LUNAR
LUNCHBOX |
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Jason was so proud of his new lunchbox. Actually the lunchbox was quite old. It had been given to Jason by his Grandfather during their last visit. It was the very same Lunchbox that his grandfather used when he was just a boy. It was a tin lunchbox with colourful pictures of stars, comets, rockets, planets and an astronaut. Jason's grandfather told him that the lunchbox had fed his tummy and his mind all at the same time and a good imagination made his lunchtime zip right by.
The first time that Jason brought his lunchbox to school; the teacher
had to remind him to remove it from his desk three or four times. Even
when it was placed on the floor under his seat, Jason would try to sneak
a peek at it.
He wriggled all morning long because he couldn't wait to place his lunchbox
on his desk, open it up and pull out his food.
It seemed like forever, but lunchtime finally arrived. Jason grabbed his lunchbox and carefully placed it on his desk, just so. He looked at every image on that tin food container. He turned it around slowly and used his figure to carefully trace a planet, comet or rocket. Some of the other children had finished their lunch and sat down to watch what Jason was doing. Macallister is Jason's best friend. He would always bug Jason when he had a chance.
"Come on Jason," Macallister would call out. "If you don't eat your lunch the only space you'll have is the empty space left in you tummy. Eat so we can play."
Pasha and Mallory are two girls that are good friends and spend every lunchtime together.
"What do you see in that lunchbox?" asked Mallory.
"Everything,"
"How do you know when to eat?" asked Pasha.
"The box tells me."
"What happens if it doesn't tell you?" asked Mallory.
"It always tells me," answered Jason. "There, did you see that? It just told me."
Jason unlatched the clips and very carefully removed the sandwich, veggies and juice and slowly ate everything.
"Hey, Macallister!" called Jason. "Do you want to play now?"
"What do you want to do?" asked Macallister.
"Do you want to play with my lunchbox?" asked Jason.
"How can we play with your lunchbox?"
"My grandfather said that the lunchbox would fill your tummy and you head if you had a good imagination," said Jason. "Here look."
Macallister leaned forward as Jason slowly reopened the 'rocket man, space ship' tin lunchbox. Jason reached in and removed the empty sandwich bag and juice box.
"Do you want to go into space with me?" asked Jason.
"Sure," answered Macallister.
"Do you see that little dot down there on the bottom of the lunchbox?" asked Jason.
"Yeah," answered Macallister.
"Hold on to the outside of the box and pretend that the dot is a very special button," continued Jason.
"OK."
"Now reach in and push that special button," said Jason.
Macallister reaches into the tin lunchbox and presses the dot on the bottom of the box.
"What now?" asked Macallister.
"Just wait," said Jason.
Mallory and Pasha moved over to see what was going on. Then very quickly and quietly a small black funnel appeared in the bottom of the box. Before anyone could react, Macallister, Jason, Mallory and Pasha were sucked into the lunchbox. The lid to the lunchbox closed and the latches locked. No one else seemed to be aware of what just happened. The two boys and the two girls, who were standing too close, disappeared into that 'rocket man, space ship' lunchbox.
"Where are we?" asked Pasha.
"What happened?" asked Mallory.
"I think you were standing too close and got caught in our whirl-wind suction," answered Jason.
"Where are we?" asked Macallister.
"Well,"
Where did they disappear to?
What adventures await them?
"Well," said Jason, "I think this looks like the moon."
"How do you know?" asked Macallister.
"Well," said Pasha, "I read that the moon is a giant rocky, barren desert and we are standing in the middle of a giant rocky, barren desert. I think Jason is right."
"Home!" shrieked Mallory, "How do we get home?"
"Home?" argued Jason, "No way! We're on the moon! I want
to look around!"
Pasha and Macallister nodded in agreement.
"Let's look around for a while then we can go home," said Jason. The friends began to walk - but each step was more of a jump than a normal step.
"We're floating!" cried Jason.
"It's like jumping on earth but it's easier and we can jump way higher!" said Macallister.
"I know why we're floating. It's because there is less gravity on the moon. The little bit of gravity will pull us down, it just pulls us down slower." explained Pasha.
"Look out!" cried Jason, "We're jumping into a crater!"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Jason, Macallister, Pasha and Mallory landed with a graceful, gravity - free thump in the middle of the crater. Black, everything was black.
"Macallister? Pasha? Mallory?" cried Jason. "Where is everyone?"
"I'm over here" called Mallory. She began to walk toward Jason's
voice.
Click.
"Oh no!" exclaimed Mallory. "I think I've stepped on something!"
All of a sudden, the four friends heard a very loud 'ding, ding, ding, ding, ding' and saw a cage of laser beams appear.
"We're trapped!" screamed Mallory.
"How are we going to get out of here?" worried Macallister as he crawled around looking for a way out.
Pasha pulled a mirror out of her pocket and looked at it.
"I think I have an idea. I can deflect a laser beam long enough for all of us to escape." whispered Pasha.
Carefully Pasha placed a mirror under a laser beam and created just enough space for the four friends to crawl under. Suddenly a shadow appeared.
The children became scared.
"What can we do?" asked Jason. "We're trapped and that thing is coming towards us!"
"Pasha!" called Macallister. "Use the mirror and the laser to hit that thing."
Pasha moved the mirror and shot the laser right at the shadow. The shadow didn't move. The laser disappeared into the shadow and it wasn't affected. In fact, the shadow started to move towards the children. It came closer and closer and then two huge arms reached out right into the laser beams. Then this strange creature stood still and waited.
"Look!" said Mallory. "The shadow isn't trying to hurt us. It's blocking the beams so we can escape."
The children quickly scampered out from the beams and ended up standing in front of this huge mysterious shadow.
The children didn't feel scared. The shadow moved back and waited.
"What should we do?" asked Pasha. "That shadow seems to be watching us."
"I think it is making sure that we are safe," suggested Macallister.
"Do you feel something strange?" asked Jason.
"I feel like we are moving," said Mallory.
"We are!" declared Pasha. "Look the ground is moving away from us."
"You mean that we are moving away from the ground," said Jason.
"Look! You can see the moon. You can see the whole planet," said Macallister.
"Are you sure?" asked Jason.
"Yes," said Macallister.
"That can't be the moon," said Jason.
"Why not?" asked Pasha.
"When you look up at the moon you can see a face," said Jason.
"Yah," agreed Pasha.
"Now when you look, there is no face," said Jason. "The face of the moon is gone. It isn't there anymore."
"That face was the Man in the Moon," said Mallory.
"Are you saying that we are being carried by the man in the moon?" asked Pasha.
"I think so," said Jason.
"Wow, the man in the moon!"
"Wait!" shouted Jason. "We can't leave the moon."
"Why not?" asked Mallory.
"My lunchbox burped us out on the moon," said Jason.
"And?" asked Macallister.
"We have to go back if we want to go home," answered Jason.
"Do you think that the moon is the only way home?" asked Pasha.
"Yes," said Jason.
"Maybe we should ask the man in the moon to turn around," said Mallory.
"Ya!" agreed Jason.
Then the four young space travelers began to shout, "Please Mr. Man-in-the-Moon turn around and return to the moon."
"Why?" asked the Man-in-the-Moon.
"We need to go back to where my lunchbox burped us out," said Jason.
"Don't worry Jason," said the Man-in-the-Moon. "I have a lunchbox just like yours. You can go home anytime you want from anywhere that you want."
"Wow!" answered everyone.
The Man-in-the-Moon asked the children, "Would you like a tour of the moon?"
"YES!" exclaimed Jason.
Macallister asked, "Are there any underground caverns, other than the one we were just trapped in?"
'Yes there are lots of them," said the Man-in-the-Moon. "How about visiting the biggest cavern located on the southeast side of the moon?"
All of the kids shouted with excitement, "YAH! Let's go check it out!"
"HANG ON!" warned the Man-in-the-Moon.
As they approached they saw a gigantic cave opening. The opening looked as if there was a bright light on inside the cave.
When everyone moved closer they saw that it wasn't a light that was on at all, but the walls of the cave were speckled with sparkling rocks.
The four friends entered the cave and walked straight back for about two minutes.
"This place is spectacular. It sparkles like a disco ball!" whispered Macallister.
Pasha delicately plucked one of the rocks from the wall. Suddenly she dropped it with shriek!
"Agh! This isn't a rock! It's a space spider!" she screamed.
Pasha squished the spider with her foot. Unexpectedly the room lit up when 10,000 of the creepy crawlies stared down at them.
"Run for your life!" yelled Mallory.
The four friends ran for the exit. They were running so fast, they didn't see the web blocking the exit. Macallister was the first to get stuck in the sticky surprise. Jason and Mallory were next.
Pasha stopped running before she got tangled up in the web with her friends. Behind her were the furious spiders. Pasha felt extremely frightened. Quickly she reached into her backpack and pulled out …
...a mirror. Pasha pointed the mirror towards the spiders. She slowly
moved her arm back and forth so the beam from the reflection hit the
spiders. As the spiders saw the reflection they started to melt into a
gigantic steamy, sparkling puddle. Suddenly Pasha noticed the sparkly
puddle
had started to flow towards the web. When it hit the web the web started
to dissolve.
Mallory, Jason and MacAllister were all screaming, "Help, Get us out of here!"
"OK!" Pasha yelled.
In the wink of an eye the web had all disappeared. So, the kids were free!! There was the Man-in-the-Moon, he said, "You took forever in there, what were you doing?"
The kids just rolled their eyes and frowned. Suddenly...
the Man-in-the-Moon scooped up the children saying, "There's no time to frown. Come on!"
"Where are you taking us?" asked Mallory.
The-Man-in-the-Moon inquired, "Have you ever ridden the tail of a comet?"
"No!" shouted the children.
"Then that's what we going to do," said the Man-in-the-Moon and he zoomed up into the darkness of space.
A glow came out of nowhere and became a long soft shape. It was the tail of a comet. The Man-in-the-Moon flew beside the comet and gently placed Macallister, Jason, Mallory and Pasha onto its tail. The children were nervous but they didn't complain.
After a couple of minutes they began to enjoy the ride. It was almost like a rollercoaster. The Man-in-the-Moon found it hard to keep up with the comet. Soon the children couldn't see the Man-in-the-Moon anymore. They wanted to get off, but no one was there to help.
They looked behind them into the cold darkness of space. There wasn't any sign of the Man-in-the-Moon. When the four space adventurers turn and looked forward, it was bright and getting brighter every second.
"It feels like it's getting warmer," said Jason.
"Brighter and warmer by the second?" questioned Macallister.
"Yes!" shouted the girls.
"We're heading for the sun!" declared Jason.
"If we don't change direction of this comet, we'll all become crispy kids," hollered Mallory.
"Quick Mallory, use your mirror and shine the hot suns rays back on its self and make it blow up!" shouted Macallister.
"No! Don't do that," Jason called back in a panic. "First, it won't work. You can't destroy the sun with a mirror and second, if you did destroy the sun, where would that leave us?"
"In the middle of no where," answered Mallory.
"And what would that do to our families back home?" questioned Jason.
"I want to go home!" said Pasha.
"How are we ever going to get back home?" asked Macallister.
"We are going to need the Man-in-the-Moon," said Jason sadly.
The four space travelers could feel the temperature rising. They had to squint to protect their eyes. They had to do something fast.
"Why don't we run off the tail?" suggested Jason.
"What?!!" shouted the others.
"We get as close to the front as we can and then run the length of the tail and jump into space," continued Jason. "At least there's a chance that we will float in the other direction."
"Then what?" asked Mallory.
"I'm not sure, but at least we will have a little time to think of an idea," said Jason.
"This comet tail isn't very strong," said Pasha. "It's made up of gas, dust and ice crystals. It's not going to last very long. The heat of the sun will make it disappear."
"Then we don't have much choice," said Mallory. "Come on."
Mallory lead the others along the mushy and slushy comet tail.
"I think the tail is getting softer," said Macallister.
"We have to hurry," declared Jason.
The group struggled step by step to the front of the comet. Then without hesitating they turned around and began to run as fast as they could. No one could stumble. They ran hard, dodging soft spots on the way. When they were only a few steps from the tip of the tail, Pasha called out, "Everyone hold hands and don't let go!"
They leapt off the tail of the comet into space and found themselves floating and holding hands.
"Look!" shouted Macallister. "I think we're moving away from the comet and the sun!"
"We're flying through space," celebrated Jason.
"Hold on! Don't let go!" Pasha reminded everyone.
Then without any warning, everything went black. The glaring power and heat of the sun vanished. The stars, the earth, the moon had all disappeared. There wasn't any feeling of movement. It was as if everything had been removed and nothing was left behind. All the children could feel was the grasp of the hands as they held on to one another.
"It's the Man-in-the-Moon," shouted Jason, "He's come back to save us."
"Yeah!" called out everyone.
"I'm sorry that the comet ride scared you," said the Man-in-the-Moon, "I'll take you back to my home."
"I think I'd like to go back to my home," said Mallory.
"That's a good idea," agreed Macallister.
"Mr. Moon, how can we get back home?" asked Jason.
"It's like I have already mentioned," said the Man-in-the- Moon, "I have a lunchbox just like yours. In fact your grandfather used to visit me quite often when he was a boy your age."
"My grandfather?" questioned Jason.
"Yes," answered the Man-in-the-Moon, "He loved to jump and fly as far as he could. Don't worry Jason, we're almost back to the moon. When we get back, I'll make sure that you all get back to earth safely."
Within seconds the four space travelers felt something solid under their feet. They saw the dust from the moon floating around their feet and ankles. They realized they were back in the crater where they first met the Man-in-the-Moon. The great, friendly shadow stretched out on the ground before them. The Man-in-the-Moon moved a medium size stone that was covering a hole. He reached down into the hole and retrieved a tin lunchbox with colourful pictures of stars, comets, rockets, planets and an astronaut.
"It's my lunchbox!" celebrated Jason.
"It's identical to yours," said the Man-in-the-Moon, "This is the same lunchbox that your grandfather used to go back to his home."
"WOW!" giggled Jason.
"Macallister," said the Man-in-the-Moon, "You brought
everyone here, so you're the one to take everyone back to your class."
The Man-in-the-Moon placed the lunar lunchbox onto the dust stone that
once covered the hole. Macallister stepped forward as the Man-in-the-Moon
slowly opened the 'rocket man, space ship' tin lunchbox.
"So do you think you're up to do it?" asked the Man-in-the-Moon.
"Sure," answered Macallister.
"Do you see that little dot down there on the bottom of the lunchbox?"
asked the Man-in-the-Moon.
"Yeah," answered Macallister.
"Hold on to the outside of the box and pretend that the dot is a
very special button," continued the Man-in-the-Moon.
"OK."
"Now reach in and push that special button," said the Man-in-the-Moon.
Macallister reached into the tin lunchbox and pressed the dot on the bottom
of the box.
Mallory, Pasha and Jason moved closer to Macallister. The kids turned
to the Man-in-the-Moon and waved good-bye. Then very quickly and quietly
a small black funnel appeared in the bottom of the box. Macallister, Jason,
Mallory and Pasha were sucked into the lunchbox. The lid to the lunchbox
closed and the latches locked. Then the tin lunchbox tumbled onto something
solid. It flipped onto its side and rolled until it landed upright. The
lid burst open.
"Where are we?" asked Pasha.
"We're back in the classroom," answered Jason.
Macallister, Mallory, Pasha and Jason all popped back into their desks
without disrupting the class. They tried to tell people about their fantastic
space adventure, but no one would believe them. Once school was finished,
Jason took his lunchbox and headed over to his grandfather's. Jason saw
his grandfather sitting on the porch and sat down beside him.
"Guess what granddad," said Jason.
"What?" asked Grandfather.
"I visited a old friend of yours," said Jason, "Someone that you haven't seen for a long, long time. I brought the lunar lunchbox along just in case."
Jason's grandfather smiled.
The End
