BooksBarbecue
Back Stargazing for Beginners Save as PDF
Contents ( 64)
  1. A Letter from the Author
  2. ONE
  3. TWO
  4. THREE
  5. FOUR
  6. FIVE
  7. SIX
  8. SEVEN
  9. EIGHT
  10. NINE
  11. TEN
  12. ELEVEN
  13. TWELVE
  14. THIRTEEN
  15. FOURTEEN
  16. FIFTEEN
  17. SIXTEEN
  18. SEVENTEEN
  19. EIGHTEEN
  20. NINETEEN
  21. TWENTY
  22. TWENTY-ONE
  23. TWENTY-TWO
  24. TWENTY-THREE
  25. TWENTY-FOUR
  26. TWENTY-FIVE
  27. TWENTY-SIX
  28. TWENTY-SEVEN
  29. TWENTY-EIGHT
  30. TWENTY-NINE
  31. THIRTY
  32. THIRTY-ONE
  33. THIRTY-TWO
  34. THIRTY-THREE
  35. THIRTY-FOUR
  36. THIRTY-FIVE
  37. THIRTY-SIX
  38. THIRTY-SEVEN
  39. THIRTY-EIGHT
  40. THIRTY-NINE
  41. FORTY
  42. FORTY-ONE
  43. FORTY-TWO
  44. FORTY-THREE
  45. FORTY-FOUR
  46. FORTY-FIVE
  47. FORTY-SIX
  48. FORTY-SEVEN
  49. FORTY-EIGHT
  50. FORTY-NINE
  51. FIFTY
  52. FIFTY-ONE
  53. FIFTY-TWO
  54. FIFTY-THREE
  55. FIFTY-FOUR
  56. FIFTY-FIVE
  57. FIFTY-SIX
  58. FIFTY-SEVEN
  59. FIFTY-EIGHT
  60. FIFTY-NINE
  61. SIXTY
  62. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  63. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  64. ONE

I raise my fist into the air. ‘Poyekhali!’ I say. Let’s go!

Down in the audience, eyes widen with surprise and giggles break out, but I keep my head held high.

‘When people look at the night sky they can feel tiny …’ My voice is still too quiet so I step closer to the microphone. ‘… And insignificant … and I do get that.’ I pause, trying to find the right words. ‘Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is made up of one hundred billion stars, but there are one hundred billion other galaxies in the universe.’ My words are slowing down, becoming clearer, louder. ‘Each of these one hundred billion galaxies also contain billions of stars. I mean,’ I shake my head, ‘that’s a lot of stars …’

The laughter from the audience takes me by surprise and gives me the courage to carry on. ‘If you could look at a map of the universe, Earth wouldn’t even feature. You couldn’t draw a dot small enough.’ I wrap my hand around the microphone. ‘But when I look into space, I don’t feel scared or little, I feel … reassured.’ I feel my shoulders relax because my words are coming easily now, and I can tell they aren’t going to stop.

‘I guess I feel reassured because space is logical and it obeys the laws of physics.’ I pause, remembering when I was up on the Downs the night after Mum left, and how soothing it was to see that the stars were exactly where they were supposed to be. ‘Sometimes I think the movement of the stars are the only reliable thing in my life.’

I shake my head. ‘No, that’s not true. I used to think that. To be honest, in lots of ways space makes more sense to me than life on Earth, which is why I was planning to talk to you about how amazing it would be to leave Earth and find a brand new, human-free planet.’ I pause. ‘But looking at space has never been enough for me. I want to visit space in the same way people want to visit Disney World. I want to walk in space. I want to spin around the Earth at seventeen and a half thousand miles an hour. I want my feet to touch the surface of another planet!’

I’m smiling now and I see people smiling back at me.

‘I thought the only way I could get to space was by working ridiculously hard. By myself.’ I look around the room. ‘Other people – human beings – never came into it. I didn’t want their help and I just thought they got in the way. My baby sister screamed and stopped me revising, students at school seemed to care more about making each other laugh than lessons, and my mum forced me to plant carrot seeds on her community allotment when really I wanted to be doing my homework.’ I remember how grumpy I was, how I planted a few seeds then made up some excuse and left.