Chapter 1: An Intriguing Discovery

Olivia's POV

"Class, I'll be assigning your research topics now," says my English teacher, Ms. Green.

I get excited. Ms. Green is easily my favorite teacher Pineway Middle School. She makes research reports—like the ones we're being assigned right now—seem like fun.

Ms. Green puts a slip of paper down on my desk, face down. She instructs us not to look at them until she tells us to. I glance at my twin sister Bella. I cross my fingers and hold them up to tell her I hope we get the same research topic. She crosses her fingers and holds them up too.

"All right, everyone," Ms. Green calls out. "In 3... 2... 1... FLIP!"

The scruffling and shuffling of flipping paper fills the classroom. My slip reads:

Your topic is: Pikmin. Plant like creatures, strong fighters, barely an inch tall – Research report due May 20th

Again I make eye contact with Bella. She holds up her paper. It has the exact same image as mine—we got the same topic!

"You will start your research now. Let's head to the library," says Ms. Green.

In the library, I start looking for something on these Pikmin creatures. Finally, I find what I think I'm looking for: a book entitled Everything You Ever Needed to Know about Pikmin. I open it up, calling for Bella to come over and look at it with me.

"What is it, Livvy?" she asks, using her nickname for me.

"Look, I found something. Come see!"

We discover the nine types of Pikmin: red, yellow, blue, purple, white, rock, winged, Puffmin, and Bulbmin. Each comes with its own set of traits and abilities. It amazes me. We take notes. We read about how the first person to discover them was a native of a Planet Hocotate.

"Hocotate?" I pronounce it 'ho-co-tayt' at first.

"Try pronouncing it differently—it's just vaguely familiar," Bella says.

"Umm... Hoh-koh-tah-teh?"

"That's it!" she cries out joyfully.

"I swear I've heard that name before," we say in unison.

"It says there are others who found them too, from Planet Koppai," Bella says.

"I've heard that one too," I say. "From... Mom." Deep in thought, I try to piece it together, but the puzzle is of course still incomplete.

"Let's look up more," Bella says. I agree.

I sit at one computer and type in Koppai while Bella searches Hocotate. We take notes on this research, too. After we share our findings, we agree that it would be fabulous to know more about life on these mysterious planets. But Earth's internet doesn't have nearly enough to offer to satisfy us.

When we get home, we tell Mom what we learned. But either she doesn't listen or she's pretending not to care. I can tell she does, though... I can tell. Something about Planets Hocotate and Koppai has hit something close to her heart—something she doesn't want us to know.