Article
Art by Shane Rebenschied
Fiction,

The Message

In the year 2340, a ship is deep in space, headed for a new planet. Will Astra save the mission—or destroy it?

By Sarah McCarry
From the March/April 2023 Issue

Learning Objective: Students will learn about the genre of science fiction in this story about a girl from 2340 who is faced with a challenging decision.

Complexity Factors
  • Levels of Meaning
    In this science fiction story, a young girl named Astra is traveling through space with her family and other pioneers to settle a new planet. In the course of the story, Astra receives a mysterious message that forces her to make a decision that will have far-reaching consequences. The story’s overall message is to trust in yourself.
  • Structure
    “The Message” is a science fiction story containing elements of that genre, including a future setting, space travel, futuristic technology, and time travel. The story is chronological and told from a first-person point of view using the past tense.
  • Language
    The language is mostly conversational and includes dialogue and self-reflection. There are several references to futuristic technology, such as a “hologram device” and “ag pods.”
  • Knowledge Demands
    No prior knowledge is required, although familiarity with the genre of science fiction will be helpful. Readers will need to make some inferences to fully understand the story.
Lexile: 500L-600L
Guided Reading Level: T
DRA Level: 50
Featured Skill: Author's Craft, Genre,
Other Key Skills: character’s motivation, inference, key details, compare and contrast, foreshadowing, character, figurative language, plot, text to self, creative writing
Standards
  • Common Core
    Anchor Standards: R.1, R.2, R.3, R.4, W.3, SL.1, SL.2, L.4 Grade 4: RL.4.1, RL.4.2, RL.4.3, RL.4.4, W.4.3, SL.4.1, SL.4.2, L.4.4 Grade 5: RL.5.1, RL.5.2, RL.5.3, RL.5.4, W.5.3, SL.5.1, SL.5.2, L.5.4 Grade 6: RL.6.1, RL.6.2, RL.6.3, RL.6.4, W.6.3, SL.6.1, SL.6.2, L.6.4
  • TEKS
    Grade 4: 4.1a, c, d; 4.3a, b, d; 4.6; 4.7a, b, c, d, f, g; 4.8; 4.9a, b, f; 4.10c, d; 4.11; 4.12a Grade 5: 5.1a, c, d; 5.3a, b, d; 5.6; 5.7a, b, c, d, f, g; 5.8; 5.9a, b, f; 5.10c, d; 5.11; 5.12a Grade 6: 6.1a, c, d; 6.2a, b; 6.5; 6.6a, b, c, d, f, g, h; 6.7; 6.8a, b, f; 6.9c, d; 6.10; 6.11a

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UP CLOSE: Genre

Science fiction imagines how science and technology might affect us in the future. As you read, think about what makes this story science fiction.

When my grandmother got sick last year, I found it impossible to imagine a world without her. I knew Oma couldn’t live forever. But understanding something in your head is different from accepting it in your heart. 

After Oma died, I thought a lot about what she said about time—that it’s like a river. It flows in one direction, but sometimes it likes to wander. Oma’s ideas about how time worked made me wonder: Could I travel through it? Could I go back in time to see Oma again?

Maybe. I just needed to figure out how.

My grandmother was a pioneer on the Vida, a spaceship that left Earth 90 years ago, back in the year 2250. Only she wasn’t my Oma then. She was 22 and the best plant scientist in the world. She also climbed mountains, could fix an engine in her sleep, and spoke four languages. All the pioneers were brilliant like Oma. They had to be. They were the future of our new world. 

The Vida was headed for Rubin 23V, a planet that scientists determined humans could survive on. None of the pioneers expected to see Rubin 23V, of course. They knew the trip would take almost 100 years. They’d chosen to go into space—and die there—to give their children and grandchildren a better future. 

Now that future had arrived. Tomorrow was Landing Day. The Vida would set down on Rubin 23V. We’d been waiting for this moment our entire lives.

I was reading a book on my hologram device when Rio showed up at my bunk pod.

“Astra, why aren’t you packing?” Rio asked. “You have to finish before the Celebration tonight.” 

Everyone on the Vida loves Rio. He’s the smartest kid in our class, and he’s also good at sports. If he weren’t my best friend, I would hate him. 

“I don’t have much to pack. All my books are on here.” I waved the holo device at him. 

“Look, I know you’d rather stay in your room and read about time travel. But the Landing Day Celebration isn’t just some fancy dinner. It’s important,” he said. 

“You sound like my parents.”

His face turned serious. “They just want what’s best for you, Astra.”

You mean they just want what’s best for the ship, I thought. 

My parents were a big deal on the Vida. They managed the ship’s food supply. Our survival was in their hands. 

I knew my parents loved me, but I felt like I was always disappointing them. I could never remember my chores or where I was supposed to be. One time I even burned dinner because I was reading and forgot about it. We have a limited amount of food on the Vida. Wasting it is one of the worst things you can do.

The only time I felt like myself was when I was in the ag pod with Oma. The ag pod was where we kept the plants that would become our food crops on Rubin 23V. Oma had designed the ag pod and the plants—a nutritious grain called teff. I used to spend hours in the ag pod, talking with Oma about time travel.

“I brought you this,” Rio said. I snapped out of my daze as he tossed a small object at me. “I found it on the floor of my pod. You must have dropped it.”

I picked it up. It was the size of my hand. The surface was cracked. I could tell from the screen that it was some kind of holo device. 

“This isn’t mine,” I said.

“Your name is on it,” Rio said.

I turned the holo over. ASTRA was carved into it in jagged letters.

“But it’s not mine—” I stopped. I could tell Rio didn’t believe me.

After Rio left, I looked at the holo device. As my fingers touched the screen, an image came to life in front of me. The image was fuzzy, but I could make out a woman’s face. Her hair was dirty. And there was an ugly scratch on her cheek. Wrapped around her neck was a midnight-blue scarf with little silver stars.

I felt like I knew her. “Oma?” I whispered. 

But this woman wasn’t my grandmother. This woman’s eyes were blue like mine, not green like Oma’s. And I could tell the woman wasn’t on the Vida. It looked like she was on Rubin 23V. But the sky was green and the ground was gray. Dead plants poked out from the dusty soil.

“Astra, you are Rubin 23V’s only hope,” the woman said. Worry filled her voice. “You must destroy the ag pod before the Vida lands tomorrow. Oma’s teff is contaminated. Everyone will die—”

And just like that, the image faded.

“Wait, start over,” Rio said. I had found him on the gym deck, warming up to play soccer. “This mystery lady said what?”

“I think the message is damaged, but just watch,” I said.

He was silent as the message played. The silver stars on the woman’s blue scarf caught the light.

“Astra,” Rio said when it finished, “this woman is telling you to destroy our food supply! That’s crazy!”

“What if she’s right? The plant sciences team could design a new kind of teff within a few months,” I argued. “We’d just have to get by on protein bars for a while.”

Rio threw up his hands. “Look, I know you’re smarter than everyone on this ship—”

“You do?” I said, shocked. “I am?”

“But you have no idea who this person is or where this message came from,” he said. “It could be from our enemies. It could be a joke.”

“It could be true,” I said. “Rio, she knows me. She knows I called my grandmother Oma.”

“Astra, promise me you will forget this whole thing.”

Rio was right. Destroying the ag pod was crazy. What if I damaged the ship? What if we couldn’t make more teff and we all starved? 

I didn’t know why, but I was sure the woman in the message was telling the truth. I wished with everything I had that I could travel through time and ask Oma for advice.

“You look lovely, Astra,” Mom said a few hours later. I was wearing my sparkly blue earrings, which match my eyes.

“You nervous about Landing Day, kiddo?” Dad asked.

“A little,” I replied. 

“It’s normal,” Mom said. “We’ve waited our whole lives for this moment.”

We walked through the maze of hallways to the Landing Day Celebration. I looked at the people walking with us. Was I really going to put them all in danger? But this would be my only chance. With everyone at the Celebration, I would be able to sneak into the ag pod.

“I forgot something in my bunk pod,” I blurted. “I’ll meet you at the Celebration, OK?”

My mom gave me a slightly annoyed but loving look. “Sure. Try not to be late, honey.”

The ag pod was exactly as I remembered it, except that Oma wasn’t there. Long containers held rows of Oma’s teff. Tears began filling my eyes.

Oma had taught me all about ag pod security. There was an emergency system that would kill everything in the ag pod—including me, if I wasn’t careful. I found a safety suit in the locker and pulled it on. With my hands shaking, I opened the safety system keypad. I typed in the codes Oma had told me never, ever to use unless I absolutely had to.

Right away, a loud alarm went off. A wave of fire crashed through the room. The safety suit protected my body, but it couldn’t stop my fear. I buried my head in my arms. I didn’t want to watch as everything Oma had worked so hard for was destroyed.

The next 15 seconds lasted 15 years. And then it was over. 

The vacuum fans came on and sucked out the fire. All that was left were a few burned pieces of Oma’s plants.

Behind me the doors flew open. Rio, my parents, and at least 20 other Vida passengers stared at me. People were screaming.

And then I fainted.

When I woke up, I was locked in my bunk pod. Would I go to prison? Would I be launched into space?

Then, after a few hours, the door slid open. Rio poked his head in. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Come with me,” he said, tugging me toward the ag pod.

Everyone was there: the plant sciences team, my parents, other passengers. Mom stepped forward and took my hands. Her face was pale. “Astra,” she said. “Thank you.”

Thank you?

“Rio told us you figured out something was wrong with the plants,” explained one of the scientists. “We took the burned teff and ran some tests. The plants had a deadly disease.”

“Planting these would have wiped out all plants on Rubin 23V,” Mom said. “We would have starved to death.”

I blinked back tears, trying to take it all in. The woman in the message had been right.

“Astra, you saved us,” Rio said.

That night—our last on the Vida—my mom gave me a present. 

“I planned to give this to you on Landing Day, but I want you to have it now,” she said.

I peeled away the wrapping—and gasped. A scarf with midnight-blue fabric and little silver stars spilled across my hands. 

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“I made it,” my mom said, her eyes shining.

Now I understood who the woman in the message was—it was future me!

I wrapped the scarf around my neck and thought of Oma. I imagined what she’d say to me if only I could tell her what I’d done.

And then I realized: Maybe someday I could. 

Write to Win

Write a new part of the story that takes place on Rubin 23V. What is life like on the new planet? Does Astra get to talk to Oma again? Send your work to “Message Contest” by May 1, 2023. Five winners will each receive a $20 gift card for the Scholastic Store Online. Visit the Storyworks Contests page for more information.

This story was originally published in the March/April 2023 issue.

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Activities (9)
Core Skills Workout
  • The Core Skills Workout is a series of skill-based activities that will help your students "bulk up" in the comprehension skills they need most to become strong, analytical readers. The Core Skills Workout comes with every issue and will support your reading program no matter what your scope and sequence.
Skills Activities
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Activities (9) Download All Activities
Core Skills Workout
  • The Core Skills Workout is a series of skill-based activities that will help your students "bulk up" in the comprehension skills they need most to become strong, analytical readers. The Core Skills Workout comes with every issue and will support your reading program no matter what your scope and sequence.
Skills Activities
Quizzes (1)
Answer Key (1)
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson Plan

Table of Contents

1. Preparing to Read

2. Reading and Discussing

Close Reading, Critical Thinking

3. Skill Building and Writing

4. Differentiate and Customize

Striving Readers, Advanced Readers, Multilingual Learners

5. Can’t-Miss Teaching Extras

1. Preparing to Read

Watch a Video, Preview Vocabulary, Set a Purpose for Reading

 

  • This story takes place in the future, in the year 2340. Have students briefly brainstorm what they think life might be like in that year.
  • Before reading, show the video “What Is Science Fiction?” It will introduce students to the key components of the genre.
  • Distribute or assign our Vocabulary Skill Builder to preview challenging words. Students will be able to add other unfamiliar words from the story as well. Vocabulary words include pioneer, hologram, daze, contaminated, and blurted. 
  • Have a volunteer read aloud the Up Close box on page 11 for the class. Make sure students know that genre refers to a kind of story.

2. Reading and Discussing

First Read: Get to Know the Text (20 minutes)

  • Have students read the story independently or in small groups. They can also listen to our Immersive Read-Aloud, in which author Sarah McCarry reads her story with music and sound effects to supercharge engagement!

Second Read: Unpack the Text (30 minutes)

  • Put students in small groups. Ask them to discuss the close-reading questions in the margins of the story. Answers to the questions are below. Go over the critical-thinking questions together as a class.

Close-Reading Questions

 

  • What does this tell you about Astra’s goal?  (character’s motivation, p. 11) This line shows that Astra’s goal is to travel back in time and see her grandmother again. 
  • Science fiction often deals with space travel. What can you infer is the reason humans are going to Rubin 23V? (genre, p. 11) Humans are probably going to Rubin 23V because something bad has happened to the planet where humans lived in the past—Earth. For some reason, humans could no longer survive on Earth, so they had to find a new planet where they could live.
  • What do you think a holo device is? What do these lines tell you about Astra? (inference, p. 11) A holo device is some kind of advanced technology that future humans have. It can be used to read books. Later on in the story, a holo device also displays a spoken message. These lines show that reading is important to Astra. She’s especially interested in books about time travel.
  • How do these lines help you understand the problem Astra will have later? (key details, p. 12) These lines make it clear that food is very important to the people living on the spaceship. They need it to survive, and losing their food supply would be disastrous. The lines help you understand  the challenge of the decision Astra will have to make later in the story: whether or not to destroy the teff. Teff will be the food crop on Rubin 23V, and destroying it might doom humans after they land there.
  • What was Astra’s relationship with Oma like? How is it different from her relationship with her parents? (compare and contrast, p. 12) Astra and Oma’s relationship seemed to be very close. Astra felt like she could be herself around Oma, and they shared interests in time travel, which was a topic they talked about a lot. In contrast, Astra’s relationship with her parents seems strained. Astra says she feels like she's always disappointing them. Astra seems to feel distant from them because they’re always concerned with what’s best for the ship and its food supply.
  • Why do you think the author tells you this detail? Look for clues about who the woman in the holo might be. (foreshadowing, p. 12) The author shares this detail about the woman’s eyes because she wants readers to know that the woman in the message isn’t Oma but could possibly be Astra herself.
  • What does this reaction tell you about how Astra sees herself? (character, p. 13) Astra’s reaction tells you that she sees herself as less intelligent than others. She’s not very confident in herself and her abilities.
  • What are the arguments for and against destroying the ag pod? What would you do? (key details, p. 13) The argument for destroying the ag pod is that the woman in the holo said that the plants in the ag pod are contaminated, and if they’re brought to Rubin 23V, everyone will die. The argument against destroying the ag pod is that the woman in the holo could be wrong, and then Astra will have destroyed humanity’s food supply for no reason. Also, as Astra says, destroying the ag pod could damage other parts of the ship. Answers to the second question will vary.
  • How do you think Astra is feeling right now? (character, p. 13) She’s probably feeling worried about the challenging decision she has to make but determined to do what’s best for her community on the ship.
  • What does Astra mean by this sentence? (figurative language, p. 13) She means that the few seconds when she was destroying the ag pod felt like they lasted a long time because they were very significant—and stressful to experience.
  • Who did Astra see wearing a scarf like that? (plot, p. 14) Astra had seen the woman from the holo message wearing the same scarf.
  • What makes Astra realize this? (inference, p. 14) By this point in the story, Astra has realized that the woman in the message is her future self. This leads her to understand that, in the future, she will have figured out a way to time travel; future Astra relays the important message to her younger self. That means one day it might be possible for her to travel back in time and see Oma again.

Critical-Thinking Questions

 

  • What is one way that “The Message” imagines how science and technology might affect humans in the future? (genre) Students might say that the story imagines what humans will have to do if Earth becomes unlivable. They may also say that the story explores how a person might use time travel technology to help save their community.
  • In the story, Astra destroys the ag pod for the good of her community. What actions can you do for the good of your school or your community? What happens if people don’t help their school or community? (text to self) Answers will vary.

3. Skill Building and Writing

Featured Skill: Genre
  • Distribute or digitally assign the Genre Skill Builder, which will help students understand elements of science fiction and how “The Message” fits into this genre.
  • Ask students to respond to the writing prompt at the end of the story. Encourage them to submit their responses to our writing contest!

Differentiate and Customize
For Striving Readers

Some students may need guidance in understanding who the message is from. If, by the end of the story, students seem surprised that the message is from future Astra, write her name on the board (Astra). Then, as a class, work together to make a list of at least three clues the author gives throughout the story (Astra is obsessed with time travel; the woman in the message has blue eyes, like Astra; the woman in the message calls her grandmother “Oma,” like Astra does; the woman in the message is wearing a blue scarf with silver stars, which Astra receives from her mom at the end of the story).

For Advanced Readers

Rubin 23V is a fictional planet, but there is the possibility of real habitable planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets. Have students choose an exoplanet and research it. What is the planet made of? Could humans live there? What would it take for humans to get there? Have them share their research with the rest of the class. 

For Multilingual Learners

A story about the future is a great opportunity to review the simple future tense. After reading the story, write the following sentence stem on the board: “In the future, people will . . .” As a class, come up with a few examples from the story (e.g.,: travel to another planet, read using a holo device). Then have each student write two sentences on their own using the sentence stem. They might write about what people will wear, how they will travel from place to place, what they will eat, and so on.

Can't-Miss Teaching Extras
Read About Life on Mars

What would it be like to live on another planet? The book Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet by astronaut Buzz Aldrin delves into science and space travel while answering questions such as What will your new home be like? How will you get there? What will you eat for breakfast? 

Watch a Video

This short video from NASA explains what makes Earth habitable and describes what scientists look for to determine if a planet outside our solar system can support life. 

Explore Beyond Our Solar System

NASA created the Exoplanet Travel Bureau so you can virtually tour the galaxy. Choose your adventure with guided tours in English and Spanish.

Practice Decision Making

Though your students are not likely to face a decision as serious as the one Astra deals with in the story, they will inevitably have many choices to make in their lives. This webpage from Think Grow Giggle discusses three strategies to help your students make good decisions. 

Learn More About Science Fiction

This short, fun video explains what a genre is and walks students through the elements of science fiction. (Note: The video begins with a short ad.)

Text-to-Speech