Meenakshi Gautam Chaturvedi

The Runaway Moon Meenakshi Gautam Chaturvedi

The year is 2068 AD and the aliens have arrived with a singular mission... To tow away the Moon! The colonization of Moon has begun. Global warming is at its peak, with low lying cities like Mumbai and London nearly half submerged. In such times, Chhavi a twelve year old student of Class VII lives with her family- a five year old brat of a sister called Bhuvi, her mother Pinky, dad Shashank and grandparents in a barrack like apartment on the Seven hundredth floor of a suburban building in Mumbai. One day, the ISRO team visits their school and as a result of a quiz on the school intranet, Chhavi and her classmate Ruchir are selected for a trip to the Moon on Chandrayan XXV as a part of a student exchange programme. On the other end Doctor Samuel Legstrong, a sixty year old American research scientist has been processing the data received from LR-3, a reflector left by Apollo 11 on the Moon (continuing his grandfather's work). For the past hundred years the data has been indicating consistently, that the Moon has been drifting away from us at a constant rate of 3.8 centimeters per year. However, much to his worry, of late his data indicates that the Moon has jumped its orbit! Will the keepers of the planet be able to prevent the apocalypse? What will happen on the mission Chandrayan XXV? Or shall we lose the Moon forever?