George's Secret Key To The Universe

Chapter 5

The room was getting darker and darker. 'Come and sit here, George,' called Annie, who had already settled herself on the big comfy sofa. George sat down next to her, and after a few seconds he saw a tiny beam of very bright white light. It came directly from Cosmos's screen. The beam shot out into the middle of the room, where it wavered for a second before it began to sketch a shape in the air. It moved from left to right in a straight line before dropping down towards the floor. Leaving a shining path of light behind it, it turned another corner to make three sides of a rectangle. One more right angle and the beam of light came back to its starting point. For a second, it looked like a flat shape hanging in the air, but suddenly it turned into something real and very familiar.

'But that looks like a-' said George, who could suddenly see what it was.

'A window,' said Eric proudly. 'Cosmos has made us a window on the Universe. Watch closely.'

The beam of light disappeared, leaving the window it had drawn in the middle of Eric's sitting room, hanging in mid-air. Although the outline was still shining with bright light, it now looked exactly like a real window. It had a big sheet of glass in the pane and a metal frame. Beyond it, there was a view. And that view was not of Eric's house, or of any house, road or town, or anywhere else that George had ever seen before.

Instead, through the window George could see an incredible, vast darkness, peppered with what looked like tiny bright stars. He started to try and count them.