Star Power
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PENGUIN WORKSHOP
An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
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Text copyright © 2021 by Catherine Hapka and Ellen Vandenberg. Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Published by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd, and the W colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Visit us online at www.penguinrandomhouse.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 9780593095744 (paperback)
ISBN 9780593095751 (library binding)
ISBN 9780593095768 (ebook)
pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0
For Kurt Vandenberg, the best scientific adviser in the universe; and for Jordan Hamessley, the agent who always shoots for the stars—CH & EV
To Christy, for helping me navigate this new world and always being a great support!!!!!—GR
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: Rainy Day
Chapter 2: Lab Work
Chapter 3: Primrose
Chapter 4: Solar Flare
Chapter 5: Jump Drive
Chapter 6: Problem Solving
Chapter 7: Wallace’s New Idea
Chapter 8: A Big Decision
Chapter 9: The Spacewalk
Chapter 10: Star Stories
About the Author and Illustrator
Chapter 1
RAINY DAY
“Look, Val.” Wallace held up his notebook. “What do you think?”
I was watching the rain come down in Wallace’s front yard. I looked at his notebook. There was a weird drawing in it.
“What is that thing?” I asked.
“It’s a heat blaster,” Wallace said. He pointed to the homemade action figure sitting on the porch swing. “Zixtar could use this to fight the ice aliens.”
“It looks like a flying hot dog,” I said. “What’s the power source? Ketchup?”
My stomach grumbled. Hot dogs and ketchup made me think about the barbecue happening soon. All of Wallace’s relatives were coming, and the whole neighborhood was invited, too. I couldn’t wait. I just hoped it stopped raining by then.
“Whatever,” Wallace muttered. “I’m just saying we need to figure something out, or the earth will be a giant snowball forever.”
I shrugged. “We can figure it out after the barbecue.”
He looked unhappy. I wasn’t surprised. Wallace was obsessed with the TV show Comet Jumpers. He was even entering a contest to write an episode for the show! Zixtar was a new character he’d created. That’s what Wallace told me when he moved here last week. He doesn’t know much about science or outer space, but lucky for him, I do! That’s why everyone calls me Astronaut Girl. And it’s why I offered to be his partner to write the script.
“Hey, Walla Walla!” someone shouted.
A car had just stopped in front of the house. “Who’s that?” I asked. I couldn’t wait to meet all of Wallace’s relatives.
“It’s Aunt Celia, Uncle Walt, and my cousins Kayla and Dwayne.” Wallace still sounded grumpy. I wondered if he was worried about the barbecue being rained out. I wasn’t worried, though. His gramps already said he would move the grill onto the back porch if he had to.
The adults waved and went inside. Dwayne and Kayla stayed on the porch. They were a few years older than us.
“Hi, I’m Val,” I said. “I live next door. I’m Wallace’s writing partner.”
Dwayne grinned. “Writing partner, huh?” he said, and elbowed Wallace. “Is she going to help you not embarrass yourself at the family storytelling contest today?”
Dwayne and Kayla laughed. Wallace didn’t.
“Storytelling contest?” I said. “What’s that?”
They told me they had a family tradition. When everyone got together, they ended the gathering by holding a contest. Anyone who wanted to could tell a story, and everyone voted on the best one.
“I won at Easter dinner,” Dwayne said. He held up the big fancy medal that hung from his neck. “I told the story about how I found a lost puppy when I was mountain biking. Everyone loved it.”
Kayla nodded. “And at Thanksgiving, Aunt Kim won with this wild tall tale about a haunted henhouse. We couldn’t stop laughing!”
I laughed, too. “That sounds fun!”
Wallace wasn’t laughing. “Everyone else will be here soon,” he said. “I should go see if Gramps needs help with the grill.” He stomped off into the house.
“Oops, that reminds me,” I told Dwayne and Kayla. “I promised Mom and Daddy I’d help with the potato salad. See you soon!”
I ran home through the rain. Mom and Daddy were in the kitchen. Mom was scrubbing the potatoes, and Daddy was mixing herbs into the mayonnaise. The Baby was helping by tossing Cheerios at Astro Cat.
“Hi, Val,” Daddy said. “You’re just in time to peel the eggs.”
I washed my hands and got to work. “I hope the sun comes out soon,” I said. “Wallace seems kind of grumpy about the rain.”
Mom looked surprised. “Really?” she said. “Wallace doesn’t seem like the grumpy type.”
The Baby giggled and tossed a handful of Cheerios at Daddy. A few landed in the mayonnaise bowl.
“That’s not part of the recipe!” Daddy exclaimed with a laugh.
Suddenly the door flew open. Wallace rushed in.
“I just had a great idea for the script!” he cried. “We need to discuss it right now!”
Chapter 2
LAB WORK
“Now?” I said. “But the barbecue is starting soon.”
I looked out the window. More cars were parked in front of Wallace’s house. People were hurrying inside.
Daddy looked outside, too. “The sun’s coming out just in time!”
“The sun is what we need to talk about, Val!” Wallace exclaimed. “I just remembered an idea that my friend Carlos from back home had. He said Zixtar could hide from the ice aliens on the sun. While he’s there, he can use the heat to power his blaster ray!”
I burst out laughing. Astro Cat stared at me in surprise.
“You have to be kidding,” I told Wallace. “Nobody can survive on the sun!”
“Well, we have to think of something!” Wallace said. “The deadline for the contest is only a couple of weeks away!”
Daddy winked at me. “We can finish up the potato salad without you. You and Wallace might need to review some data down in your lab.”
Daddy always talks like that. He’s an astrophysicist. That’s a scientist who studies outer space, like I do.
“I guess you’re right. Come on, Wallace,” I said.
“Hang on,” Mom said. She picked up the Baby and handed him to me. “Take him with you, or there will be more Cheerios than potatoes in the salad.”
I took the Baby and led Wallace to the basement. Astro Cat tagged along.
My lab has everything a scientist like me needs. There’s a table where I draw blueprints and a whiteboard for making calculations. I have tools to build stuf
f and lots of cabinets and drawers. Everything is labeled with my state-of-the-art label maker. Some of my projects are on display, like my mobile of the solar system that won a prize in the science fair.
The Baby uses part of my lab as a playroom. I put him in his playpen with the stuffed rocket ship I gave him.
Wallace sat down on a stool. “So what about Carlos’s idea? I think it’s great.”
“Great?” I said. “No way. It’s a good thing I’m your writing partner now instead of Carlos.”
Wallace scowled. “Don’t insult my friend.”
“I’m not insulting anyone,” I said. “Facts are facts. And a star like the sun is the last place someone would hide out. For one thing, the surface temperature is almost ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit, and—”
“Wait,” Wallace interrupted. “If nobody can go to the sun, how do they know how hot it is?”
I sighed. As Daddy always says, not everybody knows as much about science and outer space as we do!
“One way is to use a solar probe,” I said. “That’s a spacecraft made to get close to the sun or other stars so scientists can learn more about them. As a matter of fact, I’ve been working on one this summer. Here, I’ll show you.”
My half-built probe was on the counter, and covered to keep the dust off. I whipped off the sheet. The probe was made out of a big metal wastebasket. Sensors, antennae, and other instruments covered its surface.
Wallace looked impressed. “That’s cool,” he said. “Maybe Zixtar could drive it to the sun.”
“No way,” I said. “Even NASA hasn’t tried making solar probes that people can travel in. The technology isn’t there yet.”
“That’s okay,” Wallace said. “Remember, Comet Jumpers is set in the year 3000. Use your imagination! I’m sure scientists will work it out by then.” He grabbed something off the counter. “What’s this?”
“Be careful!” I grabbed it back. “They’re the goggles Daddy and I made for viewing solar eclipses.”
I put the goggles in my space pack for safekeeping and opened my favorite book, The Universe, to the chapter about solar probes. I was explaining how carbon heat shields help protect from the sun’s extreme heat and energy waves when I noticed that instead of paying attention, Wallace was scratching Astro Cat with Zixtar’s tentacle.
“Are you listening?” I asked. “Our episode won’t work if we don’t get the facts right. I wish you’d think like a scientist more often!”
“I wish you’d build a time machine so we could see what the year 3000 is really like,” Wallace said at the same time.
WHOOOSH!
“It’s happening again!” I cried as Astro Cat yowled, the Baby squealed, and the room went dark—and then suddenly very, very bright . . .
Chapter 3
PRIMROSE
“I can’t see!” Wallace shouted. “It’s so bright in here!”
My eyes were squeezed tightly shut. I felt around for my space pack and pulled out my solar goggles. Once they were on, I carefully opened my eyes.
We were in a spacecraft! All four of us were strapped into comfy chairs. Astro Cat and the Baby were sharing theirs. The Baby looked thrilled as he tickled Astro Cat’s whiskers. Astro Cat looked much less thrilled. Between Wallace and me was a large cube, like a table, with doors on the sides and a smooth, shiny top.
There were huge windows encircling us. On one side were stars and distant planets. On the other side was nothing but a fiery yellow glare.
“Where are we?” I asked.
The cube hummed, and the top glowed aqua blue. A voice emerged from it. It sounded a little like Mary Poppins.
“Now exiting jump-drive mode. Location: orbiting star of spectral class G2, luminosity class V, known as—”
“I know where we are!” I blurted out. “We’re orbiting the sun in a solar probe!”
Wallace carefully squinted through one eye. “Hey, I think my eyes are adjusting,” he said. “And wow, cool, a solar probe! But wait, you said there’s no such thing as one people can ride in.”
“There isn’t,” I said. “It’s impossible with current technology.”
Wallace looked intrigued. “Maybe we’re in the future. Hey, computer, what year is this?”
The cube spoke again. “It is the Earth year 3000.”
“Wow!” Wallace cried. He unbuckled himself and leaped out of his chair. “That’s the year of Comet Jumpers! Hey, Zixtar, now you’re not just an interstellar pirate—you’re a time traveler, too!”
I didn’t know what to say. Sure, Einstein believed time travel was possible. But I never thought I’d see it happen. Then again, Wallace wasn’t floating around. That meant the probe had artificial gravity, which didn’t exist in our time. And he wasn’t going blind from the glare, and neither was the Baby or Astro Cat. That meant the windows were probably made out of something that hadn’t been invented yet. I carefully lifted my goggles. Were we really in the future?
Wallace kept talking. “And this computer is just like the one on the smuggler’s ship in episode forty-seven,” he said. “Its name was Blackbeard, and it could make the ship disappear!”
I barely heard him. I was staring out the windows. Was that really the sun out there? It felt weird to be so close to it. I guessed the probe must have powerful carbon heat shields.
Wallace was still talking about Comet Jumpers. He pulled out his notebook and started jotting things down.
“Hey, computer,” he said. “Do you have a name?”
“My name is PRIMROSE,” the cube said. “That stands for Primary Research Interstellar Mobile Rocket Orbiting Star Enterprise. I am state-of-the-art and here to assist.”
Just then the Baby started to wail. He wiggled and waved his arms, trying to get loose from his chair.
As I got up and freed him, PRIMROSE spoke again: “Please repeat—your words are indecipherable. Searching language database.”
When I set the Baby on the floor, he squealed happily.
“Apologies,” PRIMROSE said. “Your words have not been found in my database of twelve million known languages.”
Wallace laughed. “Silly PRIMROSE! He’s not speaking a language. He’s a baby!”
Astro Cat jumped down, too. He meowed.
PRIMROSE spoke again: “Request received. Please stand by.”
“Huh?” Wallace said. “What request?”
A moment later, one of the doors in the cube opened, revealing a plate of tuna. A robotic arm emerged and set the plate on the floor. Astro Cat purred and started to eat.
“Whoa!” Wallace exclaimed. “PRIMROSE speaks Cat!”
“That’s pretty cool,” I said. “Also, I bet there’s some kind of super-advanced 3D printer inside that thing, sort of like the one Daddy and I are building. Ours can’t make food, though. Let’s test what else it can do!”
“I could use a new pencil,” Wallace suggested.
That seemed a little boring to me, but I went along with it. “PRIMROSE, please send us a pencil,” I said.
“Request received,” PRIMROSE replied. “Please stand by.”
Soon the robotic arm was setting a pencil on the floor. Astro Cat sniffed it, then returned to his tuna.
“Sweet!” Wallace said, grabbing the pencil. “Hey, Val, let’s add a computer like PRIMROSE to our script!”
New idea:
Computer with cool name that means lots of stuff. It can create anything—even a giant saltshaker to melt the ice aliens!
I glanced at what Wallace had written. “Hey, that’s thinking like a scientist!” I said. “Salt melts ice, and having the ice aliens melt will look great in the TV show. Now our story is really getting good!”
“Thanks,” Wallace said. “I’m glad somebody thinks I know how to tell a story.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything for a moment. But when I poked him, he finally answered. “This past Easter, I told my first story at the family storytelling contest,” he said. “It was a great one about the Comet Jumpers Beamatron malfunctioning and making everyone end up with the wrong heads on the wrong bodies. But I guess it didn’t come out in words the same way I imagined it. Because nobody understood what I was talking about. Dwayne and my other cousins have been making fun of me ever since.”
“Sounds like that story was just an experiment that went wrong,” I told him. “It happens all the time in science. Even to me.”
“Really?” Wallace said.
Before I could respond, red lights started flashing all over the probe. “ALERT! ALERT!” PRIMROSE blared. “Solar flare incoming! Strap in and prepare for immediate impact!”
Chapter 4
SOLAR FLARE
“You heard PRIMROSE!” I shouted. “Strap in, everyone. Quick!”
I grabbed the Baby, and Wallace grabbed Astro Cat. Once they were strapped in, we buckled our own seat belts—just in time!
First, the whole ship lurched. It felt like the time I got caught in a huge wave at the beach.
Then airbags popped out of our chairs and enveloped us. I was glad since the ship started tumbling end over end like a wild amusement park ride. The Baby cheered.
“What’s happening?” Wallace cried.
“PRIMROSE just told us—it’s a solar flare!” I replied. “That’s a burst of high energy X-rays and gamma rays. It’s like a million nuclear bombs going off!”
The flare seemed to last forever, but finally the ship stopped tumbling. The airbags deflated.
“Hey, PRIMROSE,” I said. “Is it safe to unbuckle now?”
The computer didn’t answer for a moment.
“PRIMROSE?” Wallace said. “Are you there?”
A weird laugh emerged from the speakers. Wallace and I looked at each other. Before we could say anything, the computer finally spoke.