Space Taxi Read online

  A tiny red alien in a tiny bubble-shaped spaceship just WAVED at me! I blink and he’s gone. I shake my head. “Um, Dad? Did you happen to see a little red alien outside my window?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. But all these lights can play tricks on your eyes.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I say, peering into the emptiness around us.

  “You did a great job today, Archie,” Dad says. “I’m very proud of you.” He reaches over and ruffles my hair.

  Normally that would embarrass me, but now it just makes me feel good. “Thank you for trusting me to be your copilot, Dad.”

  He grins. “When I promised you tonight would be an adventure, I had no idea how right I would be.”

  I grin back. “Yeah, Dad, you left out a lot of stuff about tonight.”

  He laughs, then gets serious. “I wanted to tell you everything, Archie. But I had to wait until you were old enough to understand. I think you and I make a great team.”

  I glance into the backseat at the sleeping cat. We’re a team of three now.

  Once I get us back through Earth’s atmosphere, I roll up my map. I wish I had some way to carry it with me. It’s not the kind of thing I can just stick in my pocket, like a certain cat I know. I need a way to keep it safe.

  As we get closer to Earth, I see a single bright star hanging alone in the sky, glittering like a diamond. Suddenly I know exactly what I need. I reach behind me and feel around on the floor until I find my tube from Grandpa. I pop open the top and slide the map inside. A perfect fit!

  “I was waiting for you to figure that out,” Dad says, smiling. Then he points east at a ball of light. “Do you know what that is?”

  “It’s Venus, right? The Morning Star?”

  “Indeed it is.” Dad aims the taxi so I have the perfect view out the front window. The air around Venus glows with the light of the rising sun. Maybe my last name isn’t so bad. After all, it’s the name of a long line of space taxi drivers. And also copilots. And now honorary Intergalactic Security Force deputies saving the universe from the evil B.U.R.P., which, when you think about it, is a much worse name than mine.

  Behind me, Pockets yawns and stretches. “Anyone got some tuna?”

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  Three Science Facts to Impress Your Friends and Teachers

  1. Gravity is the invisible force that attracts two objects. The heavier the object, the more gravity it has. Gravity is what keeps the planets in orbit around the sun and keeps all the stuff on Earth from floating into space. The planet called Delta Three that Archie visits in this book is smaller than Earth and weighs less, so it has less gravity. The people who live there are taller, the trees are taller, and it’s easier for birds to fly and people to walk.

  2. A wormhole is like a tunnel from one part of outer space to another. Picture an apple—it would take a worm less time to go through a hole in the apple than to go around the skin of the apple. Some scientists believe this kind of a shortcut through space might one day be possible.

  3. Even though we don’t think of it this way, our sun is actually a star. It’s just a lot closer to us than any other star. A planet that orbits a star other than our own sun is called an exoplanet. In order for life as we know it to exist, a planet must not be too close to or too far away from its source of heat (its sun) so that its temperature stays within a certain zone. It needs to have water, oxygen, an atmosphere around it, and the right kinds of chemicals in the ground and air. But that’s only life as we know it here on Earth. Other planets could have people or creatures living there that have adapted to their environment as we have adapted to ours. With the help of huge telescopes, astronomers are discovering new exoplanets every day. Someday soon we will surely discover that we are not alone in the vast universe.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Chapter One:

  Take Your Kid to Work Day

  Chapter Two:

  Barney’s Bagels and Schmear

  Chapter Three:

  The Next Town Over

  Chapter Four:

  The Trip

  Chapter Five:

  The Fare

  Chapter Six:

  A Ratty Ball of Fur

  Chapter Seven:

  A New Job

  Chapter Eight:

  Home, Sweet Home

  Three Science Facts to Impress Your Friends and Teachers

  Copyright

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Wendy Mass and Michael Brawer

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Elise Gravel

  Cover art © 2014 by Elise Gravel

  Cover design by Kristina Iulo

  Cover © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

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  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  First ebook edition: April 2014

  ISBN 978-0-316-24321-6

  E3