Earth:

One day in school the teacher announced that whoever won the art fair would get to go to space. Me and my best friend Nicky were so excited, so we got to work on our art project. We had so many ideas.

“I was thinking that we could do a 3-D neighborhood art project, or we could do a project where we could cover something up with different pieces of paper and write words on the paper,” I said.

“What I think we should do is we should make a mural of the sunset,” Nicky said. “We could add a bridge to the painting, or we could add some buildings in the background.”

This convinced me because she said that no one would do a mural and that would give them a better chance of winning.

So we got to work. I worked on the sunset and Nicky worked on the water. Then after that we worked on the buildings. We worked every day after school for two hours a day. It was so hard and tiring. We had no breaks and finally after two weeks we were done.

The day that we were bringing our painting to school and Nicky was returning the paints that we borrowed, all of a sudden she slipped and all of the paint splattered all over the painting in different colors, different shapes, and different sizes. Nicky thought it looked kind of cool, but I didn’t.

Then Nicky said, “Well at least we should bring it in, we’ll have something.” So we brought it in.

Still Earth:

Sure enough, it was the art fair. We looked around at different paintings and other art projects. There were some really cool things like texture paintings, 3-D building blocks, covering stuff up in pieces of different paper and writing words on it, and lots more.

The judges said, “Take your places.” One by one the judges came around and looked at each and every one of them. Then they talked for a little while and then they announced that they had made their decision. Lots of people from the city were there, the news reporters and more.

Then they decided to announce the winners. “The winners are Haley and Jessica! Actually, we made a mistake. It’s Skylar and Nicky!”

The news reporters rushed over and said, “How do you feel about this Skylar and Nicky? Are you excited?”

“Yes, very.”

“Thank you for letting us speak with you.”

“I can’t believed we won even though we spilled those paints on it,” I said to Nicky. Then they decided to ask Ms. Fisher how we won even though we spilled paint all over it and Ms. Fisher says,“It was an abstract piece of art.”

Still Still Earth:

“Nicky, we should start packing.”

I crossed five days left off my calendar.

“I can’t wait!” Nicky said.

***

“The day’s here, we’re going to space, it’s gonna happen!” I said.

“It’s time to board the spaceship,” said Commander Jones, the astronaut.

“Bye mom,” I said. “Bye dad.” My parents were trembling. They kept asking me, “Are you sure you want to do this? You know we’re only letting you do this because we trust you.”

Then Nicky said bye to her parents. The same thing happened with her parents.

Space:

Then I heard the Commander say, “1, 2, 3, blast off!” Off we went.

We finally got into space. It took so long. It was so dark you could see nothing from miles away. It also felt so weird when we were coming. We were floating; it was awesome. It felt like me and Nicky were flying. Then we opened the refrigerator and all the food started floating.

“Hey Nicky, I see a shooting star!”

“Wow, it’s really bright!”

Then I heard Commander Jones say, “We’re out of gas, we can’t get back!”

I started to freak out. Nicky started to cry.

I said, “How are we ever gonna get back?”

Still Space:

Then Commander Jones said, “I don’t think we’re ever gonna get back.”

Nicky and I started to think of ways to get back.

“Hey how about this button? I think it’ll help us.” Nicky pressed it.

All of a sudden I heard a boom sound. The spaceship went farther back into space. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. Then I heard a signal coming in from Earth.

I said, “Commander Jones, come over here.”

He came over and said, “That’s probably nothing at all.”

“I just looked at it and I didn’t understand what it meant. They said something like, ‘Inland, inland.’ They said it was nothing so I didn’t do anything.”

Then Nicky said, “Hey, I remember this from science. Something like when they say, ‘Inland, inland’ it means they’re coming to save you. I’m probably mistaken, it probably doesn’t mean that.”

Still Still Space:

Then I heard another signal come in. It was something like, “We’re coming, we’re coming.” And then they said, “I ho, I ho.” Then I called Commander Jones over.

But then I noticed that Commander Jones wasn’t with us! He went outside of the spaceship. He was floating away and we couldn’t get him back. It was too late. Commander Jones was gone.

We were so scared, we didn’t want to go outside so that we would be lost in space too. Nicky started banging on the windows, she was really scared.

I said, “Nicky, calm down, he will come back,” but I was mistaken, I really was. There was no sight of Commander Jones.

So now we were in a spaceship all by ourselves. Nicky was not helping at all, she was just freaking out.

Still Still Still Space:

I tried to respond.

“We’re stuck and Captain Jones is gone, please help, I hope you get this message, please respond, if we die here’s what me and Nicky want to say — tell my family and friends I love them.”

“I see a flying object coming towards us! It’s bright and it looks like a spaceship. I think they’re coming to get us!” Nicky said.

“It’s not a spaceship. It’s an asteroid!” I said.

Then I saw something on the screen. It was beeping. It said: “Alert! Alert! Asteroid incoming!” We had to find a way to get back to Earth before the asteroid hit our ship!

“Nicky come down here! I’m trying to connect the wiring so that we can get back! Hold these two wires together. Then attach that button to this wire.”

Then, when we were just about the press the wire, the asteroid hit us and we got covered in rocks! Now we couldn’t move any more because the button had broken when the rocks hit it. Then we came up with a new plan.

“Maybe we could send out a message and see if someone gets it on Earth. We could also go look for Captain Jones to help us,” said Nicky.

I said, “No, no, and no,” to all of them. “I don’t know if this is gonna work, but we should try it. What if we attached the backwards button to the forward wire and got all the rocks off of us and then pressed the button to get back!”

On the count of three we decided to push it, “One, two, three! Beep!” Then I saw us go all the way down, it felt so weird.

“I can’t believe we did it!”

Then we sent a video saying that we were on our way back and they received it.

Earth:

“Breaking News Reported: Two girls stuck in space and their Commander are lost somewhere in space. Let you hear from their families. This is Skylar’s mom and dad and brother and sister. Let’s hear from Skylar’s mom first. How do you feel about this?”

“I feel very very sad about this. My daughter could be somewhere in space dying right now and I plan to sue NASA.”

“Now let’s hear from Skylar’s father.”

“This should have never happened. I expect them to get my daughter and her friend back here.”

“Now let’s hear from Skylar’s sister.”

“I hope Skylar gets back,” said Skylar’s sister.

“Now let’s hear from Skylar’s brother.”

“I hope that this never happens again and they get Skylar back,” said Skylar’s brother.

“The same thing with Nicky’s parents. Now let’s hear from NASA. NASA, how do you feel about this?”

“We’re very sorry this happened. It’s devastating and we’re trying to get them back. We have a robot going out there to try to find a trace of a spaceship.”

“That’s all we have time for. We hope they will get them back.”

Earth Again:

Back at home, Skylar’s family was having dinner. Then Skylar’s sister said, “Can I have Skylar’s room?”

“Don’t say that!” said her mother. “You’re grounded for two weeks.”

Then Skylar’s brother said, “Can I have Skylar’s phone?”

“You’re grounded too.”

Back to Earth Safe and Sound:

Before we knew it we were on Earth, there we saw our parents waiting for us. We were really happy to see them.

“Did you get our message? Did you? Did you?”

“Yes, we did.”

Later, we had a press conference with the news.

“Where’s Commander Jones?” the news reporter asked.

Nicky and I said simultaneously, “He left to go and look for help.”

“Well, that’s the end of Commander Jones,” said the news reporter.

Nicky and I said, “It was a really fun trip but very scary. We’re sorry about our commander’s passing. In honor of Commander Jones.”

Then all of a sudden someone fell from out of the sky! “Commander Jones!” the news reporter shouted, “How’d you make your way down here?”

“Ways, ways,” said the commander. “I’ll tell you. I pressed the go back to Earth button.”

“We went through all of that for nothing?” Nicky and I said.

“Thank you for being with us, this is ABC News. Next up is the car accident.”

The Back to Normal Earth:

The next morning, we came walking to school and all their teachers asked, “How are you doing? Are you okay?”

All our friends said, “How was space? Was it fun?”

Everyone was so excited to see us back. They asked them so many questions like, “Was it scary? How did you get back? Was it fun?”

Nicky and I answered, “Yeah it was really fun, but really scary.”

THE END