4 A Big Announcement

Bella's POV

Livvy comes running down the stairs with her laptop in her hands, calling my name. "Bella!" she yells. "Two big news things. One, Koppai has its own internet. Look!" She squeals and opens her laptop. "This is how I'll research the food issue."

"Sweet!" I say, admiring how similar, yet different, it was to Earth's internet. "What's the other thing?"

"Mom's hiding something again. It has to do with our family, in relationship to the food crisis."

Suddenly, we both hear our mother coming down the stairs. "Girls," she says. "I have something important to tell you."

"Again?" Livvy asks.

"Are we really surprised?" I ask.

Mom ignores the mini-conversation and proceeds, "Now that I think about it, it's about time you knew you were intergalactic anyway. Every 7 years, those of us on Earth take a special five-week trip to Hocotate and then Koppai, to visit family. We have to be shrunken to the size of a Hocotatian or Koppaite, but the ship we take will be taking care of that."

Livvy and I share an excited glance. Wide eyes, growing smile. Together. It's a twin thing. I can almost read her mind through her facial expressions, as can she. Hers tells me, "We're going on an intergalactic journey! I can't believe this!" I try to tell her, "Me neither! I'm so excited!"

When Monday finally arrives, Livvy and I gather up all our bags. Mom stops by our bedrooms (with her bags too) and she leads us to... the wall in our kitchen. Suddenly, a hi-tech panel appears and Mom keys in a passcode. The screen closes down to reveal a door. A plain old door like the one leading from the laundry room to the garage. Mom pulls out a glowing, white-and-turquoise key. "They take extra steps to make sure the doors are only being opened by actual Intergalactics," she exxplains. Then she leads us to... our basement. The one I used to play in as a little kid with Livvy all the time. Except, there's a large gray metal box in one corner... a corner that never used to exist. I try to run over to the corner that DID used to exist, but I don't get to run 10 feet before smacking my head on something hard.

"It's glass, Bells," Mom says. "It looks like a wall from the other side, and appears invisible from this side. Just more protection, and a good demonstration of the hi-tech features of Hocotate and Koppai-mostly this is from Koppai. But i promise, when we get there it'll feel like a regular old town."

I rub my forehead. "Well that's one way to start a journey through space!"

Mom takes us to the big metal machine. "Step in. It'll make us and our stuff the right size to be on Hocotate or Koppai." She lets us in, closes the door, and presses a large blue button that says shrink.

A visible, pale blue, icy wind circles swiftly around us, engulfing us in what feels like synthetic fog or something. Is synthetic fog even possible?! Anyway, I look up and feel as if the walls are growing. But I know I'm shrinking. Suddenly the wind feels less icy and more like a sting.

Soon the wind slows and my skin stops feeling like it's being torn away, or something. Feels a little tingly, though. We head towards the ship we are going to take. The name S.S. Bilbo is spelled clearly in English, as well as the languages of Hocotate and Koppai.

Inside the ship, Mom pulls from a counter three long strips of something. Another hi-tech piece of Koppai, I can tell. She stretches the first one around my neck and clips it in place. The larger black rectangle part is centered over where my voice comes from. It feels a little tight but I quickly adjust. Mom stretches two thin, almost invisible string things up, behind my ears to the sides of my forehead, like right next to my hair where i guess it won't be super noticeable. it connects to my brain?! Whaaaat!

She does the same for Livvy, then picks up the last collar thingy. Before she puts it on herself, she says, "Try it out."

I open my mouth to speak, I meant to say "What should I say?" But when I start talking, i hear a foreign language. And somehow, I can UNDERSTAND it! When Livvy speaks, she kuh-LEARLY says "Listen to us! It's amazing!"

A.N. : From here, all dialogue spoken through the translator thingy is gonna be in bold.

"So these things control our voices without changing what we say?" I ask Mom.

"That's right," she says. Over the next few hours we just talk through the translators for a while; then Livvy pulls out her laptop, saying, "I was gonna research that food crisis, wasn't I?"

She spends some time reading about Koppai. I start sketching. It's a picture of me, Livvy, and our mom, surrounded by a bunch of people whose appearances came mostly from my imagination. One of them has a round face, with black eyes and a large nose. He has some brown hair on his head, and I colored his shirt red. I really liked that one. I felt like somehow his face was already familiar to me, as if I had seen him before. I shake my head harshly. Am I dreaming?! He totally just came from my pencil, right off the top of my head like I always draw.

On the back of the paper I start writing my thoughts about getting to meet family members I never used to know existed. When I fill up the page, I just sit and rest. I look around. Livvy's typing rapidly on her computer, taking notes on her research. Mom is reading a book in the Koppaite language. According to my translator, the book is called Visiting Interplanetary Relatives.

I put my sketchpad and pencils away. It's been a big, busy day for me. But I'm glad it's happening. Getting to visit planets other than Earth... what an experience! And at age 13, too!

Soon, it's bedtime and we all go to bed. My sleep is filled with dreams of what I've thought Hocotate and Koppai might be like. I see Hocotatian schools, homes, businesses, and people. And I can speak with them effortlessly. One in particular stands out to me. A man with brown hair, red clothes, and a large nose and the seemingly usual Hocotatian small, black eyes. The face is so strangely familiar. Who is he? I recognize him as the one person in my drawing who seemed familiar...

My eyes fly open. My dream ends abruptly, leaving me confused. Who IS this guy? This mysterious face... I feel like I shouldn't shake it off and forget it. But this is just really weird.

I glance at the clock. 2:00 AM. I let my face drop baack into my pillow and go back to sleep.