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!”
    Miss Arnold’s eyebrows slowly rose. “What?” she said.
    Danny felt like biting off his tongue.
    â€œWhat did you say?” Miss Arnold asked.
    â€œNothing,” he said sullenly.
    â€œI’m afraid we’d better make that five hundred sentences,” said Miss Arnold. “I really don’t think I can bring myself to believe that the first space flight will take place tomorrow ”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Joe Finds Out
    When school was out, Joe Pearson tried to catch Danny at the classroom door, but he was too late. For the last two or three weeks Danny had been avoiding him, and Joe couldn’t imagine why.
    â€œGolly,” Joe said to himself, “he’s done it again. What’s been eating him lately?”
    He walked home slowly. He was wondering if he had done something to hurt Danny’s feelings, or to make his friend angry with him.
    Then he thought, “Well, there’s only one way to find out. That’s to ask him.”
    He stopped at home just long enough to eat a couple of doughnuts and get his bicycle. Then he set off for Danny’s place. He rode his bike along the pleasant, tree-shaded streets until he came to the corner of Beckforth Road, on the edge of town, where the Professor’s house stood. Past the house the road went fifteen miles through almost deserted countryside to Beckforth, a little village among the hills.
    Joe was just about to cross to the Professor’s house when he saw a flash of light a little way up the road. Shading his eyes, he peered that way. The flash was a reflection from a bicycle he recognized at once. It was Danny, pedaling at full speed up the road toward Beckforth.
    Joe could think of no reason in the world why his friend should go in that direction.
    Then, suddenly, he thought, “Gosh! Maybe he’s decided to run away from home!”
    It was a dreadful idea. Something must be wrong, terribly wrong—something Joe couldn’t even guess at. He gulped. Then he said to himself, “I can’t let him go alone. I’ll go with him.”
    He jumped on his bike again without a second thought and set off after Danny. But his friend had a long head start.
    They rode on in this way, about half a mile apart, Danny never once looking back but hunched over his bike and going like the wind. Soon Joe was puffing. He bent to his work, and the perspiration streamed down his face. He had to slow down for a moment to wipe his eyes. When he had done so, he glanced ahead. Danny had disappeared.
    He rode on, utterly bewildered. All at once he saw Danny’s bike, lying in the grass by the side of the road.
    Joe skidded to a halt. A thick woods came down to the very edge of the road, separated from it by a tumble-down stone wall. Leaving his bike beside Danny’s, Joe climbed the wall and entered the woods. Some crushed and broken ferns told him his friend must have gone that way.
    He walked a little distance, keeping a sharp eye out for footprints or other marks. The ground sloped up and the trees began to thin. Suddenly he emerged on the edge of a broad meadow. There were a few tall trees and a large red barn, its paint faded and a gaping space where its roof had been. But this wasn’t what attracted Joe’s attention.
    He saw Danny running across the meadow toward the barn. Then he saw a man step out from behind a tree. Danny and the man talked for a moment and then went to the barn. The man knocked, and one of the large sliding doors opened. Professor Bullfinch stepped out. Joe saw him talking to Danny and then shaking his head. Danny turned and sadly walked back toward the woods.
    But in the time between the opening and shutting of the door, Joe had seen something that made his hair stand on end.
    It was a large metal globe, shining in the light that streamed through the open roof of the barn.
    In a flash everything became clear—Danny’s behavior in the past weeks, his strange answers to Joe,