“I can’t believe this is actually happening!” cried Katy.
“So we’re really going on an adventure?” said Cassandra nervously.
“It looks like we are.” Katy smiled.
“Who wants to check out our ship?” asked Zia, racing over to the wide-open, shiny white door, only moments ahead of Katy.
But when they both turned, they could see
Cassandra lagging behind. “Cassie, are you OK?” asked Katy.
“Not really.” Cassandra’s honey-coloured eyes were fixed firmly on the floor. “How are we supposed to know how to fly that thing?” she mumbled.
Katy walked back to her friend and put her arms around her, while Zia smiled encouragingly from the doorway. “We understand, Cassie. But we don’t have to know – we can figure this out together. Anyway, we need you!”
“Yeah, come on, Cassie,” Zia said as she walked back over to join them. “Remember that time you didn’t want to dance in front of the class, but then you did, and you felt brilliant afterwards? This is going to be the same!”
“And that time at school,” said Katy, joining in, “when you had to speak in assembly and you thought you were going to be sick? How great did you feel afterwards when everyone started clapping?”
“O-K, I know you’re right,” said Cassandra. “And I suppose if I have you two with me…But you absolutely, definitely think we can do it?”
Katy and Zia put their arms around their friend’s shoulders and soon the three girls were standing in a friendship hug.
“We promise,” said Katy. “Cross our hearts.”
“Hope to die,” said Zia, grinning. “Stick a needle in my eye.”
“Put a cupcake on your tie? OK, let’s go.” Cassandra nodded.
Like real astronauts on the TV, this time all three girls walked towards the rocket with their heads held high until they’d climbed the ramp and ducked their heads through the doorway. The door closed automatically behind them.
“So what now?” asked Cassandra.
Katy’s eyes moved slowly across the rocket and her insides felt tingly with excitement. The walls and floor and ceiling were the cleanest and sparkliest of whites, with not a speck of dirt to be seen. There was a little round window on one side and at the front were three padded seats with complex-looking buckle systems – one seat in front of a techy-looking control panel flashing different coloured lights, and two others behind it, sitting side by side.
“Bagsy being pilot!” Zia’s large brown eyes flashed with anticipation as she ran to the front of the ship before the other two could say a word.
Katy and Cassandra looked at each other knowingly and took their seats in the second row.
“Everyone strapped in tight?” asked Zia, fiddling with the end of her plait while studying the control panel. Katy could see there were so many buttons in every shape and size!
“I guess so,” said Cassandra quietly.
“Check!” shouted Katy.
Zia spotted the star-shaped yellow button which said BLAST OFF in big capital letters.
“Are we ready? Everyone, count back with me: ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”
Meow! The countdown was interrupted by a sound coming from somewhere behind them.
Katy unbuckled her seat belt quickly and turned to see Thunder staring at her grumpily from the back of the ship.
“Thunder, look at you!” she screamed. As if it wasn’t incredible enough that her room had transformed into a whizzy space station, now Thunder was dressed in his very own spacesuit, with four paw-sized boots and a little dome-shaped helmet fitted snugly over his head.
“Aaaah, doesn’t he look fab?” said Cassandra, who’d also unbuckled her seat belt and come back to check out what was going on. “Does that mean he’s coming with us?”
“I think so,” Katy replied, “if it’s safe to take an animal into space?”
“Actually, the first animal to be launched into space was a dog, so Thunder should be fine!” Zia shouted over to them.
“You always know so much stuff, Zia,” said Katy gratefully.
Her friend looked pleased, then went back to studying the control panel.
“OK, Thunder, you can sit with me.” Katy had always known Thunder was a special cat, but her dad was right – this proved that he really was extra special. She sat back down in her seat and pulled the safety strap tight across Thunder’s tummy – he was now nestling his big bottom into her lap to get comfortable.
“Everyone sitting back down?” Zia asked eagerly. “I’m going to count down and press the button for real this time. Ready? Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…”
Katy closed her eyes and squeezed her fists tightly.
“Blaaaaaast ooooooooff!”
Katy kept her eyes pressed shut and didn’t dare move even a muscle. Her arms were wound tightly around Thunder in her lap and her head was pushed against the headrest behind her, her ponytail digging into her helmet. And then, very slowly, she felt the ground begin to move as the rocket lifted off the floor. The roar got even louder as the boosters kicked in and suddenly they were shooting up, up, up into the sky.
ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
“Is…everyone…OK?” she tried to say after what seemed like a lifetime, but the force against her body meant she was finding it difficult to move her lips. And then, finally, after feeling pinned to her seat for ever, everything slowed, the roar disappeared, and she started to feel light and floaty.
“That was wild!” Zia unclipped her belt buckle and began to remove her space suit and helmet before securing them to a special storage place next to her seat. “Everyone OK?”
Katy glanced sideways and saw that Cassandra looked startled, but when she turned back to look at Zia she gasped. “Zia, what’s happening to you?”
Zia was rising up from her seat and floating towards the ceiling like a lost helium balloon.
“I’m floating!” she squealed. “Guys, you have to try this!”
Katy had always wondered what zero gravity felt like. She unfastened her seat belt carefully and pulled Thunder into her arms. “Thunder, are you ready?” she whispered into his ear while also removing her space suit and helmet, and seconds later they were both bobbing around on the ship’s ceiling like empty bottles at sea.
“Look, watch this!” Zia pretended to swim through the air and Katy laughed, but when she looked down she could see Cassandra still buckled into her chair.
“Cassie, come and join us!”
“Give me a second, OK?”
Katy saw that her friend’s face had turned a bit green.
“We’ll be right here,” she shouted back encouragingly.
Moments later, Cassandra floated up to join them, her dancing freckles once more lighting up her face.
“You’re right. This…is…amazing!” she yelled.
Even Thunder grinned through his helmet as Katy let him drift out of her arms.
Soon the four astronauts were doing their own special floating gymnastics on the ceiling – somersaults and cartwheels and backward rolls and handstands (and street dance moves) – laughing and giggling (and meowing) in delight as they adjusted to their weightlessness. Eventually, Katy pulled everyone together, hands held in a tight circle with Thunder in the middle, and legs spread out at the back like a floating star.
“We could do this all day,” she said, smiling at her friends, “but if we’re going to get to the Wishing Star, we should probably start planning.”
“Any thoughts?” asked Zia.
“Not me,” said Cassandra, then she looked at Katy. “Did your dad give you any clues?”
Katy thought for a moment. “On my ceiling, the Wishing Star – the big yellow star – is at the final point of a kind of W made up of smaller yellow stars. Maybe it’s a constellation. Maybe if we look outside…”
Zia floated over to the window and stared out into the darkness.
“Girls, you’ve got to com
e and see this,” she said.
They took it in turns – the window was only small – but what Katy saw was beyond even her wildest dreams. The sky itself was blacker than ink – darker than she’d ever seen in her life – but was also aglow with millions of stars twinkling like the brightest of diamonds, setting the sky alight in a kaleidoscope of colours. It was what Katy imagined magic might look like. But there were also five golden-yellow stars twinkling brighter than any of the others, and if you joined them together like a dot-to-dot, they formed the letter W, with the biggest, brightest and most golden star of them all lighting up the fifth and final point of the letter.
The Wishing Star.
“There it is!” shrieked Cassandra.
“Can you get us there, Zia?” encouraged Katy.
Zia didn’t need to be asked – she was already back at the control panel.
But just as Katy turned from the window, she noticed something small was following them. Surely it couldn’t be another rocket? This was their adventure, no one else’s – wasn’t it? It was definitely moving closer though, and it definitely wasn’t a shooting star.
“Girls, it looks like we’ve got company,” she said nervously, as the dot outside grew bigger. “If we’re going to get to the Wishing Star, I think we need to go. Now!”
Strapped back in her seat, with Thunder once more settled on her lap, Katy waited patiently for the rocket to start moving. She waited, and then waited some more.
“Zia, why aren’t we moving?” she added anxiously.
“Sorry, I’m trying to work out which direction we need to go in.”
Katy could see the enormous control panel flashing a multitude of different coloured lights, just like the colourful sweet wrappers in their pretend space rocket at home, but the monitor screen was still blank.
“You need to turn the monitor on!” she urged. “Maybe it works like a satnav. Maybe it will show us the way to the Wishing Star.”
To the left of the screen was a small ON switch, and no sooner had Zia pressed it than the screen came alive with a burst of light. Then the light disappeared and a twinkling letter W appeared on a black screen, made up of five stars, one at each point of the letter, like an electronic dot-to-dot.
“Press the fifth star, press the fifth star!” Cassandra shouted urgently from her seat.
“Come on, Zia, we have to go!” cried Katy.
“I’m doing it, OK?” said Zia firmly, as she reached over to the screen and tapped star number five with the tip of her finger.
Instantly, the rocket started moving again, gradually gathering speed as it whizzed its way towards the constellation.
Now they were finally moving, Katy could feel herself relaxing a little, but she still felt nervous about what she’d seen through the window earlier.
“Katy, are you sure you saw another rocket following us?” asked Cassandra after a while.
“I think so. It looked like another rocket anyway,” she answered.
“I wonder what they want?” asked Zia.
“Whoever they are,” said Cassandra.
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“Have you decided what you want to wish for yet?” asked Zia, breaking the silence. “I can’t decide between new roller skates or a karaoke machine!”
“I have!” Cassandra beamed. “I’m going to wish for a new bike. I have to ride my brother’s old one and it’s still covered in mud and monster stickers. I’ve always wanted a bright, shiny red one with a tinkly bell!”
They all smiled.
“How about you, Katy? What are you going to wish for?” asked Zia.
Katy thought for a moment. Ever since her dad told her the story about the Wishing Star, she’d been thinking about what her wish might be. A part of her wanted to wish to see her mum again. But she didn’t think her friends would understand that wish. She’d also thought about wishing for more adventures like this one, but they seemed to be pretty good at coming up with adventures themselves.
“I’m going to wish for a pony,” she said finally. “I’ve always wanted to ride a horse and I could keep it at the stables by the park. It would be a girl pony called Star and I’d ride her every weekend. Apart from you two, Star would be my best friend in the whole world!”
“MEOW!”
“Except for you as well, Thunder. You’ll always be extra special, remember?” Katy continued, rubbing him across his back.
“Wouldn’t it be great if Thunder could wish for something too?” Cassandra smiled.
“Cats can’t talk, silly,” said Zia matter-of-factly.
“Thunder, how about you?” asked Katy, drawing him in for a hug. “If you could wish for anything in the world, I wonder what it would be?”
“A lifetime supply of mice to chase, of course.”
Everyone looked wide-eyed with shock. Did Thunder just talk?
“Thunder, did you just say something?” asked Katy in disbelief.
“I did,” replied Thunder, looking pleased with himself.
“But why didn’t you tell us you could talk?” Katy questioned.
“You never asked,” said Thunder dismissively.
Katy couldn’t believe it. This was already the best adventure ever – now she knew she had the absolute best cat in the entire universe!
The girls were so busy staring at the talking animal that they failed to notice the loud knocking on the spaceship door.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” asked Thunder, grinning smugly amidst all the new attention he was getting.
“What was that?” asked Cassandra, still staring in astonishment.
But Zia was already floating towards the door, frowning.
“Can’t you hear that knocking?” she asked, pulling her helmet forcefully down over her thick plait. “Helmets on, everyone! I think we’re about to meet whoever or whatever has been following us.”
Taking it in turns to look through the porthole, they let out a collective gasp as a lady with metallic skin, in a shiny gold and silver spacesuit, floated in the doorway, tethered by a long, shimmering rope to a gold and silver space rocket stationed only a short distance away.
“Do you think we should let her in?” asked Cassandra.
“She doesn’t seem too dangerous,” answered Katy. “Zia?”
“I think we need to find out what she wants. OK?”
They all nodded and then used their combined strength to pull a lever that said UNLOCK in big capital letters.
The door crept open. They all held their breath, with no clue as to what was about to happen.
Then: “You girls aren’t easy to catch!” said the spacewoman, smiling. “I’ve been trying to reach you ever since you entered our galaxy. No one has reached the Wishing Star constellation before. I’m impressed you’re giving it a go!”
Katy blinked a few times to make certain she wasn’t seeing things. “But who are you? And why have you been following us?”
“Can I come in?” the woman asked politely. “As much as I enjoy floating around in space, it would be easier to talk inside.”
Katy looked at her friends, who were nodding their heads up and down enthusiastically, so she held out her hand and helped the woman into their ship. When she’d unhooked the rope from her spacesuit and the door was sealed, they removed their helmets and the stranger shook out her long, shimmering gold and silver hair.
“Your hair! I’ve never seen anything like it before!” cried Katy, wanting to reach out and touch it.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “I’m Starlet, captain of the Wishing Star Galaxy. We don’t get many visitors here. I wondered if you could tell me why you’ve come?”
Zia moved forward, speaking so quickly she forgot to breathe. “We were on a playdate and thought it could be fun to visit the Wishing Star and we built a spaceship but we didn’t know it would actually work but it did and now we’re almost there and when we arrive we’d all like to make a wish and see if it comes true.” She took a long breath
then swung back towards her friends, catching the spacewoman with the end of her plait as she did so. “Er, sorry!” she said, lowering her head.
“No problemo!” The woman waved theatrically.
Katy couldn’t help but think there was something familiar about Starlet.
“So have you all decided what you’d like to wish for?” Starlet then asked.
“We have,” they answered in unison, including Thunder, who was now rubbing his soft body against the spacewoman’s ankles and winking up at her with his big blue eye.
She crouched down and stroked him softly along his back.
“And may I ask what those wishes are?” Taking it in turns, they told her exactly what they’d been discussing only moments earlier. Zia settled on roller skates, because her older sisters already had them and she didn’t want to miss out on the fun.
“Hmm,” Starlet said with a sigh. “Just as I’d suspected. And that’s why I’m here, because before you reach the Wishing Star, I want to show you something important. Please, follow me.”
Starlet floated over towards the command module, where she sat at Zia’s seat and took a little jar out of her pocket.
“This,” she said, “is stardust.” She opened the tiny lid and took a handful of glittery powder in her hands. “When I sprinkle it on this screen, it’s going to show you a new way of looking at your planet – then you can tell me if you still feel the same about your wishes. Ready?”
The four friends nodded, and with a sweep of her hand, a glittery cloud filled the air and rained down on the monitor in front of them. The screen burst into life.
“That’s Earth!” cried Cassandra, who had been silent up until now.
The Wishing Star Page 2