Out of this World

by Susannah McFarlane

  Lemonfizz Media

  PO Box 499

  Elwood, Victoria 3184

  www.lemonfizzmedia.com

  Scholastic Australia Pty Limited

  PO Box 579

  Gosford, NSW 2250

  ABN 11 000 614 577

  www.scholastic.com.au

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  Published by Lemonfizz Media and Scholastic Australia in 2011. Text, design and illustrations copyright © Lemonfizz Media 2011. Cover design and Illustrations by Dyani Stagg of Merchantwise.

  A CIP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, unless specifically permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 as amended.

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Back Cover Material

  It was late. Emma should have been in bed but instead she was sitting on her bedroom floor. She gave a dramatic sigh as she looked unhappily at the mess around her. Her husky puppy, Pip, who was nestled on her lap, looked up at her. Pip cocked her head, as if trying to understand what Emma was thinking. Emma wasn’t sure herself.

  All over the floor were bits of wood, cotton wool, string, pieces of coloured paper and plastic balls. It looked absolutely nothing like the science project on outer space that it was supposed to be. Emma’s class had been given the project at the beginning of term. Everyone had been excited, including Emma. But as the weeks had gone by, Emma hadn’t been able to find a topic she wanted to investigate, something she was interested in. And now it was Week seven. The project was due in week eight and all Emma had so far was a mess.

  Emma liked to do her best at school. Most of the time she didn’t even mind doing her homework. She tried hard and she felt proud when she got a good result, which was often. She loved writing and art and really loved maths but this science project was different somehow. For some reason, she didn’t really care much about rockets and astronauts and the planets didn’t really grab her either—it all seemed so far away. Emma simply couldn’t get interested in it so she had kept putting it off but now she couldn’t put it off any more. She had to get moving otherwise she would get a bad mark and Emma didn’t like getting bad grades, even for a project she wasn’t interested in. Her current plan was to make a model of the solar system. It wasn’t a very original idea but she thought it might look okay. At least she did until she tried to make her polystyrene balls look like planets. It was harder than she thought. Emma’s Mars looked like a cricket ball that had been chewed by a dog and her plasticine rings of Saturn were looking distinctly saggy. Nothing looked remotely like Emma thought it should.

  I bet Isi isn’t having a problem, thought Emma. Isi was one of Emma’s best friends and she loved science projects. In fact she adored everything about science: the discoveries, the experiments and the excitement of seeing what would happen next. She was always constructing things and had recently even won a science competition at school. Her latest invention had been a ‘brothers away’ device where she took a toy spy-motion detector and connected it to a lever, which was connected to a bucket of water on the top of her wardrobe. It worked perfectly, although it would have been better if it was Isi’s brother and not her mother who walked past it.

  It was the same with Isi and cooking. She never used recipes like Emma did. She had to experiment. Together, she and Emma had made some interesting creations: chocolate surprise, upside-down jelly cupcakes and strawberry and chicken sandwiches, which were not as bad as you might think.

  Emma wondered if it was too late to chat with Isi about her project—maybe she would have some ideas for her. But then she remembered the theme of the project was ‘Unlocking the Secrets of Space’. You could pick any topic about space you wanted and present it in any way you wanted but you had to do it all by yourself—no group work, no help, no parents.

  ‘It’s hopeless,’ said Emma to Pip as she picked up one of the wooden rods and threw it across the room. Pip leapt out of her lap and ran to the rod, picked it up in her mouth and brought it back to Emma. Emma had to laugh. At least something was going right: she had been trying to teach Pip to fetch for months.

  ‘Good girl, Pip,’ she cried. ‘Good fetching! Let’s see if you can do it again.’

  Emma spent the next half-hour playing with Pip, teaching her dog to fetch and come and sit. It was a lot more fun than the project but it did mean that she really didn’t get any closer to ‘unlocking the secrets of space.’

  And that was surprising really because normally Emma loved unlocking secrets. After all, she was a secret agent.

  Emma Jacks, aged ten, was also EJ12, special agent and code-cracker in the under-twelve division of the SHINE agency, a top-secret organisation that kept the world safe from evil-doers, particularly those from the SHADOW agency.

  SHADOW was also a top-secret organisation but one that would seemingly do anything to make money: endanger the environment, steal things and sabotage SHINE operations. In fact, their favourite plots seemed to be ones that made money and sabotaged SHINE. They had tried to shut down SHINE’ s energy supply and had attempted to upload a virus that would crash the SHINE computer system. But they hadn’t succeeded and EJ12 was the main reason they hadn’t. EJ was one of SHINE’ s leading agents and she was highly skilled at planning and executing missions, asking questions, finding answers, unlocking the codes that SHADOW used to send messages to their agents and foiling their evil schemes. SHINE taught their agents to love questions, they even had a motto for it (SHINE loved mottoes): ‘Questions are the answer!’ As EJ12, Emma knew that asking questions was how you cracked a mission, how you unlocked the secret codes.

  At the moment, however, the only questions Emma was asking herself was why did she find the project so boring and why couldn’t she decide what secret about space to unlock?

  What Emma didn’t know was that there were other people very interested in space. She didn’t know that SHADOW was also unlocking something far out in space—something that could shut down the entire SHINE organisation.

  The next morning, Emma was feeling a bit gloomy as she got ready for school. She looked glumly down at her shoebox of ‘planets’ on the kitchen table. Today the class was going to work on their projects in class and show how far they had got. Now spending so long playing with Pip last night didn’t seem like such a great idea.

  ‘Cheer up, Em,’ said her mum. ‘I think that satellite looks great.’

  ‘It’s not a satellite, Mum,’ said Emma quietly. ‘That’s supposed to be Saturn.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said her mum a little slowly. ‘Of course it is, I can see that now. What�
�s the project about?’

  ‘I’m not really sure yet,’ replied Emma.

  ‘But isn’t it due on Friday?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Oh, um, yes,’ said Emma.

  ‘Maybe you need to think a bit more about it,’ suggested Mum in a voice that reminded EJ of her teachers at school. ‘Can I help you with it?’

  ‘No, we have to do everything ourselves,’ said Emma, swinging her feet under her chair. ‘I don’t mind that, it’s just I can’t seem to get interested in it.’

  ‘In space?’ interrupted Bob. ‘Space is awesome! There’s heaps you could be doing! You could...’

  ‘Don’t tell me, I’m supposed to think of it.’

  ‘And you’re supposed to be going to soccer practice, Bob,’ said Emma’s dad. ‘Bye, Em, I’m sure you’ll think of something, I know you will. In fact, I’m sure you’ll be a star!’

  Emma groaned. ‘Dad!’

  ‘Good one, Dad,’ said Bob, smiling as the two headed out the front door.

  ‘Finally. I really thought they would never go,’ said Emma’s mum.

  ‘You wanted them to leave,’ said Emma, a little surprised. ‘Why?’

  ‘I have something from SHINE for you,’ said her mum, getting up from the table. ‘And I needed the boys to be out of the house before I could give it to you. Let’s go to my bedroom wardrobe.’

  It may sound strange but Emma’s mum’s wardrobe was no ordinary wardrobe. It had a secret door leading to a concealed office behind the wall. Why? Because Emma’s mum was not just Emma’s mum. She was also SJ45R, a retired SHINE agent who still did some freelance work for the agency. Emma’s mum pressed the hidden button in her cupboard and the wall slid aside. She and Emma stepped into the office and the wall slid back into place.

  ‘Here it is,’ Mum said, handing Emma a black box no bigger than a matchbox with a SHINE logo on it. ‘This arrived last night from SHINE with instructions to give it to you as soon as possible.’

  Emma took the box and squealed with delight when she opened it, but her mother frowned. Inside were two gold ear studs. Emma had wanted to get her ears pierced for ages but her mum and dad had said no. Emma had kept asking them and they had kept saying no. Finally Emma decided to give up, at least for a while, to give herself time to plan a new strategy. It seemed SHINE had a plan of its own—and Emma liked it.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Emma’s mum, peering into the box. ‘I’m not at all sure about earrings.’

  ‘But look, Mum,’ said EJ, taking one of the studs out of the box. ‘You don’t need to have pierced ears; the little ball at the front is held in place by this magnetic receiver at the back.’

  ‘That’s a bit better, I suppose,’ Mum said. ‘But why is SHINE sending you earrings?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Emma. ‘Hey, look, there’s a card under the studs.’ She read it then handed it to her mum.

  ‘Okay, that’s clever,’ said Mum, looking more relaxed after she’d read the card. ‘They look like studs but are really an earpiece for your phone. Now you can have your phone in class and be able to hear it if a mission alert comes through.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Emma. ‘And they look like real studs!’

  ‘Yes,’ said her mum. ‘And you don’t have to pierce your ears—we both win! But now we need to get you to school.’

  ‘Do I have to go today, Mum?’ cried Emma as she quickly put on the studs. ‘I could stay home and do my project.’

  ‘Of course you can’t, Em. You need to take your project in and don’t worry so much. I bet everyone else is in the same situation.’

  ‘Doubt it,’ muttered Emma.

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Mum, giving Emma a hug. ‘It really won’t be that bad!’

  But Emma thought it was. As she arrived at school and walked towards her classroom, she saw kids carrying their projects. There was a papier-mâché space rocket cut away to a cross-section so you could see what was inside, there was a diorama of what Mars might be like and there were lots of really good posters with fantastic pictures and typed information.

  ‘Hey, Em,’ cried Isi, one of Emma’s best, and her funniest, friends. ‘What do you think of my project?’ Isi held up a round, black piece of paper with nothing on it.

  ‘Is,’ Emma started, feeling a little worried for her friend, ‘there’s nothing on it.’

  ‘I know!’ squealed Isi. ‘It’s a black hole! How good is that!’

  Emma was shocked. ‘That’s your project, Is?’ She was even more worried for her slightly crazy friend now.

  ‘No, silly!’ cried Is. ‘I’m only joking. This goes on this.’ And with that Isi pulled out a large yellow ball.

  Emma had to laugh.

  ‘I’m working on what happens when there is a solar eclipse, you know, when the sun’s light is blocked out by the Moon,’ Isi continued. ‘I’m hoping that this battery pack from my LEGO kit will motorise my Moon so it slowly moves in front of the sun and as it does, this black circle will move over the sun, blocking it out. What do you think?’

  ‘I think it is amazing, Isi,’ said Emma. ‘I think you are amazing—how did you build that?’

  ‘It was nothing really, I just experimented and ... hey!’ Isi was looking at Emma’s ears. ‘Have you had your ears pierced? How in the world did you ever manage to convince your mum to let you?’

  Emma smiled. ‘I didn’t need to. Look,’ she said taking them off and showing Isi.

  ‘They’re magnetic!’ cried Isi. ‘How cool and so clever! They look just like pierced ones, but what’s that little thing on the back of the stud?’

  Emma should have known Isi would study the earrings. ‘It is a receiver, Is,’ said Emma, smiling at her friend and then whispering, ‘They are actually SHINE studs, to use OM.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ Isi whispered back. She knew that OM stood for On Mission and, as one of Emma’s best friends she knew about SHINE although they could never discuss it. ‘That reminds me, I’ve got some news. I wanted to tell you something...’

  It was the school bell.

  ‘What news Is?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Come along girls, no chatting,’ called Ms Tenga. ‘Straight into class, please. We need to get started on our projects!’

  ‘Great,’ said Emma. ‘Not.’

  The two friends ran towards their classroom. Emma forgot that Isi hadn’t told her news.

  The class all sat down while their teacher, Ms Tenga, called the roll and then everyone began working on their projects, cutting, gluing and typing. The classroom was abuzz with activity with everyone hard at work—everyone except Emma, who was still sifting through things in her box.

  ‘What’s your project on, Emma?’ asked Nema looking in Emma’s shoebox.

  Here we go, thought Emma. What mean thing is she going to say now?

  Nema was in Emma’s year at school and they had all been in the same class since kinder. They used to be good friends but over the last year or so Nema had become different, Nema had become mean and Nema had become a real show-off. She was always trying to be the best, the best in class, the best in swimming, the best in dancing—the best in everything. But now, every once in a while, Emma thought that Nema might be starting to be less mean and less of a show-off. Even that she might be starting to be nice again. Might.

  ‘I’m still not sure,’ replied Emma. ‘Probably a model of the solar system. What’s yours?’

  ‘I made an animation of a rocket launch,’ said Nema.

  ‘Oh really?’ Emma had to admit that sounded pretty good. She waited for Nema to go on and on, like usual, about how fantastic her project was, how fantastic she was and how her project was probably the best in the class.

  ‘Yes, I hope it works out,’ said Nema as she walked back towards her desk.

  Well, thought Emma, that was unexpected. Maybe Nema is really becoming nicer. It would be cool to have nice Nema back again. It would also be cool to have a good science project. Come on, Em, get going!

  ‘Is everythin
g alright, Emma?’ asked Ms Tenga, noticing that Emma was not her usual smiley self.

  Emma thought for a moment. ‘Oh yes, everything is fine, thank you, Ms Tenga.’

  ‘You’re not having any problems?’ asked her teacher, peering into Emma’s box.

  ‘Oh no, not at all!’ Emma turned slightly red. ‘Everything is fine, really. I’m just working things out.’

  ‘Great,’ said Ms Tenga, although Emma didn’t think she sounded completely convinced. As the teacher walked on, looking at the other kids’ projects, Emma looked at the class clock. Please let it be recess soon, she thought but she knew it would be ages until she heard the school bell. And then she heard something else, something sharp in her ear.

  It was a mission alert from SHINE. Yes! No more project! thought Emma. She looked around to see if anyone else had heard the noise but no one seemed to have noticed anything. They were all still working busily.

  ‘Ms Tenga,’ said Emma, putting up her hand. ‘May I please go to the toilet?’

  ‘Yes, you may,’ replied Ms Tenga.

  Emma smiled at Ms Tenga as she left the classroom and headed across the playground to the girls’ toilets. She checked her phone: it was flashing indigo for mission alert. SHINE agents reported into SHINE HQ when they received a mission alert and they reported in via an access point to a secret network of tunnels called the Mission Tube. Every SHINE agent had their own access point and Emma’s was at school. It made sense, since she spent most of her time there, but she did wish that SHINE hadn’t made the girls’ toilets the access point. It was a little gross. Still, she had to admit it was actually a clever choice. After all, you were alone in the cubicle, the toilets were pretty quiet and no one stayed there for long.

  At least they were usually pretty quiet. That didn’t seem to be the case today. As Emma opened the door, she was dismayed to see what looked to be the entire prep class inside the girls’ toilets. There were little girls standing outside the cubicles, there were little girls washing their hands, little girls drying their hands and little girls waiting to go into the cubicle Emma needed.