you smile due to his honest remarks:
“The slightly worrying thing is that I am sort of enjoying this. Being doomed is Not Good. But being weightless is Outstanding. Everytime I lean forward I do a perfect somersault. When I stretch my arms in the air I levitate. Back on Earth my only special skills are being above average in maths and height. Up here I’ve got so many skills I’m practically a Power Ranger.”
There are, inevitably, times when Liam becomes too real throughout his confessions:
“Dad was furious because while he’d been worrying himself sick I hadn’t been worried at all. Why wasn’t I worried? Because I knew he’d come back for me. I never thought for a minute he wouldn’t. When you’re a kid you think your dad can do anything.
It’s different now. If you ask me now if I think Dad is going to pop up at the controls of this rocket, two hundred thousand miles above the surface of the Earth, and fly us back to Bootle, I’d say – probably not.
I suppose that means I’m not a kid anymore.”
“No, Liam, you are still a kid.” Of course I had the impulse to say it. But in the following moment I knew he was only speaking the truth. And by no means was it a detachment from his childhood. It was just his first step towards maturity and a sense of independence, without bailing on his inner child. This is actually the book’s charm. The author produces a strikingly successful balance within Liam. He’s the kid who survives in space through life skills he’s learned from computer games. He’s the adult who can offer plenty of moral support to Florida and sustain the other kids’ courage and hope till they get back home.
Similarly refreshing to see is the boy’s outlook on adulthood. It’s a complex topic, with too much to handle at first, but it is depicted in the sweetest way possible. Liam gets valuable insight into what it requires to be a parent (a father, in particular) and ends up being more thankful for his own dad. Fathers shouldn’t force themselves to act as “best friends” to their children. Many people can be our best pals, it’s the most common position anyone can take on. But only one person can be your father.
“One person has just left the crowd and is heading over to me. It’s Dad. He’s walking towards me like there’s some special gravity pulling him towards me. And maybe there is. Maybe everyone’s got their own special gravity that lets you go far away, really far away sometimes, but which always brings you back in the end.”
One last honorable mention: the story also holds a reminder that we should always be pleased with who we are. This leads me back to the quote from the beginning of the post. From my point of view, we can put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes... as long as we don’t tend to miss out on what’s currently in our lives. It is effortless to ask ourselves What’s it like to be an adult? or What if I could be a kid once again? But we should not get caught up in these recurring questions and all sorts of triggering thoughts. Instead, what we should do is strive to find that inner balance that Liam learns to control. Mature productivity in necessity of child-like creativity. Keep that in mind.
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