Lightning Point (ATOM Study Guide)

On a stormy night in the sleepy surf town of Lightning Point, a bright light streaks across the sky and plummets into the nearby forest. A spaceship! Inside are teen aliens Zoey and Kiki on a forbidden mission to Earth. But when their spaceship explodes unexpectedly the girls are stranded, and their real adventure begins.

Coming from Lumina, a barren, waterless planet, Zoey and Kiki are entranced by Earth – especially the ocean. On their first day in Lightning Point the girls head down to the beach and watch local surfie girl Amber ripping up the waves. They 've got to try it! And they soon discover they have natural surfing talent – especially determined Zoey, who is a real whizz on the board.

When Amber witnesses their alien powers, Zoey and Kiki decide to let her in on the secret, and the girls quickly become friends and allies. An only child of divorced parents, Amber loves hanging out with the girls, but she wishes they could keep a lower profile. All this glowing, turning into balls of light and having strange, alien effects on everything around them could really get the girls – and her! – into trouble.

Fitting in is hard when you are from out of town, let alone outer space. For Zoey and Kiki, it means not only controlling their powers, but also learning the etiquette of Lightning Point's teen world. With Amber's help they move into her place, get kitted out in the latest surf clothes, enrol at high school and start hanging at the local diner.

But their arrival in Lightning Point still causes a stir. Zoey's board skills attract the attention of surf king Brandon. Although neither of them will admit it, they have a definite chemistry, which really winds up Brandon's queen bee girlfriend, Madison. She'll do everything she can to make life hard for Zoey and Kiki.

Amber's best friend and Brandon's brother, Luca, is also onto them. He's a dedicated UFO nut and he's noticed strange lights in the sky and crop circles in the forest nearby. And when Luca begins to suspect that there is something strange about sweet-natured Kiki, she is torn between their blossoming romance and keeping her true identity secret. And it's not just Luca who is suspicious – it is up to Amber to make sure her mother, Senior Sergeant Olivia Mitchell, doesn't find out the girls' alien nature either.

The girls try sending an SOS home during a lightning storm, but instead of contacting a rescue mission their beacon uncovers unexplained alien phenomena from the past, and suddenly the whole town is closing in on them. Zoey and Kiki soon discover that there is more to Lightning Point than meets the eye. They are not the first intergalactic visitors, and their trip to Earth may have been part of a darker plot.

When Luca discovers the truth about Kiki he decides to help the girls, but this means lying to his adopted brother Brandon. After years of mocking Luca's interest in aliens, Brandon has become a believer, and is on the hunt. When Brandon discovers that aliens abducted his real parents, his interest takes a malevolent turn – he won't stop till he gets revenge. But there's more to his parents' disappearance than Brandon realises. And he soon discovers that he himself may have alien origins.

As Brandon and Zoey grow closer together and she begins to help him in his journey of self-discovery, Sergeant Mitchell becomes suspicious of Brandon. Lightning Point is no longer safe for the teen aliens.

But when the time comes to go, will these two alien teenagers be able to say goodbye to a planet as amazing as Earth?