Alien Lockdown – Ailynn Collins

But Yin ignored them. Carefully, she looked around the room. It was a lab. White counters filled the room in neat rows. On top of them lay fancy-looking scientific equipment. A few chairs were knocked over, but other than that, everything seemed pretty normal. Then, something at the back caught Yin’s attention. “Guys, look at this,” Yin said, heading farther inside.

Sam and Priya slowly came into the lab. On the back counter were several plants. Bunches of long, thick stems rose out of large pots. Only the stems weren’t green—they were beige and light brown. It made the stems look more like chubby, handless arms. At the end of those arms grew thin vines that curled out like tiny snakes reaching for their prey.

“It’s the Star Cabbage,” Yin whispered. This was the thing she’d come all the way into space to see. She’d nearly forgotten about it during the chaos of the lockdown. She smiled. The vines seemed to stretch toward her, almost as if they were happy to see her too. Impossible, thought Yin. Still, a shiver ran through her—excitement and nervousness mixed together. She reached for one of the plants. “What are you doing?” Sam said, grabbing Yin’s hand. “That could be a monster!”

“Don’t be silly,” Yin said. She pulled away. “It’s a plant. How could it break through a solid metal door?” “Well, don’t touch it anyway,” Priya added. “Just in case.” But Yin knew it was harmless. As her friends turned away to search the lab, Yin couldn’t help herself. She reached out again. The plant was cool and smooth. But when she stroked it, tiny red hairs began to grow all over the plant.

One of the thin vines curled around her finger, gently. It tickled. “Over here!” Priya called. She was pointing to the floor on the other side of the lab. “I found something.” Yin turned, but the plant wouldn’t let go of her finger. She tugged her hand away, and the vine broke off the plant.

Oops! Yin glanced over at her friends to see if they’d noticed. They were busy looking at what Priya had found. She peeled the vine off her finger.

When I look at the night sky, I wonder—does scary stuff happen up there just as it does here on Earth? Sounds can’t travel through outer space because there’s no air. So if frightened people were out there, we’d never even hear their screams. I wonder . . . In the not-too-distant future in Alien Lockdown, Yin and her classmates go on a field trip to an orbiting space station.

The human scientists there are studying new alien life. Yin is excited, Sam is nervous, and Priya isn’t sure what to expect. But once they’re aboard, all three friends will feel the exact same thing—terror! 1kitap1.com/en 1 The space elevator lobby was packed. People were standing in long lines for tickets. Groups of tourists huddled together as they waited for their guides to lead the way to the pods.

Yin Nova and her fifth-grade classmates, wearing matching school uniforms, sat against a wall. They watched returning passengers step out from the launch bays. Yin’s legs couldn’t stop bouncing up and down. She had been dreaming of this day for a long time. Her friend Sam was less excited. “You know it’s Friday the thirteenth today, right?” Sam moaned. “It’s the unluckiest day of the year. And not a good day for a class field trip to space.” Yin laughed. Her best friend could find the negative in any situation.

“Lighten up, Sam!” “Yeah, you know that’s just a silly belief,” said Priya, the third in their best friend trio. “I know what will get you excited,” Yin said, pulling Sam to her feet. Priya followed behind. Yin led her friends to a display of giant photos on the opposite wall of the lobby. When the three came to a stop, the photos began to shimmer and grow.

The images turned into 3-D holograms. Yin pointed to one. “Look at it. International Space Station Three,” she said. The station was built like a long stick with seven rings balancing along its length. “The ISS 3 is bigger than the two older space stations put together,” Yin continued. “And today, we get to go aboard the real thing.” “Yeah, the museum we’re going to is right here,” Priya added.

She pointed to the third ring. “It has the largest collection of space artifacts in the world.” “You mean space junk,” Sam said, frowning. “They just collect the stuff our ancestors threw away in space and call it artifacts.” “Maybe. But we don’t care about that,” Yin said. She touched the hologram and focused in on one room in the museum.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 89c06aad2bcb9c9d
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 7,884,439 bytes (7.519 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781496579058, 9781496579096, 9781496590299
• Pages: 87
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 60.23 minutes
• Total Words: 12,045
• Total Characters: 66,751
• Average Words per Page: 138.45
• Average Characters per Page: 767.25

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