Dina, fifteen, and Ivo, fourteen, were in the school science club with five other children and their teacher, Ms. Okonkwo. Their project was a big balloon with a camera, a phone and a parachute in a foam box.
On Saturday at nine o'clock the club counted down, and the balloon rose into the clouds. An hour later the phone lost its signal. About thirty kilometers up, the balloon burst and the parachute brought the box down.
The children climbed into Ms. Okonkwo's van. They searched for hours. At four in the afternoon the phone beeped once. In a cabbage field a farmer, Mrs. Dolan, sat next to the white box. "Is this yours?" she asked. "My cow tried to eat the parachute."
At school they opened the camera. The photos showed the field getting smaller, then clouds, then a sky as dark as night at midday, with a thin blue curve: the edge of the Earth. The last photo was a huge cow's nose. Everyone laughed, and the club hung the two photos side by side: "The Edge of the Sky" and "The Edge of the Cow".
