‘Well done, girls!’ cried A1. ‘What a team! But now it is time for you to come home, EJ. I believe you have a school project to finish.’
Shining Star 1’ s rockets surged for one last time, carrying EJ and Pip back into Earth’s atmosphere. On re-entry, it would then fly down and land like any other plane. EJ watched out the window, a little sad to be leaving this other world, another world that made her world, Earth, look so small and so fragile.
As the plane travelled downwards and the outside changed from black to mauve and finally to blue, EJ couldn’t believe she had thought space was not interesting. She now knew what she wanted to do for her project and exactly how to do it. She couldn’t wait to get started.
The next week was week eight in the school term and the week of the project presentations. A week ago, Emma was dreading this day but now she was excited. The presentations were about to begin.
‘Who would like to go first?’ asked Ms Tenga.
Emma’s hand shot up just as quickly as Nema’s.
‘Well that’s what I like to see,’ said Ms Tenga. ‘Enthusiasm shining through. Emma, why don’t you tell us about your project?’
Emma walked up and stood in front of the white board, facing the class.
‘I want to talk about space,’ said Emma, ‘and how it is not as endless and empty as it seems—it all depends how you look at it. Let me show you.’
Emma held up her model. She had worked on it all weekend and it was quite different from how she had started. It was no longer the entire solar system, just the Earth and the Moon hanging from wire on a wooden rod. Emma twisted the rod and the two balls began to spin.
‘For example, this is how we think the Earth and Moon look, just two balls spinning around in space. And that’s how it was until people began to explore space.’
Emma then took another rod from her bag and placed it over the first one. This rod had five satellites hanging from it.
‘Things start to get a little crowded once people sent up satellites,’ said EJ. ‘And then there were the spaceships.’ Emma took another rod with two spaceships and hung it over the first rod as well.
‘But that’s not the worst bit,’ said EJ. She took her final rod out of her bag and hung it over the other three. Now the Earth was surrounded by lots of little bits of screwed up foil, all fighting for room with the satellites and spaceships.
The class gasped.
‘That’s horrible!’ said Hannah.
‘What a mess!’ exclaimed Elle.
‘Exactly,’ agreed Emma. ‘The secret about space that I unlocked is that there is not as much space in space as we think and we need to look after it just like we need to look after Earth. Thank you.’
Everyone clapped and then gathered around Emma, looking at her model. They all seemed impressed, even Nema said it was ‘quite good.’
‘Emma!’ cried Elle. ‘Your Moon is so detailed. It’s as if you had been there!’
Isi gave her a wink and Emma just smiled. That would have to be a secret between her and her new spy bestie.
At home that evening, Emma was getting ready for bed. As she was pulling down her blind, she caught sight of the Moon. It was hard to believe—had she really been there?
‘Yes you were there, Em,’ said her mum coming up behind her and putting her arms around her. ‘Good work, EJ12,’ she whispered, ‘but even space spies need to get a good night’s sleep.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ said EJ wondering if her mum could now read her mind as well. That would be irritating. ‘I just need to check something.’
‘Okay but be quick,’ said her mum, leaving the room. ‘Night, night.’
‘Night, Mum,’ called EJ as she went over to her desk and opened the second-from-the-top drawer. Then she felt under the right-hand side of the desk and pressed a small button. Immediately, a book in her bookshelf popped out onto the floor. Emma picked it up and opened the cover to reveal a safe with a keypad. Emma keyed in 3-8-1-20-13 and opened the safe. Yes, she had put her CHARM bracelet away. She was about to close the book when she noticed the heart charm. She hadn’t used it yet. She twisted it and as she did, an inscription appeared on the back of the charm.
And Emma had—and come back again—with a little help from EJ12!
Back Cover Material
OUT OF THIS WORLD
A new SHADOW scientist is over the moon. She seems to have found a way to stop SHINE’s top-secret spy satellite.
Special Agent EJ12 needs to take off and aim high. Can she stop SHADOW from finding out all SHINE’s secrets?
That’s the easy part. As EJ12, Emma Jacks can do anything.
So why is she getting so worked up about her school project?
Perhaps she isn’t after all.
Out of this World Page 6
