Michael’s Day in Space

“Mom!” screamed Michael as she opened the back door.

“Oh good, you’re home,” said his Mom. “How was your day at school?”

“I got a detention,” replied Michael, covering his face.

“What did you do that was so bad?” said his Mom in a disappointed voice.

Michael looked at this Mom and said, “Got you! I cannot believe you fell for it.”

“Michael, go do your homework now!” she said angrily. Michael ignored his Mother’s request and went into the basement to play in his toy spaceship. He started to make all of the necessary noises like “Kapoo”… “Boom”…“Kooyaaa,” to pretend to start his spaceship. When he flicked the imaginary launch switch, the basement lights started to flicker, and then it went dark. “Stupid electricity,” said Michael as he tried to get out of his toy spaceship. “Mom… help… help!” He tried to open the spaceship door. Tears welled up in his eyes as he started crying and all of a sudden the lights went back on, as he hears an unfamiliar voice say “5…4…3…2…1…blastoff!” He started to feel a strange pressure on his chest as the G-forces kicked in.

“Wooo hooo, what an awesome feeling!” Michael said as he started to feel a bit barfy. The spaceship abruptly stopped! “I don’t feel so well”, said Michael, holding his head.

Then he heard the unfamiliar voice next to him again, saying, “Why don’t you feel well?” Michael turned his head quickly to his right, only to see a boy sitting next to him in the spaceship.

“You scared me,” He felt his heart beat faster! “Where are we?” asked Michael.

“Why, you are in your spaceship!” said the boy with the unfamiliar voice.

Michael was still a little confused when he turned towards the boy sitting next to him. “Hi, my name is Michael. What’s your name?” Michael asked.

“Ziritron”, said the boy.

“First things first; where am I?” asked Michael.

“You are in a spaceship and we are on our way to Pluto,” replied Ziritron.

“But, where are all the adults?” Michael asked in a hesitant voice as he looked around for someone else besides Ziritron.

“Adults? What are adults?” replied Ziritron as he stared at Michael with a confused look on his face.

“You know adults…… They help you with your homework, make you chicken soup when you’re not feeling well, do your laundry,” said Michael.

Ziritron replied in almost a whisper, “Can you keep a secret?” “Sure,” said Michael sitting anxiously still.

“Ok… the reason there are no adults is because we sent them away to a better place,” said Ziritron.

“Like, what do you mean a better place?“ asked Michael. Ziritron sarcastically replied ”Chocolate World!”

“There is something a little bit strange about this boy!” Michael scratched his head, thinking to himself.

“So…. How old are you?” Ziritron asked.

“I’m ten years old,” replied Michael. Just as Michael was going to ask Ziritron how old he was, they heard a strange whistling sound coming closer at an alarming rate!

“Oh no…. there’s a meteor heading right for the ship!” As fast as Ziritron could get his hand on the hyper speed control stick, he moved it sharply right. The ship went faster and faster into hyper speed, and Michael and Ziritron were pushed back into their seats. “Oh no! We only have one gallon of space fuel left before we run out!” said Ziritron in a concerned voice. Boom…… As the space ship severely shook.

“What happened?” asked Michael as his voice started to quiver in fear.

“We just got hit by a passing meteor. Are you alright, Michael? You look a little nervous,” said Ziritron. Michael tried to rub his back from the bumps he felt when the meteor hit the ship.

“Is the ship ok to fly?” asked Michael.

“It didn’t seem to do any major damage. We must use our reserve fuel tanks, since the main fuel tank is on empty,” Ziritron said in a concerned voice. Ziritron transferred the fuel over and they started on their way.

“Where did you say we are going?” asked Michael as he started to feel a little more comfortable with the situation.

“I am taking you to Pluto. That is where I came from. It will take about a day to get there, so sit back and relax.” Ziritron said.

The spaceship was on its smooth course to Pluto, when Michael asked, “Do the kids on your planet go to school?&8221;

“You mean learnatron?” replied Ziritron?

“No… I mean school, where you learn how to read, and learn math and things about your world?” said Michael, as he scratched his head.

“Yes….that is what we call learnatron” replied Ziritron.

“Oh, sorry,” replied Michael with an attitude. “I need to get back to my own planet,” said Michael in his head. He was still trying to figure out what exactly happened to him that day in his basement. As Michael leaned forward, he remembered that he had a radar/locating system on his toy spaceship. While Ziritron was busy gazing into the distant stars, Michael typed in “toy space ship made by Michael Treloff, year 2006, 126 Pleasant Street, East Rutledge, Virginia, United States of America,” and hit the enter button. The locating system started to search. After a few seconds, the monitor read, “You are in Pluto, Section 25C”. Michael was trying to understand what that meant. Ziritron turned and looked at Michael. “What are you doing?” asked Ziritron. Michael tried to distract him.

“Do you have anything to eat in this ship?” asked Michael

“Do you like roasted Walrus?” asked Ziritron.

“Walrus?….Do you have any chocolate?” asked Michael as he was trying to get the picture of roasted walrus out of his head.

“Yes, I do have chocolate,” replied Ziritron. Michael quickly opened the small bar of chocolate.

“This looks delicious!” mumbled Michael as he shoved the chocolate into his mouth.

“It is very sweet chocolate! So I don’t think you should eat the whole entire bar,” said Ziritron. Michael was so hungry that he did not care what Ziritron said about the delicious sweet chocolate bar and he ate the whole bar in about 2 seconds flat! Just as Michael was going to say “Wow… that was one of the best chocolate bars I ever ate,” he got this overwhelming burst of energy. After his hyperactive chocolate spaz attack, Michael fell fast asleep. They traveled half way to Pluto while Michael was in his slumber. He kept having the same bad dream over and over again. When he finally awoke, he yawned a couple of times to wake himself up, but he could not remember the entire bad dream. “Ziritron, do you have any medicine for an upset stomach?” Michael asked. “I ate too much chocolate and I had bad dreams while I was asleep,” said Michael, in a miserable voice as he was running to the bathroom.

“There is a blue and yellow bottle in the bathroom cabinet, labeled Gasso,” replied Ziritron. Michael looked around the bathroom for the medicine. He found the blue and yellow bottle, took a swig and started to feel dizzy. He sat down the floor while the room started to spin and then he fainted. As he was lying there on the bathroom floor, he had more bad dreams about Ziritron and other aliens from his planet performing experiments on his blood. As he felt one of the aliens prick his arm with the needle to inject different kinds of liquids into his body, he woke up from his nightmare.

“I am really scared,” said Michael to himself as he tried to act calm in front of Ziritron. “What happened to me?” Michael asked out load, while Ziritron was nervously pushing buttons on the control panel.

“I don’t know,” Ziritron cautiously replied, while Michael wished for his own cozy bed and his favorite pillow in his own house.

“I am not feeling very well. I am going to try to close my eyes for a few minutes,” said Michael in a drowsy voice. As Michael curled up on the chair in the spaceship and drifted off to sleep, all that was on his mind was his Mom and Dad and his cozy bedroom with all of his favorite things.

“Ahhhh,”…. yawned Michael as he woke up.

“Good morning,” said Ziritron in a tired voice.

“How many more hours until we get back to Pluto?” asked Michael

“We are going to Earth,” said Ziritron as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“Oh awesome! How much longer before we are back on Earth” asked Michael with an excited voice.

“What do you want to do to kill some time?” asked Ziritron while he was thinking about where all the games were in the ship. “We could play a board game!”

“OK,” said Michael, hoping that it wasn’t a weird game or a long tedious game that he didn’t understand how to play.

“Let’s play 3D checkers,” said Ziritron in an excited voice. “I will be the black checkers and you can be the white checkers.”

As they set up the board, Michael noticed that it was almost like playing checkers back on earth, except for a few rules about jumping your opponent. The game went quickly, and Ziritron shouted, “I won!”

“No fair!” shouted Michael as he scratched his head wondering how he could have missed that move. Michael wondered if Ziritron cheated, but he was not going to ask him, just in case Ziritron got mad and changed his mind about taking him back to Earth.

“You hungry?” asked Ziritron as he was putting all of the 3D checker pieces back in the box.

“Uhh… yes, I guess I could eat a little something,” said Michael, as his stomach started to growl.

“Well, you can have more chocolate! Or maybe some of the roasted walrus that I offered you yesterday,” said Ziritron as he was looking through the galley for other food options. “See, doesn’t the walrus look delicious?”

“Ahhh… noooo,” said Michael in a panic as he ran to the bathroom and tried very hard not to hurl into the toilet. Michael regained his composure, splashed his face with some cold water, dried it with a towel, took a deep breath and unlocked the door. While Michael walked back to his seat, all he could think of was a yummy chicken nugget meal from Burger King. His stomach was growling louder as he walked back into the room.

“We are almost in the Earth’s atmosphere,” said Ziritron in a loud voice, not knowing where Michael was. “Put on your seat belt and get ready for the landing.”

“Ok, as soon as we are close to Virginia I will tell you where you have to go,” said Michael in an excited voice. All he could think of now was his Mom and Dad and how they must miss him.

“We are just about over Virginia!” said Ziritron as he carefully guided the ship closer and closer to earth. As the ship swiftly flew through the morning sky, all they saw were rooftops and green dewy grass.

“All the houses look the same from up here!” said Michael as he was busily looking through the window to find something familiar. “I think I see my street!”

As the ship started to descend onto the street where Michael lived, the lights flashed once, then twice, and then went completely dark. When the lights came back on Michael was back in his basement in his toy ship. He looked around for Ziritron, but he was nowhere to be found. Michael was trying to figure out what just happened. Was it real or did he take a nap and dream it all? As Michael was opening the door to his toy spaceship, he heard his Mom’s voice.

“Michael… Michael,” yelled his mother from the kitchen. Michael smiled as he leapt from his spaceship, ran up the basement stairs into the kitchen and hugged his Mom around the waist.

“Why are you in the basement, Michael? I told you to go upstairs and do your homework an hour ago!” Michael let go of his mother’s waist and looked up at her with a big grin.

“Sure… Mom, I will go right upstairs and do all my homework, right now!” said Michael in a gleeful voice. He climbed the stairs, walked down the hall into his room. Michael looked around and was so happy to be back in his own space. He pushed the button on his computer to boot it up, and when it was finished, he heard a familiar voice say, “You’ve got mail!” Michael clicked the mouse into his email box and the first line in the subject box read “So…. you don’t like roasted walrus… huh?” The email was from Ziritron!!!!

Fin.