Out There - Book One: Paradise
Page 21
Sami watched the sparks of white light flickering across the surface of the green egg that surrounded her. Then she heard the sound of rushing air. An air leak! she screamed inside her head, and started to panic. She jerked her head from left to right, looking for the hole. Then she caught her own reflection moving on the sparkling surface of the green egg and saw her chest heaving up and down. The hissing sounds were coming from her. She was gasping for air.
As soon as she realized that there was no air leak, she relaxed a little. Her breathing eased up, and then she took a really deep breath to settle herself down even more. “That’s better,” she said out loud, and immediately felt foolish. After all, there was no one in there but her.
She looked again at her reflection in the shiny surface of the green egg. She started to reach out to touch it. A wild web of light cast itself across her hand as her fingertips drew near the swarming sparks. She stopped just before touching them. What would happen if she touched the egg? Would the sparks hurt her? Would her hand just go through the green surface? Would her finger pop the green egg, like popping a soap bubble? She imagined the egg popping, leaving her to float out in…in where?
Sami drew back her hand.
She leaned her face forward, hoping to see through the glowing shell of the egg. She thought she saw patches of red and blue swirling outside it, and occasionally there also appeared to be streaks of yellowish light zooming past. It was not at all clear what was making these colors. She had seen many pictures of planets and stars and comets in one of Mr. Sanchez’s hundreds of books, so she imagined that the colors passing by were those same planets, stars, and comets.
“Whoa. I am actually in outer space,” she whispered. She remembered movies of astronauts floating in space, weightlessly twisting and gliding as though they were under water. But, oddly, Sami was not floating. She looked down at her glittery, red sneakers. She was still standing on “Huckleberry Finn.” It was the book she had grabbed to be tall enough to push the button on the computer screen to turn on the transporter. The face of the screen had been just inside the egg of green light when she had pressed the button. She looked up. The flat panel was still suspended above and behind her. Now, however, it was blank and dark. Just moments before it had been aglow with alien number symbols, a secret code that allowed her and her friends, Alejandro and Brian, to escape. Just moments before, Sami had been on Earth, in her hometown of Paradise, Arizona. Just moments before she had been telling her mother, Melanie Lightfoot, I have to go away and don’t worry and I love you and…goodbye.
A rush of memories streamed through Sami’s mind. She thought of the strange alien boy, Brian, who had become her only friend. She remembered Alejandro tormenting her and Brian, and then surprising her by helping to save Brian from the police. She thought of Brian’s parents, Alexi and Shareen, who were now in jail, along with the forty-eight other aliens who had crash-landed on Earth. Then there was her friend and neighbor, Mr. Sanchez, who had said it had been no ordinary crash. And, of course, he had been right. The last time she had seen Mr. Sanchez he was fighting off the massively strong Mr. Sombra, the government man who was trying to capture Brian. Then Sami, Brian, and Alejandro had discovered Alexi’s transporter, and Shareen had given them the secret code to turn it on, so that Brian could escape. And he did. He had vanished in the glowing, green egg. But then Alejandro had also stepped onto the transporter and he disappeared. Sami did not understand why she had to follow her friends. But she knew that she had to go, too. All of these amazing events slid into Sami’s past when, just moments ago, she had slipped the book under her feet and stretched up on her tiptoes to press the button on the computer screen.
The memory of pushing that button reminded Sami of the police back on Earth. At this very moment they were probably bursting through the door of Alexi’s office, expecting to catch her and her friends. She grinned as she imagined the cops’ confusion—and Mr. Sombra’s fury—when they realized that they were too late. Sami, Alejandro, and Brian were gone.
Way gone.
Gone where?
Adonae. Sami suddenly realized that the name of the planet was the only thing she knew about where she was going. She had no idea where it was, nor how far away. And what would the planet be like? Would it have cities and cars and televisions and hamburgers? Would she be able to breathe the air? Would there be trees? Would they have dogs and cats? How about spiders and butterflies? And what about chocolate? (Sami loved chocolate.) She started to wonder if she had made a big mistake.
Then she remembered that she did know at least one thing about Adonae, which was that the people from there knew nothing about music. Brian’s house had been filled with musical instruments, and Shareen was trying to learn to play all of them. Sami jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. In the right pocket she felt her iPod, and in her left she felt her cell phone. She pulled that out, thinking she would call her mother. She flipped it open and the screen lit up. But she had zero “bars”; there was no signal. Of course. She made a sour face and stuffed the phone back into her pocket.
Sami’s heart started beating harder and her breaths were again coming in gasps. She tried once more to look through the green egg. The colors outside were still zipping past, but as before, she could not make out any details.
She felt trapped. In fact it had been only a few minutes since she had left Earth. But it was starting to seem like hours. Were Alejandro and Brian already on Adonae, she wondered? How long does it take? What if we got the code wrong? Maybe the three of us will be scattered all over outer space! Maybe I will be dumped onto some other world filled with monsters! Or maybe I will just stay stuck in this egg forever!
“Sami?! Where are you?” she remembered her mother pleading with her over the cell phone. Her mother had been crying. Again Sami wondered if she had made a terrible mistake by pushing that button.
Then the colors outside of the green egg stopped flashing by.
She tried to peer through the surface. It was dissolving, like smoke high above a campfire. The web of sparks faded. Then winked out. As the shimmering green surface of the egg thinned, white light from outside flooded in, forcing Sami to shade her eyes. Squinting in the sudden bright light, she moved her hand away. Directly in front of her was a huge sheet of thick glass. Dozens of lines in neon-bright reds, blues, and greens were glowing on—and deeply in—the glass, and orange rows of strange symbols and shapes were flowing along many of these lines, like speeding trains.
“Oh wow,” she whispered.
The last of the green egg evaporated, like a drop of water on a hot sidewalk. The instant it completely disappeared, the front of the computer monitor crashed down behind Sami. She jumped and yelped and spun around to see what had happened. What was left of the monitor screen was now crumpled at her feet. She was standing on a round platform that looked like it was made of blue glass.
Then she heard, right beside her, “What are you doing here?”
* * *
You can find Sami and Alejandro’s next amazing adventure here:
Out There – Book Two: Adonae
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As you will discover in Book Four, “Timbuktu” is a special place for Sami and her friends. It's a place where kids are truly on their own and free to explore what fascinates them. Our Timbuktu is a blog where you can find videos about the interesting and wonderful things kids like you are doing – in science, art, sports, politics and more – all over the world. And you can share your comments and ideas about what you find in Timbuktu with other kids. If that sounds like something you would like to explore, you can subscribe to Our Timbuktu at:
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About the Author
In addition to writing computer game scripts, book prefaces, speeches, journal articles, and seven books on psychology, I also wrote screenplays for many years. One of my screenplays (“Killing Coyotes”) was selected for the 1989 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab
, and in 1990 another of my scripts (“Rocketman”) won the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship. And, of course, the adventure series, Out There. So yes, I love writing. I also love the Sonoran Desert (in Arizona), where I live with my friends the rattlesnakes, tarantulas, scorpions, lizards, coyotes and other beautiful, howling creatures. And I will be delighted to hear from you, too, at Our Timbuktu.