The Great Galaxy Goof - Softcover

Elmer, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0764223569 ISBN 13: 9780764223563

Publisher: Bethany House, 2000

Synopsis

Buzz Bright, a newcomer to CLEO-7, the new space station orbiting the moon, finds his Christian principles tested by an unfriendly prankster.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Elmer is a graduate of St. Mary's College and Simpson College in San Francisco. He has written four series for middle-grade readers: ADVENTURES DOWN UNDER, THE YOUNG UNDERGROUND, PROMISE OF ZION, and ASTROKIDS. He got his writing start as a newspaper reporter but has written everything from magazine columns to radio and TV commercials. Now he writes full time from his home in rural northwest Washington state, where he lives with his wife Ronda, and their three busy teenagers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Tag, You're It

I knew something was strange the first time I heard that noise in the space-shuttle kitchen.

Like a gasp.

I was going to punch in the data code for a snack. Press 2-0-0-7 for Astro-cheesies. I had that code memorized.

But then I heard it again. Back in the corner, right behind the digital food copier. (That’s what makes meals. I’ll explain later.)

Anyway, it was a human gasp, not a machine gasp.

“Hello?” I checked the little garbage chute door. “Anyone here?”

Whoosh! It almost sucked my hand into space. I slammed the door.

That’s when I felt kind of silly.

Come on, I told myself. You’re just hearing things.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t really want to meet anyone crawling out of the garbage chute. Or out from inside the wall. I’d heard too many scary alien stories. The Three-Eyed Creature of the Cargo Area, that sort of thing.

So I decided the noise was a shuttle noise. And the shuttle was just doing what shuttles do. Flying from Earth to the space stations, to the moon colony, and back again. Shuttles make noises, right?

Right. Something clicked over my head. Something else beeped. A whoosh of air. Normal shuttle noises.

“Hey!” A little kid floating upside down back by my seat yelled and waved at me. “You’ve got to see this. It’s CLEO-7!”

He was staring out my window and flapping his hands like a bird. I think he was excited to see the space station.

Our space station.

“Where? Really?” I forgot about the noise, and about being hungry. I settled for a soda disk.

Question 01:

What’s a soda disk, anyway?

Answer 01:

You’ve never heard of a soda disk? Wow! It’s like a whole can of soda pop squeezed into the size of an Oreo cookie. They’re awesome.

Question 02:

Wait a minute. A cookie?

Answer 02:

The size of a smallish cookie. You stuff it in your mouth, and the soda comes out slowly. But once you put it in your mouth, you have to keep it there, or it makes a mess. It’s still not perfect. But what do you expect? It’s only 2175.

Anyway, I flipped over backward in midair. Then I pushed off from the wall. I love being weightless, even more than playing laser tag. Even more than flying back on Earth. Weightlessness is the best! I slipped the cola soda disk in my pocket and glided back to my seat.

“Did you know it was so big?” asked the kid. He made a little grease smudge where he pressed his nose against the round space shuttle window. “It looks like a huge regrub-mah.”

“What’s that?” I didn’t know what a regrub-mah was. Maybe it was some kind of moon word.

“Hamburger, silly. Only spelled backward.”

Oh. I smiled at the lame joke and peeked out at the huge double-decker hamburger myself. Like a city in the sky, with lights flashing all around. I caught my breath at the sight.

Three rows back, a girl stood up. She pointed my way.

“Tag, you come back here,” said the girl. “You’re bothering people again.”

I looked around. I wasn’t Tag. She wasn’t pointing at me, but at the little guy next to me.

“No, it’s okay,” I answered. “He’s all right.”

Okay, he was a bit of a pain. He was making me dizzy, floating upside down next to my head. But you could tell he didn’t mean anything by it.

Tag didn’t listen to her.

“Tag, did you hear me?” She pulled away from her spot with a ri-ip of Velcro. Everybody was stuck to their seats that way—unless they wanted to go spinning around the inside of the shuttle. And twenty-five spinning people would not be good. They would probably be sick.

I decided the girl must be Tag’s older sister. I could tell from her face. She was about my age, but white instead of black like me, with long brown hair.

She was sure acting bossy. And she wasn’t very happy with Tag. I could tell that from her face.

“Tag, did you hear me?” she tried again. She started toward us. But a red light on her wrist interface blinked just then.

(I would explain what an interface is. But you’ll get it by reading what happens next.)

Anyway, I could see a tiny 3-D head projected right above her wristwatch. Well, it wasn’t actually a wristwatch. It looked like a wristwatch. But it was really an interface.

And even though a floating head sounds strange, it was great! The 3-D picture of a head was about as big as your fist. You could see all around it, like a doll’s head. The eyes, the ears, hair, everything. This man’s head was talking, just like you would talk to someone if you were face-to-face. That’s why they call it an interface.

But the tone of the man’s voice worried me. I could tell something was wrong.

Way wrong.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bethany House
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0764223569
• ISBN 13: 9780764223563
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 112