I stood up silently, wondering whether I was more anxious than nervous, or more nervous than excited. This was a big deal and it was going to impact my life forever. Because of this, I would probably never see my family again, but instead I�d have a whole new family to call mine. I wondered whether I would get homesick, or maybe this new place could be like a substitute for home.
Benji stepped in from the back of the room, all smiles, with his car keys in his hand. �Ready?� We didn�t even need to answer that question. He could tell by the looks on our faces. Benji was plump, but cute, his short black hair and friendly smile always lighting up a room, and I was definitely going to miss it.
We nodded, following him as he walked hurriedly down the hallway to the back of the room that led out to the street in silence. By the time we�d hopped into his car, we were all out of breath. It wasn�t until we�d driven along a little ways that Benji began to talk.
�So, do you all know the history of ground one?� he asked, looking into the rear view mirror at us, grinning.
�No� but I bet you�ll tell us,� I gleamed, sitting up, ready for a story.
�I might tell you a little bit� since we have a drive ahead of us,� he said. I knew he�d tell us anyway. He�d have time since ground one wasn�t all that close. �Well�.
�It all started about ten years ago with a couple twins named Jamie and Mike. Well, they were super smart. I mean, not just smart, but they were geniuses. Their parents died a little while after they were born, so they were raised by their grandparents. Their grandparents were former rocket scientists and knew just about everything about space. I mean, they had a huge spread of library books right in their own home!
�Well, anyway, they home schooled Jamie and Mike because they thought that the kids would get more of an education from them than they would in regular school. They were so right� by the age of twelve, those twins knew more than you could possibly imagine. They�d actually begun to teach themselves and in a lot of areas (especially space), they didn�t need their grandparents to teach them anymore. They�d walk to the NASA headquarters all the time. Their grandparents were known well there, so they just got in by themselves. They weren�t treated like guests. They knew everything about it.
�They had made quite a group of friends at the nearby orphanage. Their best friends had grown up like them-without their real parents to raise them. They always promised that one day, they�d take them up to space sometime and it�d be like escaping the world that�d been so cruel to them. They�d always promised their friends that. They taught them almost everything they knew� as much as the kids could comprehend because they weren�t nearly as smart as the twins.
�The newest fascination that Jamie and Mike had was the newest space shuttle that was going to be launched from the headquarters very soon. It was like a luxury shuttle to them- it was built for a family to be sent to the moon with no prior experience to space technology or anything. It would basically control itself. The twins had been all inside it, gotten the background details, and even suggested a few things themselves. They were even trying to convince the people they knew at NASA to let them be the first ones to try it out.
�So, one day, the twins woke up, and they wet to go wake up their grandparents, and they found an alarming discovery. Someone had broken in the window the night before and killed their grandparents. It was the most devastating day of their life. It was summer, the time when they were usually out with their friends, happy, and playing, but that summer was all about sadness. So, they made a quick decision. Over the course of that week, they got their friends together and made a plan: they were going to the moon.
�Now, of course, I know what you�re thinking: if they planned to go to the moon, then how did the sun come into play? Well, the kids did get together and get a plan and plan to hijack the shuttle when not many were looking. Practically everyone in the orphanage was in on it, and about twenty or so kids planned to board the space shuttle. They practically bombarded the place, with a lot of help from Jamie and Mike on where to go and what to do to get in. Everyone had their assignments, and while things didn�t go perfectly, the shuttle eventually was launched into the air.
�Still unknown to this day, there was some type of malfunction in the space shuttle. The shuttle got into the air, and a meteor shower came as soon as they were far off, which confused the twins because it was so unexpected. They couldn�t do anything about it because, as you�ll see, you�re so strapped in tight that-,� Benji paused. I looked out of his windows. There was plain grass to all sides. �We�re here.�
�Can�t you just finish quickly?� I asked, too excited to look out of the front window and see where we were at.
�No, I�ve got to get you girls in there. I�m sorry. Maybe you can find someone to tell you the whole story when you get there,� he said, and I could hear the sadness in his voice. I honestly believed that he wanted to finish. I was disappointed, and Terri looked like she was too, until we stepped outside.
That one sight that I saw as soon as I faced my destination� it was the most magnificent I think I will ever lay eyes on.
