New Planet Found

• Amy Luckett, Grade 3
• Short Story
• 2009

Lily & Chloe were best friends and they had never been to the Observatory. One day at home Lily asked her mum if she and Chloe could go to the Observatory with her. Her mum said “Hmmm ok”. Lily was filled with excitement.
The next day Lily & her mum went to the Observatory at 6:00 pm. First they went to pick up Chloe. It took 20 minutes to get to the Observatory. As they all walked to the Space telescope, Lily saw lots of other domes, but they weren’t the ones they were looking for.
When Lily’s mum, Lily & Chloe all got to the top of the stairs there was already a little boy looking through the telescope. His name was Scott. Soon Scott left. Lily was running ahead and tripped over and cut her leg. Chloe was walking so she got to go first because Lily took a long time to get up off the floor. Chloe looked through the telescope. Lily was waiting for Chloe to speak, she was taking a long time. Then she did! She said that she could see something small. Far out beyond Pluto Chloe could see a round blue and yellow ball. Soon the manager came into the dome. Her name was Samantha. She said it was a new planet. Samantha said she would have called it Icey. Samantha thought the blue was ocean and the yellow was sand with big chunks of ice on it.
Now it is 8:00pm, time to go home. The next day they went to school. Lily and Chloe were telling everyone about the planet. When it was home time, Lily’s mum said “Would you like to go to the Observatory again today?” Lily said “Yes, please!”
It was Lily’s turn to look through the telescope because she didn’t get to last time as they were talking to the manager. Chloe was going with them again this time. As Lily looked through the telescope, there was no planet behind Pluto, but there was a galaxy that she had never seen before! Lily’s Mum had a look, then Chloe, but there was no sign of Icey. Samantha came in again and moved the telescope and looked through. One metre from what Chloe saw yesterday she saw Icey. Icey had already started moving around the sun. Samantha said that the galaxy was made up of lots of stars.
Lily and Chloe were so glad that they had visited the Observatory, and looked forward to learning much more about space.