George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy Hawking Page A

said.
    â€œYes!” said Annie and George. “We do!”

Chapter 7
    T he next day dawned beautiful and calm, the perfect day to set off into space. Annie woke George and Emmett up early.
    â€œIt’s space-shuttle day!” she shrieked into George’s ear. He groaned and turned over beneath his duvet. “Get up, get up!” she said, pulling the duvet off him and dancing around the room with it. “This is the most exciting day of our lives!”
    Emmett had sat bolt upright in bed. “I’m so happy I might be—” He jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom.
    Annie grabbed one of George’s hands and pulled him to his feet as he blearily tried to wake up. Emmett tottered back in, looking rather pale.
    â€œTree!” Annie said to both of them. “Now! We’ve got planning to do.”

    Still in their pajamas, they scrambled downstairs and out onto the veranda. George shinned up the tree and Annie swiftly followed him, leaving Emmett standing forlornly at the foot.
    â€œCome on, Emmett,” said Annie. “Get up here!”
    â€œI can’t,” said Emmett miserably.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI’ve never climbed a tree,” he admitted. “I don’t know how.”
    â€œOh, for heaven’s sakes!” exclaimed Annie. “What have you been doing with yourself?”
    â€œWriting computer programs,” said Emmett sadly. “By myself.”
    Annie sighed noisily, but George dropped out of the tree in one single fluid movement, grabbed Emmett, and hoisted him up. George pushed from below and Annie pulled from above, and with some squeaking and scraping, they propelled the smaller boy onto the big branch. Emmett looked down nervously.

    â€œNow then,” Annie told him sternly. “We are going to have anadventure today. We are going to be brave and amazing. And hopefully we are going to save planet Earth. And that means no crying or whining or running to my mom. Do you understand, Emmett?”
    Emmett nodded while clinging tightly to the branch. “Yes, Annie,” he said meekly.
    â€œYou’re our friend now,” Annie told him. “So if you have something to say, you tell me or George—you don’t go charging off to a grown-up.”
    â€œYes, Annie,” he agreed, giving her a little smile. “I’ve never had a friend before.”
    â€œWell, now you’ve got two,” said George.
    â€œAnd we’re going to need you,” added Annie. “You are super important to the master plan, Emmett. Don’t let us down.”
    He gasped. “I won’t!” he said. “I absolutely totally and utterly will not!”
    â€œOkay, great!” said George. “That’s all great! But what, in fact, Annie, are we going to do?”
    â€œWe are going,” she said, “on a great cosmic journey. So listen up, savers of planet Earth, and prepare to meet the Universe. I’m going to tell you the master plan: We’re going to change out of our pajamas, pack up Cosmos, find my dad, and get to the Global Space Agency. And that’s where it will all begin.”
    The first step of their cosmic journey, Annie explained, took them to the launchpad at the Global Space Agency, where they would be watching the space-shuttle launch.
    ----
    MANNED SPACEFLIGHT
    â€œThe Eagle Has Landed!”
    This is the message U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong radioed back from the Moon to mission control in Houston, Texas, on July 20, 1969. The Eagle was the lunar module, which had detached from the spacecraft Columbia , in orbit sixty miles above the surface of the Moon. While astronaut Michael Collins remained on board Columbia , the Lunar Excursion Module touched down on an area called the Sea of Tranquility—but there is no water on the Moon so it didn’t land with a splash! Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the two astronauts inside the Eagle , became the first human beings