George and the Blue Moon Read online

  Chapter Three

  “What’s Artemis?” George repeated as the front door banged behind Eric. As they heard his footsteps fade away, they made out another noise—that of the landline ringing and Annie’s mom picking up.

  “Hmm,” said Annie. “I think I know who or what Artemis is, but let’s ask Cosmos to be sure.”

  “Artemis—Greek goddess of hunting … ,” the supercomputer supplied helpfully. “Also the name of an expedition in a popular sci-fi novel, which told of a trip to Europa to see whether life could exist in an air bubble under the icy crust.”

  “Well, can it?” asked George eagerly. He wiggled his toes inside his sneakers with excitement.

  “In theory,” replied Cosmos.

  George groaned. All the most gripping things in science, like wormholes or time travel, seemed to exist “in theory.” But when you said, “So could that actually happen?” scientists usually said no.

  “And in reality?” Annie persisted. “Seriously, there really could be things swimming around in the oceans on Europa, and if there’s an air bubble between the ocean and the icy crust, then it’s got to be possible that life could exist in that gap too.”

  “What kind of things?” said George.

  “Y’know, the kind of life-forms that might have swam around in the oceans on Earth when life began. Isn’t that right, Cosmos?”

  “Affirmative,” said Cosmos. “In the book, Artemis was a project designed to take human life into space, and at the same time investigate the existence of life in the Solar System.”

  “So humans would go to Europa to see if there are life-forms already there and then study them in their natural environment?” said Annie.

  “But humans can’t live on Europa!” said George. “That’s silly! We just saw it! It’s all icy and there’s nothing there!”

  “Maybe the humans don’t try and stay there forever,” said Annie thoughtfully. “Perhaps they just stay long enough to find out whether there are any underwater aliens swimming around under the ice.”

  “Do they bring the aliens back with them?” asked George. “In the story?”

  “I don’t know,” said Annie. “But I expect they would want to—wouldn’t they? So humans on Earth could examine them and find out more about how life began?”

  “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” said George dubiously.

  “For the aliens,” said Cosmos. “Definitely. But the possibilities of what we might learn are incredible. It might unlock the secrets of life itself.”

  “Wow! What if it isn’t just sci-fi anymore?” asked George. “What if Artemis is actually happening?”

  “Dad would know, right?” said Annie. “That’s his job—to run space missions. So how could ‘Artemis,’ whatever that is, be on Europa without him knowing?”

  Annie’s mom appeared in the doorway, holding the phone in her hand. “It’s your friend Belinda’s mother,” she said. “She wants to know why her daughter is getting a text from you more than once a second.”

  George and Annie exchanged meaningful looks. Annie pulled an “Ugh” face, but she did it with a sort of cheery look so George knew she wasn’t so upset anymore.

  “Susan.” George decided to speak up for his friend. “Annie’s being cyberbullied by Belinda—she’s sent loads of really mean messages to her.”

  “We can show you the messages!” Annie piped up.

  “I think you’d better!” said her mother.

  “So Eric,” continued George, “got Cosmos to stop her.”

  Susan’s eyebrows shot right up to her hairline. “Stop her! How?” she said, her hand still covering the phone so Belinda’s mother couldn’t hear.

  “Cosmos is sending her the works of Isaac Newton by text,” explained Annie, her eyes sparkling now.

  Annie’s mother smiled. “Cosmos”—she addressed the supercomputer directly—“I never thought I would say this, but well done!”

  Susan and Cosmos were old enemies as neither trusted the other nor truly wished to cohabit in the way they did. Cosmos lived in fear that Susan would unplug him in the middle of a vital operation, as she had threatened to do many times before, or send him to the computer junkyard; Susan disliked the central role that a computer played in her household and worried about having such a powerful piece of technology under her roof.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bellis,” said Cosmos politely. “I am pleased to be of service.”

  Annie’s mom walked away but the two friends could hear her on the phone, speaking crisply. “I would advise you to look at the messages Belinda has been sending my daughter. And when you’ve done that, and Belinda has fully apologized and promised never to do this again to my daughter or anyone else, we will instruct our computer to stop messaging you!”

  They heard furious squeaking from the other end of the phone.

  “Yes, good, thank you,” Susan replied. “Please ask your daughter to write that down, in pen and ink, and send it as a letter to Annie as I do not want your daughter communicating electronically with mine any further. And I will stop our computer from messaging you. But if this should start again, against Annie or anyone else at school, please know we will take this further.”

  Susan hung up. She put her head around the door and gave the two friends the thumbs-up sign. “Cosmos, you can stop now. And thank you again,” she said, then she went away to take up her violin practice.

  Cosmos cancelled the operation and the outgoing text messages ceased.

  “Wow, that was cool!” said George.

  “Yeah, you were right to tell Mom and Dad,” sighed Annie. “I wanted to … but I couldn’t. I just felt really embarrassed—like I should be able to handle all this school stuff myself, now that we’re in high school. I didn’t want my parents barging into school and making a great big fuss—I thought that would make everything so much worse. But I’m so like mega phew that we told them. It is better, after all.”

  “Yup,” said George. “And if you hadn’t told anyone, it would still be happening.”

  “Exactly,” said Annie. “Thank you.”

  “I have the entire contents of the world’s libraries at my disposal,” added Cosmos. “So if you need me to start again, just give the command.”

  “Hope not,” said Annie. “I think the human-computer combo has solved this one for now. And as for the other mean girls, I don’t go back to school for ages, and by then I’ll be an astronaut, training to go to Mars. So whatevs to them anyway!”

  “YOLO!” said George, pleased to hear Annie sounding chirpy again. “Does that mean we can do Artemis now?”

  “Yay!” said Annie. “Cosmos, can you show us a screen shot of Europa so we can look at that circle in the ice again?”

  “Of course,” said Cosmos. The image flashed briefly onto his screen but disintegrated very quickly into pixelated boxes in green and black. “Reloading …” But the same thing happened. “The data has been corrupted,” he said. “I am not able to access this image.”

  “Oh!” said Annie. “Can you open the portal again and show us Europa, like you did before?”

  “Negative,” said Cosmos. “I am unable to accept a portal command from junior members of the Order.”

  “Oh, bummer,” said Annie crossly. “You mean we have to get Dad back and he has to tell you?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Can he do it by phone?” asked Annie. “If I call him, can he tell you over speakerphone?”

  “Theoretically … ,’ said Cosmos. “Except that all data streams to and from Europa have been blocked. Even with the correct authorization, I can no longer access any information about that moon.”

  “Can you still see other planets and moons in the Solar System?” asked George.

  “Mercury—check! Venus—check! Mars, asteroid belt, Jupiter itself, Saturn, frozen gas planets, dwarf planets, Oort cloud—all present and correct,” said Cosmos. “The Solar System is all in place—except for that one moon, which seems to have gone AWOL.”
/>   “Europa … is missing?” said Annie in disbelief.

  “Currently,” said Cosmos. “It would seem so. Europa is—no longer there!”

  “But that’s impossible,” said George. “A moon the size of Europa can’t just disappear!”

  “No,” replied Cosmos. “It can’t. But it has.”

  “Poor dolphins in space!” said Annie. “Do you think Europa’s been captured by aliens? Why would aliens want it?”

  “For the same reason that we would want to go there, I suppose,” said George. “So they can find out more about how life began. Maybe they’re gonna create a new life-form of their own?”

  “A Franken-dolph?” said Annie. “That would be scary.”

  “Better than a Franken-shark,” said George. “That would be super-scary.”

  “Ew!” said Annie.

  “Maybe that was a fishing hole, like the Inuit make in the ice,” said George thoughtfully. “Perhaps ‘Artemis’ is like a fishing boat, but it’s gone to sea on Europa instead of in the Atlantic.”

  Annie whipped out her phone and pressed “Dad” in the contacts screen. He picked up immediately. “Annie?” he said urgently. “Close down Cosmos—now!”

  “Why?” she asked. “We were just—”

  “Annie, just do it.” Eric’s voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “Close him down immediately and do not search for any further information until I get home tonight.” He hung up, then called back almost straightaway. “You have never observed, er, Europe,” he said in the same serious tone.

  “But I have!” said Annie in confusion. “I’ve been to France and Germany, and Spain and Italy, and— Oh!” She caught on. “That Europe. No, of course not. Never.” Her father hung up again.

  George had the same tingly sensation he had felt before, when they were on the brink of an adventure.

  “Sorry,” said Annie to Cosmos, feeling like an X-Factor judge telling a contestant to go home. “I don’t want to do this but I have to.” She pressed the exit button and Cosmos’s screen turned gently to a dead black.

  “What now?” asked George. “We’d better not even look up Europa—or Artemis—on the Internet until your dad tells us we can.”

  “Hmmm,” said Annie. “Clearly there’s a mystery here.” She looked thoughtful. “I know!” She brightened up. “Let’s do Astronauts Wanted! If we can’t go into space with Cosmos anymore, we’d better find another way to get out there—and this is our best chance!”

  “Okay,” said George. “But it doesn’t really help us with Artemis. Mars is still quite a long way from Europa. And we wouldn’t even get there for eons.”

  “But,” exclaimed Annie, “we would get into Kosmodrome 2, if we got onto the training program!”

  “Astronauts Wanted is at Kosmodrome 2?” George wrinkled his nose in surprise. Eric’s place of work was so secret that it didn’t even appear on any maps. If you looked it up on Google Earth, all you saw was the old factory near Foxbridge where Annie told him that Kosmodrome 2 had later been built.

  “It is,” confirmed Annie. “And I bet ‘Artemis’ HQ is at Kosmodrome 2 as well. That’s why Dad’s gone off in such a flurry. He’s gone to find out what gives on Europa.”

  “Why is it called Kosmodrome 2?” asked George. “What happened to Kosmodrome 1?”

  “They built it in the desert,” said Annie. “And it got too hot! So they decided to move.”

  “Epic fail!” said George. “Are you sure they know how to build a colony on Mars?”

  “Nope,” said Annie. “That’s why the loser grown-ups need clever kids to help them out. Clearly. They need digital natives to arrive and show them what to do.” She unplugged the tablet from Cosmos, and laughed as she looked at the thousands of messages that Cosmos had managed to send in such a short time to her former friend Belinda. In reply, there was one short message sent thirty seconds before which simply said: SORRY.

  “Oh, Earthlings,” sighed Annie. “We make everything so complicated!”

  “Life on Rams will be simpler,” agreed George, taking the tablet from her and opening up the Astronauts Wanted application. “Just you and me and our robotic explorers, looking out over the Martian desert.”

  “Heaven,” sighed Annie. “C’mon, scribe. Let’s tell them why you and I should be the very first people to walk on the red planet… .”

  CYBERBULLYING

  The Internet is an amazing tool for us to use. We can find out information, keep up with our friends, share photos, go shopping, or play games.

  But the Internet also has a dark side. One aspect of Internet life that is hurtful and scary is called cyberbullying. This means bullying, but online or through your cell phone.

  It is so widespread that the British charity Bullying UK reports most young people will suffer from it at some point. In the United States, PACER (http://www.pacer.org/bullying/resources/parents/mobile-and-online-safety.asp) offers digital-based resources for parents, schools, teens, and youth.

  Kids who are cyberbullied receive nasty messages through instant messaging services, find horrible, untrue comments posted about them on social networking sites, or may even find a “hate” site set up specifically about them. Unfortunately, bullies love the Internet because it helps them to get their vicious messages and false posts seen by as many people as possible.

  According to Bullying UK, it often turns out that the bullies may have once been best friends with their victims so they know lots of information about them.

  But some Internet users also find that “new” friends made on the Internet aren’t what they seem. They may not even be kids at all, but grown-ups pretending to be kids to lure you in. Threats or requests for lots of personal photos or videos may start arriving. Sometimes these “new friends” say they will contact your parents and say bad things about you if you don’t do what they ask. This is called grooming and it means use of the Internet to try and persuade you to behave in inappropriate or revealing ways.

  If you believe you or someone you know is a victim of either cyberbullying or grooming, it is important to tell a trusted adult as soon as you can. Never think it is your fault in any way, whatever the bullies might suggest.

  Here are some other important points about Internet use to help protect yourself from problems like this:

  • Don’t share embarrassing photos of yourself with any Internet users, especially not with ones who you don’t really know.

  • Don’t say things online that you wouldn’t say in person.

  • Remember: there are strong laws that cover behavior on the Internet and the police can trace messages and posts, even anonymous ones.

  • Don’t reply to false posts or nasty messages—this is called flaming and bullies love it.

  • Keep the evidence—there are strong laws which cover cyberbullying and the police may want to see the posts or messages.

  Chapter Four

  When George got home from school the next day, he ran straight through his house, pausing only to scoop up one of his mother’s kale, lentil, and carrot muffins, leaping over the Lego structures his young sisters—Juno and Hera—had left all over the kitchen floor, and out into the backyard. Muffin between his teeth, he clambered up into his tree house, hoping that Annie would already be there. He wasn’t disappointed.

  “Have a muffin.” He took it out from between his teeth.

  “Ew, no thanks!” Annie recoiled. “It’s got your spit on it!” She looked a bit grumpy and out of sorts.

  George’s heart sank a little. He was hoping she’d be all happy, like she had been by the end of the day before. He tried to cheer her up. “It tastes good,” he protested. “And you always say you like my mom’s cooking!”

  “She’s very now,” mused Annie. “Your parents are kind of cool these days.”

  It was true that the world seemed to have caught up with Terence and Daisy, George’s parents. Once, they had been laughed at for their eco beliefs, their home-made clothes, their vegetable patch, Tere
nce’s bushy beard, and the beehive in the garden. In the short time that Annie and George had known each other, the world had changed so much that Terence and Daisy had come into fashion. Their food cooperative, Daily Bread, had been featured in a glossy magazine, Terence had been asked to give a TED talk about sustainable living, and Daisy had published a cookbook based on foraging food from the wild.

  “Yeah, who would have thought!” said George. When he was little and wanted to be like every other kid, his parents had been a source of almost constant embarrassment. But now that he was older—and the world took a kinder view of his mom and dad—he felt proud of them instead. He still wasn’t quite sure he had forgiven them for making him spend his infanthood in an encampment where they tried to live as though in the time of the Iron Age. At least they had left in the end, even if it had taken the intervention of Mabel, George’s fierce grandmother, to pull them (literally) out of the mud. But he still remembered what it felt like to be the kid who got left out. He remembered that hot feeling of shame when he was the last person to be picked for any team, or when other kids turned away as he tried to talk to them. And he knew that the best thing he could do for Annie now was get her mind off what happened with her classmates and get her interested in something completely different. Something space-related, he reflected, would be perfect. Especially, he buzzed, if it had a mystery attached.

  “How’s Europa? Still missing? Or has your dad found it again?” he asked, stuffing the rest of the muffin into his mouth, spraying crumbs around him.

  “No idea,” said Annie. “Dad told us to do nothing, remember?”

  “So, no motion in the ocean by Artemis either?” asked George, who was disappointed. He couldn’t quite believe that Eric had told Annie not to investigate this peculiar incident and Annie had agreed. It was not like her to ignore the prospect of a space-themed detective opportunity. George figured she really was still feeling bad.

  “Who knows?” Annie sighed. “No sighting of the exotic ‘father bird’ since first mention of the space mission that must not be named.”

  “What? Eric hasn’t come home?” said George.