Biff and Steve both nodded. It was a holiday none of them would ever forget.
CARGO FOR CALLISTO
The big rocket freighter was speeding through the star dust of outer space. It was carrying supplies to Callisto (one of the twelve moons of Jupiter) and the Shannons, on another space adventure.
Steve and Sue looked out a window of the freighter at the airless world growing in size. Callisto was a gigantic roughened rock, but it was a globe larger than the planet Mercury. It reminded Steve of a giant cockle-burr hanging in the sky.
Suddenly the children heard a tiny voice behind them say, “Rocket away!”
They turned and Sue exclaimed, “It’s Bud!”
The blue parakeet, a budgy, blinked lazily at them. The twins had met Mr. Whittle’s pet a week ago. He had taken a liking to them from the very start. They didn’t know that a few hours from now their very lives would depend on this little fellow.
“We’d better take him back to Mr. Whittle,” Steve said.
The budgy kept studying them with his flat face and blinking his tiny button eyes. Then he squawked again, “Rocket away!”