Project Apollo

By Mena Sheth

In Project Apollo, thirteen-year-old Gale tries to fit into middle school, but she is different from everyone else and she knows it. She has a secret ability that she hasn’t told anyone about - she can heal with her touch. Gale and four other “special” kids win scholarships to the prestigious Pandora School for the Gifted. But instead of facing algebra and history, they face dangers they never expected. Just as Gale and her new friends are settling into their new school, their enemies surface. The question becomes, how can the kids take down a group that will stop at nothing to claim control over them and their powers?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Nov 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665727099

Mena Sheth

Mena Sheth is in eighth grade. She began writing Project Apollo at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when schools were closed and she needed an outlet for her imagination. Project Apollo grew from a small idea, to a short story, to a full-length novel. Mena enjoys swimming, lacrosse, and reading. She lives in Concord, Massachusetts, with her family and dog.

Book preview

1

B EEP! BEEP! BEEP! Gale reflexively whacked the clock on the nightstand, silencing the alarm. Her heart was pounding. A sliver of sunlight fell across her face from between the heavy curtains.

Gale heard her father snoring, and her mother singing in the shower, and remembered she was in a hotel room in Boston. For the opportunity of a lifetime, supposedly. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stretched.

Three weeks ago, she had gotten off the school bus and walked into her house to find her father reading a newspaper article in the kitchen. The Cape Cod Times had announced an upcoming competition in Boston for middle schoolers. And apparently it was a big deal.

Gale had just finished seventh grade, and frankly, she was glad that middle school was halfway over. She got good grades and played lacrosse for the school’s team, but she mostly stayed away from the spotlight. She felt different from everyone else.

All her life, Gale had a recurring dream that felt too real, like a vision. Or a memory. She didn’t know anyone else who had dreams like that. But that was not the only reason why she felt a chasm between herself and everyone else. She had a secret she had not even told her family. She had discovered it a couple of years earlier, when her younger brother, Deven, had fallen while climbing a tree.

Gale had been riding her bike down the street near her house when she heard a scream. She raced back to her house and found Deven lying in the backyard. His arm was twisted at an unnatural angle and was clearly broken. Gale instinctively knelt and held his arm, feeling the tingling in her hands as tissue reconnected and bones fused back together. By the time her parents found them, Gale had healed Deven’s fracture, and he was just whimpering from the shock of the fall. Luckily Deven was too young to realize that his arm had been broken—and then healed by Gale. Her secret was safe.

After that, Gale healed a bicyclist. A car had hit him, right in front of her. She thought no one knew she had healed him, because he had been unconscious and no one else had been around. But then she found an article about it in the Cape Cod Times. Gale quickly threw away the newspaper before her family could find it. And she worried that she was being watched.

So, when her mother asked Gale if she wanted to enter a competition to win a scholarship to the Pandora School for the Gifted—which would mean a lot of pressure, having a whole new set of kids to try to fit in with, and likely revealing her secret—she was definitely on the fence.

Do I have a choice? she finally asked.

Well, her mother said, tucking a wisp of Gale’s dark brown hair behind her ear, this school is supposed to be pretty amazing. Why don’t you just try? If they offer you a spot, then you can decide if you want to accept.

Gale already knew a lot about the Pandora School. Everyone did. It was a prestigious academy in Boston for middle school through high school students. Admission was nearly impossible. Graduates of Pandora went on to attend elite universities. And the families always donated back to the school.

Gale agreed to think about it. Finally, after three weeks and many hours of family research, she found herself waking up in a hotel room in downtown Boston. She threw on her best pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt, yanked a hairbrush through her hair, and grabbed her backpack. As she and her parents walked out the door, she wondered what she was getting herself into.

Although the Pandora Convention Center was only a five minute walk from Gale’s hotel, the line to get in wrapped around the building. It reminded her of the lines at Disney World. She wondered if some people had camped out overnight.

In front of her was a boy who clearly did not want to be there. He pouted and played on an iPad while his mother intermittently hissed things at him. Stand straight and give them a firm handshake!

Gale was just grateful that they had left Deven at their grandmother’s house, as he would have needed constant entertainment and snacks after some time standing in a line like this. Entertainment and snacks didn’t sound so bad, now that she thought about it.

An hour later Gale and about two hundred other kids crowded through huge double doors into a large auditorium. Burly men in black suits, wearing walkie-talkies and heavy boots, kept a watchful eye on the group. This is a lot of security for a kids’ event, Gale thought. The parents, guardians, and chaperones had been asked to kindly wait in the lobby, where many of them paced with coffee in hand or stared at their cell phones.

By 11:00 a.m. everyone had registered and was seated in the huge auditorium. A striking woman with smooth black hair, wearing a lab coat and a confident smile, took the podium.

Good morning, and welcome, prospective students! she began. My name is Doctor Starling. We are very excited to have you here. All of you are gifted in some way, even though some of you might just be here because your parents forced you. She was met with a few laughs. Gale liked her immediately.

Dr. Starling told them she was a scientist, and that she was a frequent lecturer at the school, even though she had not attended it herself. She had been raised outside Boston in the historic town of Concord, Massachusetts. She had attended Stanford University for college and had a PhD in neurology. Pandora Labs had recruited her a few years ago for her cutting-edge brain research.

Dr. Starling continued, Today is all about you. Just do your best, and show us what you’ve got. A scholarship is waiting for some of you. Those of you who pass today’s written exam and field tests will be invited for a tour of your new school … the Pandora School for the Gifted! She stepped aside as the kids applauded. The large screen behind her came to life.

Wait a minute. Two tests? And what did field tests even mean? Gale’s stomach started to hurt, the way it always did when she felt nervous. She started wishing she had decided not to enter this competition. She debated leaving now and skipping the tests. She could sit in a stairwell and spend the day reading the book she had packed in her backpack. Or she could call her parents and tell them she was feeling sick. That would be true, actually.

Unfortunately, she was jammed in the middle of a row, and the video was starting. Leaving now would be like getting up in the middle of a movie theater. A boy next to her was literally breaking open a bag of chips.

Gale’s mind wandered as the video showed the grand campus. The expansive fields contrasted sharply from the busy streets of Boston surrounding the school. She drifted back to the dream she had been having when her alarm rang earlier that morning. It was a dream she had had many times before.

Gale heard a voice whispering urgently, She’s the one. A young, dark-haired boy sat down next to Gale. She looked into his bright blue eyes and felt a sharp pain in her arm.

An actual tap on her arm startled her back to the present. It was the boy with the chips. He leaned over. Try these! he whispered. My favorite from back home.

Gale gave him a little smile and held out her hand as he turned the bag upside down and shook chips into her palm. As she watched images of happy students, the festive bookstore, and the famous on-campus ice cream shop called Sugar High (which actually looked pretty fun), she noticed Dr. Starling pull a cell phone out of her lab coat pocket and hastily turn away. At the same time, she saw another woman, oddly disheveled and also looking at her phone, slip through a side door of the auditorium.

The video ended. Dr. Starling turned back and briskly piped into the mic, Off to the testing room!

As everyone shuffled down the rows of folding seats and into the hallway, Gale lingered at the back of the crowd. Dr. Starling had fast-walked off the stage and met up with the side-door woman just a few feet away from Gale. She pretended to walk slowly, and strained to hear their conversation.

Joanne! Dr. Starling whispered. I was worried about you! Where have you been?

I stopped by the office this morning to help out. One of the South African pythons, Little Miss Sunshine, had slipped out of her tank while the techs were cleaning. She’s not venomous, but she’s huge and she likes to nip! The woman rubbed a spot above her knee. She seemed frustrated that she couldn’t fit my entire leg into her mouth.

Dr. Starling’s eyes widened. Then she noticed something else. Your hand! she exclaimed.

Gale watched as Joanne grimaced and examined her left hand. It was wrapped in a large white bandage. Well, in all the chaos, the tank fell over and broke. I got cut while I was cleaning up the glass. At least we got Little Miss Sunshine into another tank, and we didn’t need a fixer. But Fluffy escaped again. He won’t be so easy to catch.

It seems like a purple ring-tailed lemur shouldn’t be too hard to spot. Also, getting a fixer involved would be a small price to pay for a functioning hand. Aren’t you tired of Dr. Shaw using you as his own personal animal control officer?

Gale, although intrigued and amused, was forced to stop eavesdropping as she reached the testing room door. She, along with the other stragglers, filed into the room. As she took her seat, she pondered the mysterious conversation she’d just heard. There was clearly more going on at Pandora than met the eye. Maybe she would like the school after all? If she passed the tests. And maybe these scientists could help her figure out what was wrong with her dreams. And why she could heal.

But her thoughts had to wait because the test papers were being handed out. Gale scanned the group around her. She would have to score higher than almost all of these kids if she wanted any shot at getting into the Pandora School. Not that she had decided she wanted to, yet. But she was considering it.

A loud, sharp voice pierced her thoughts. You will have exactly two hours to complete the exam, the test proctor announced. "And I do mean complete. Every answer must be filled in for you to be allowed to participate in the field testing. Ready, set, start your tests!"

2

N EARLY TWO HOURS later, with her hand aching and her eyes bleary, Gale stood up. Her left leg had fallen asleep. With a little stretch, she shook her leg mostly awake and slowly walked to the proctor’s desk. She was the first one done.

Finished, Gale said, and placed her test face down on the desk. Without looking up, the proctor motioned for her to return to her seat. What now? Gale silently wondered.

Ten minutes later, the proctor stood up and commanded, Pencils down! Anyone who has not completed all of the problems may leave now. Thank you for coming, and there is no need for you to apply to the Pandora School again in the future. Your parents will meet you in the lobby. Good day.

With a collective groan, more than three quarters of the group sullenly rose and grumbled their way to the lobby. Gale wondered why she felt relieved to be moving on to the second part of the test: the field tests.

The proctor addressed the much-reduced group that was still sitting in their seats. Congratulations, you survived the exam! And some of you might even have passed! But now comes the hard part.

Gale did a quick head count. While two hundred kids had initially shown up for the competition, there were now about fifty left. Gale wondered if the field testing required her to work with a group, or whether they would each be tested alone. She had absolutely no idea what to expect. Her stomach twisted with anxiety.

They were led outside the building, to a line of large white pavilion-style tents. The tents were completely enclosed. Gale surmised that was so the field testing could be done inside the tent, one at a time, and no one would know how the others had fared. She frowned at the cloak-and-dagger approach, but at the same time she was glad no one would be watching her perform.

A few young scientists, with just first names on their name tags, started dividing them up. Gale was placed into the last group, and then each group was re-sorted, and she ended up last. She tried not to think about whether being in the last group, then the last in the last group, could mean anything.

The first tent was marked with a sign, Tent Number One. A young female scientist, Dr. Gina, led the kids into