Squishy Taylor in Zero Gravity Read Online Free

‘We have to find out more about the rocket.’

Somehow I fall back asleep.
    When I wake up, Jessie is rummaging with something right next to my head.
    ‘Whaaa …’ I ask sleepily, rolling over to see what she’s doing.
    Jessie has stuck the iPad to the telescope with black gaffa tape. She’s just opened the iPad camera app. The telescope is tilted down, to the street below.
    ‘What are you doing ?’ I ask, more awake now.
    ‘Porridge is ready!’ Dad calls from the kitchen. Then Baby starts crying.
    But I’m staring at Jessie’s new device. She’s filming through the telescope. And the telescope is focused on the front door of Spacewoman’s building.
    ‘ Genius ,’ I whisper.
    ‘It’s our own spy camera. Now we can see every time she comes and goes from the building.’
    ‘That’s so cool , Jess,’ Vee says, from her bunk.
    Jessie nods, a bit smugly. ‘Yep. I’ve even plugged the iPad into the power so it doesn’t run out of battery while we’re at school.’

    ‘Jessie, you are the Best Bonus S ister Ever ,’ I say.
    ‘I’m calling it a tele-pad,’ Jessie says and I grin.
    Dad calls from the kitchen again. ‘If you’re not up in fifteen seconds, this bucket of ice-water is going over your heads!’
    He’d never do that. But it makes us laugh and we climb, jump, flip and scramble out of bed.

    ‘We want to learn her habits,’ Jessie says, as the tram rumbles us to school. ‘When does she usually leave the building? When does she come home? What does she carry? Stuff like that.’
    I jiggle in the seat. I can’t wait to get home and find out what our new spy camera has filmed.
    ‘I bet she carries wiring and computers and satellites,’ Vee says.
    ‘Yeah, and special alien food , and letters for the president of the galaxy,’ I add.
    The others laugh. The president of the galaxy is from Lightspeed Kids and we all know he’s not real.
    ‘I wish we didn’t have to go to school,’ Vee says.
    I almost agree. But there’s one reason I do want to go to school. ‘If we want to be astronauts, we need to get good at maths,’ I say.
    Vee groans. Jessie laughs. Jessie’s already good at maths.
    When we get home we rush to the tele-pad. At first I lean in close, watching every second. But there’s nothing for a while. It turns out watching the whole day back is really boring, even in fast forward. I take it in turns with Vee to practise bunk-bed tricks and to look over Jessie’s shoulder.
    Nothing happens in real life or in the video, except for people going in and out. None of them are Spacewoman. I’m starting to feel pretty disappointed. Then I realise something.
    ‘That’s weird,’ I say. ‘Spacewoman never leaves the building.’
    Jessie shakes her head. ‘She could have left for work before I set it up and not be home yet. We just have to wait a bit longer.’
    I don’t want to wait.
    Jessie sets up the tele-pad again. ‘The cool thing about the tele-pad is that it does the waiting for us, and we can do other things.’
    ‘Why don’t we just sneak up to her roof?’ I ask.
    Vee does a Rolling - S pin-Drop from her bunk. ‘That would be more fun than waiting to see what’s on a camera.’
    Jessie doesn’t look convinced, but she steps away from the telescope.

    We stride out our front door and cross at the lights near Spacewoman’s building. It has a foyer just like ours, with glass doors that need a swipe card to get in.
    We watch a few people swipe and open the doors.
    ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Next person who comes, we follow them in.’
    The next person to step up to the door is a tired-looking man wearing funny blue pyjamas and sneakers.
    ‘Why is he wearing pyjamas?’ Vee whispers.
    ‘Shhh,’ I say, and squeeze her arm.
    As the tired man steps through the door, I jump forward to catch it and keep it open.
    We’re in.

We wait by the lift with the man in blue pyjamas. I hope he doesn’t notice that we don’t have our own swipe card. Luckily he’s scanning