Jump Start by Susannah McFarlane Read Free Book Online Page A

of three main ropes. There were two ropes at the top, and EJ grasped one tightly with each hand. There was a single rope at the base, which was joined to the top ropes by smaller loops—many of which were broken or missing. EJ balanced her boots on the bottom rope and slowly began to edge her way across.
    If this was a movie, EJ thought, people would say, ‘Don’t look down! Whatever you do, don’t look down!’ And now, as EJ looked down, she understood why. It was a long, long, long way down! In fact, the more she looked down, the more she thought about falling instead of moving. EJ paused. What did that remind her of? Her mind went blank. Oh well, no time to think about it now. She had a super-wobbly bridge to cross.
    â€˜Just look up!’ EJ told herself and she took a deep breath. Then she forced herself to look straight ahead and told her body, not her mind, to do the walking. It was working well, until halfway across EJ’s right foot slipped on the base rope and she fell through one of the loops as she tried to regain her balance. Clinging on to the top ropes and staring down intothe valley far below, EJ gulped. She would have to be more careful. She swung her feet around to find the base rope, hauled herself upright, put one foot forward and started again. At last she made it to the platform in the middle. Halfway there, but she was running out of time.

    From her perch on the platform, high above the canyon floor, EJ could see the Project Green Eye site more clearly. And she could hear it now too. There was a whirring noise, lots of whirring noises actually, but where were they coming from? EJ pulled out her binoculars and took a closer look.
    Moving around and around the satellite dish was a small army of little machines on wheels. The machines seemed to have arms, arms holding building tools. Robots with building tools? Builder robots? Buildbots!
    How could she not have picked that one? EJ did sometimes wonder how she had got into the code-cracking division! However, these buildbots weren’t building—they weren’t doing anything except going around and around in circles. EJ knew from her SHINE training on spy satellite systems that it was the satellite dish, not the things building it, that was supposed to go around in circles. So that had to be the problem SHADOW had written about in the first message. Somehow, the buildbots had lost the plot! A1 had been right, there must be a problem with the Master Control that ran the buildbots.
    And then, as she scanned across the building site, EJ noticed something else. Just past the satellite dish, EJ could see rows and rows of large wooden crates. She adjusted the binoculars so she could make out the label on one of them.

    Ship what? What has SHADOW packed in the crates? thought EJ. She re-adjusted the binoculars and scanned the crates again. This time she saw another label.

    Live animals? Being shipped to SHADOW? Away from their home in the rainforest? It looked as if SHADOW was stealing wild animals from a World Heritage protected area. But for what? Private zoos? Collectors? Or something worse? EJ couldn’t bear to think about it. It was bad enough that SHADOW had destroyed part of the animals’ home, but to collect them all up and steal them was outrageous. Would SHADOW stop at nothing? EJ wondered. Do they really think they can get away with it?
    â€˜I don’t think so,’ EJ said to herself. ‘No way, not with EJ!’ And despite being in a tense situation, she smiled, feeling rather happy with that little saying. There was no way these animals were going anywhere other than back into the rainforest.
    EJ stuffed her binoculars into her backpack. Now more than ever, she needed to get across the last stretch of bridge. And she had to do it quickly.



Now that she was closer, EJ discovered three things about the last stretch of the bridge. First, it wasn’t really a whole rope bridge anymore. No doubt