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I am Lucy Lapakman. I love a lot of things, but the only thing I hate is SCIENCE! I don't do too well in it. My teacher, Mr. Pouton, is the worst teacher. He is so boring. He just talks and talks for hours. There was only one time I liked science. It was when a substitute teacher came. His name was Mr Addy, I think. It was a while ago, but he made science so much fun. He let us go outside and do experiments. I have a best friend named Sarah Sakuta. She is very smart. She loves science. She gets l00s on every test. My sister Cindy is so smart and pretty. Everyone expects me to he as smart as her, but I just can't. I am 16, and I go to Fandy High School in California.

Landon is a cute that goes to my school. He is in my science class. I always look at him. He has dark brown eyes and spiked brown hair with blonde tips. He is everything that I dream of. He is very smart too, but he does not show it. He is the captain of the football team. During science class, I look at him. One day Mr Pouton said to me, "Lucy, what are you looking at?" I was so embarrassed. I just said I was daydreaming, but I think he knew better.

We have a project that is due in three weeks. We have to make a model showing the layers of the earth, the crust, mantle, and the core. I want to work really hard to impress Mr. Pouton and Landon. My dad is an engineer, so I am going to ask him to help me. My dad and I worked on the project later that day. By the time we finished, it looked great It was really high tech. We made a model of the earth that could spin, and when you open it up, you see the crust, mantle and core. When you feel the core, it is warm, but not hot. When it stops spinning, you can take out the parts of the earth. Mr Pouton will be very proud now.

When it was my turn to present my model, everyone loved mine. They thought it was awesome. While I was showing it off, the earth started spinning really fast faster than it was supposed to, and it made me dizzy I did not know what was happening I was getting tired and nauseous I could hardly breathe. Suddenly I was awake on a spaceship of some sort. Landon and Sarah were with me, too. They were acting very weird. When I looked out the window, I saw dirt. I asked why there was dirt on the outside of us, and they said, "We arc going to the core of the earth." It was all very confusing to me, so I started to laugh. I laughed so hard I fell to the ground. They asked me what I was laughing at, and I said that that was a good joke. They looked so serious though. I did not know what to say. I went to my room. Wherever we were, it had an exact copy of my room.

I guess I passed out because later on Sarah was saying that she saw me lying on the ground. I was happy Landon was there. He was talking to me like I always talked to him. He was so casual about it. He was saying how excited he was about going to the center of the earth and actually seeing the core. I remembered some things that Mr. Pouton had taught us, and one of the things was no one can touch or even look at the core. I told them that, and they said it was not true

I wondered where our parents were? They told me that they left them behind, and it was going to be just us three. I was thinking to myself how my mom let me go on a trip with a boy. I did not behave any of this. I pinched myself many times, but I never woke up. The only thing I remember was that I was getting dizzy, but how did I get here? I was very confused.

Every day Sarah and Landon would talk about science, and I felt so jealous and left out. I decided to read about science. It was so boring. I did not get it at all, but I figured out a solution to that in no time. I asked Landon to help me. Every day he would tutor me. He taught me that the crust is the outer skin of the earth and that it is a layer of rock. He told me that the mantle is a layer of hot rock or molten rock, which is how volcanoes erupt. He also told me that the core is made out of iron and nickel. There is an inner core and an outer core The outer core was molten metal, and the inner core was a dense ball. I was really picking up science from Landon.

As the days went by. I tried to figure out how I got here. I didn't remember planning a trip to the core of the earth, and I did not even know it was possible. Since Landon was tutoring me. I talked to him a lot. We talked about Mr. Pouton amid the substitute Mr. Addy.

On our trip, we went into the sea. It was very interesting seeing everything deep down in the ocean. One time we sprang a leak. We began to flood little by little We had to try to figure out how we could plug the leak. We were in the mid-ocean ridge. We knew that the molten material would rise from the mantle and eventually erupt, so we had to move fast. The leak did not help us at all. Once the molten material erupts, then it spreads out, pushing older rocks to both sides of the ridge. This was the sea floor spreading. We knew that we did not have a cork. We were so deep in the water that there was a lot of pressure. Landon told me that pressure ms the force pushing on a surface or area. We knew that there would be too much pressure to hold in with just something little. We took a piece of scrap metal and duct tape. It held the water until we could figure out something better.

I think Sarah was jealous of Landon tutoring me because she would always interrupt my tutoring to ask Landon something. One day we finally made it past the grass, the worms, and the dirt. We made it to the crust! It was a little bumpy with rocks and mountains. I think we were in the oceanic crust because it was very thick, and Landon said we were going in the Continental crust soon. He said I would feel it because it is thin. Landon and I are boyfriend and girlfriend. We have been for a week, but the thing is we have not told Sarah yet.

It was kind of exciting going through the crust. Everyday I look out my window. I finally found out what kind of transporter I was in. We were in the Sandapulant 3000. It is a device that this rocket scientist made. Sarah's dad works for this guy named Greg and Greg let her dad have it. It sounds insane to me, but it is true, I guess. Everything is mechanical so we get our food in the microwave. Whatever we want, we just say it.

Landon and I told Sarah about us being together, and she was really mad at us. She really liked Landon. I felt bad, so I went over to her room arid talked to her She let all of her emotions out. She said she really liked Landon and thought he liked her and that she misses her mom and that she is scared. We both cried and hugged for a long time when Landon came in. He said he was very sorry.

Suddenly there was a big bump. We did not know what was happening. Sarah went to the controls and she saw a humongous mountain. We were just about to crash when Sarah saved us. We were all so happy that we did not notice anything weird, but as we were heading to bed, we heard something. We did not know what it was. We all were calm and finally fell asleep in our own beds.

We have a special mechanical hand in our transporter. It grabs things so we can make them collectibles. We got a rock from the crust. We keep all of our collectibles in a jar. The jar goes in my backpack since I brought one. Now we have the first thing in our collection. Hopefully we will get more. It is interesting dissecting a rock. Our mechanical hand got us another rock, and we dissected it.

Every night we look out our window for about an hour and then pop popcorn and watch a movie. It is so much fun, but I always think that it would be lonely if you were by yourself. The thing that would scare me the most is all the sounds you hear. You hear rocks moving about and all different spooky noises.

Science was getting really fun, so I decided to look ahead of our science book and learn more! There were many things I learned from reading ahead, but my favorite one was Alfred Wegner's theory. His theory was that "all the continents had once been joined together in a single landmass and have since drifted apart." It makes sense to me now because I used to look at my teachers' posters on the wall, and I never knew what it was. Sarah was impressed with how much I was learning. We always talk about science now Landon and I always talked with Sarah. Landon is a great friend and boyfriend. His tutoring helped me a lot to learn about science

We seemed to be going down and we started speeding. Finally we came to a stop and started going again, but this time slower. I was leaning against the wall, and it became very warm I looked out the window, and it was all molten rock. Molten rock is the MANTLE! We made it to the mantle now and it was liquid. Our mechanical hand brought us magma in ajar and cold magma that became rock. All our collectibles were safe with me in my backpack. We were in the lithosphere, which is the uppermost part of the mantle and the crust together, and they form a rigid layer. In Greek litho means "stone." All of us were so excited to he here. We made it so far.

In the Sandapulant, there was a camera, so we sent it out into the molten rock. Sadly there was just static when Landon hooked it up. We took the camera out and decided to explore ourselves. We had this big bubble machine. That is what I call it. We went into the bubble machine. We each had our own, so we went in different directions but we had walkie-talkies. As we were exploring, we noticed there was a lot of magma. It was then I realized how volcanoes erupt. The mantle rises, and when it gets enough pressure, it shoots out and starts the whole cycle again. I loved exploring It was adventurous, and I learned so many different things. I had never thought science could be so interesting once you were actually there.

I decided to write down everything in a journal so I wouldn't forget what I was learning. I wrote about the crust and how it is the outer skin of the earth. Also, that on the crust you find rocks and mountains. Now I am writing about the mantle and how it is molten rock. I told about the lithosphere and the asthenosphere. Asthenes in Greek means "weak". It is not weak, hut it is the soft layer that the lithosphere floats on top of. Landon and Sarah never explored outside in a bubble and they really enjoyed.

One day as we were looking out the window we saw the molten rock in almost like a wave. Our ship was rocking like we were in the ocean. It started getting bigger and bigger We sped up the ship to go faster because soon there would be too much pressure to he down here and we would erupt. We were going very fast and we almost made it, when there was an explosion. The mantle shot up and we were on it! We were going to through the mantle, and the crust. All the way we have gone and now we are going hack up. I was so sad. We made it so far and all that is gone. Suddenly this volcano did not have enough pressure to explode It went back down and we were back in the mantle.

I was so happy we made it back and we were on the roll of going to the core. If we were going to explode in the volcano there was a big chance we could have died or got really badly hurt. There was no one there on land, so we would have to get help from somewhere The mechanical hand got some molten rock and we put a magnify glass and it was so amazing. We had two jars of it. One we put it in the heater and the second one we left it out to dry. The molten rock dried and it was like coal. It was still warm, so we could not take it out yet.

The mantle is much thicker then the crust. When you go down the crust, it seems like a long time, hut it is not as long as the mantle It seems like this is the longest vacation I have ever had, but it has been fun. The mantle has been a long trip, but I really want to get to the core fast. The most thing I was excited was telling Mr Pouton and all my friends I always wrote in my journal. I wrote about the jars and the mantle and the crust It is so interesting. We were almost to the core when our ship got stuck. We could not believe it because we thought that maybe we would run out of fuel. I thought I was going to die. I started crying because we were stuck in the middle of molten rock.

A few hours went by and our ship was still stuck The ship was beginning to get really hot. The next few hours we realized our ship was shrinking. We started the engine 10 times until it started and we were so happy and sped so fast. We finally got out of that spot. The ship finally expanded to the right size.

I found out there is convection in the earth's mantle. It is like a pot on a stove. The earth's mantle responds to heat. The heat source here is from the earth's core and from the mantle. The material slowly rises through the asthenosphere When it reaches the asthenosphere, it spreads out and pushes the cooler material hack down under the asthenosphere and it starts all over again.

In my journal I wrote about the convection in the earth's mantle and the crust being the outer skin layer of the earth. There are two crusts. There is the oceanic and Continental. I also wrote that the mantle is the layer of hot rock The lithosphere is the uppermost part of the mantle and crust I also wrote that the asthensosphere is a soft layer that the lithosphere floats on top of The last thing I wrote was sea-floor spreading. This is when the material erupts and spreads out and pushes the old rocks away from the ridge.

As we watched what went by, we saw something shining It looked like it was coming from the core. We followed. The light shining was very long and we got there maybe three hours later. While I was waiting, I looked at the science book. I found something very interesting. It wasn't about the core or the mantle or anything. It was about the continent. It was Wegner's theory. It was Pangea. This is where the continents were together. Then over the millions and millions of years, the continents started to move apart. I wrote all this in my journal so I would remember.

We finally made it to the core. It was so bright and very hot. We knew we were getting closer because it got hotter than the mantle. When we got there, we were so amazed at how hot it was. Mr. Pouton always said it was very very hot, but we started sweating the first time we saw the core. The core has only iron and nickel. The temperature in the outer core and the inner core range from 2000 degrees to 5000 degrees Celsius I wrote this in my journal and that there are two cores. The inner core and the outer core. The outer core is molten metal. The inner core is a dense ball. The inner core and the outer core together are smaller then the moon, but not that much. The iron and the nickel have squeeze so much pressure, that they cannot spread out. That's why it is smaller then the mantle.

We stopped right in front of the core, so that we could see it, but we could not go in it. It was getting way too hot in there, so we decided to leave and go hack up since we had actually made it to the core Before we wanted to go, the mechanical hand went and got part of the core for us. Landon pushed the button to go backwards, hut instead he made us stopped We could not go anywhere and we tried every button so we could go backwards but it did not work. Everything was getting very hot. some of our ship was melting. I thought I was going to die. For some reason it seemed like we always got stuck. The last time we survived it, so I was hoping we would survive this one. Landon and Sarah decided to push the emergency button, but they did not know what it did. We suddenly zoomed so fast everything was a blur. We were going straight into the core I knew we were going to die because no one could ever go into the core. They would burn. I was so scared, I froze.

Suddenly I heard, ~Lucy, Lucy, stop day dreaming," said Mr Pouton. I was back in my science room with Mr. Pouton. I sat up and said, "~Yea?" I was surprised that we got to school so fast. I did not even know how long we had been down in the earth. I went up to Sarah and told her that the vacation we had was the best She looked at me puzzled and wondered what I was talking about. I said that we went down in to the earth with Landon. She said that she thought I was going crazy, so I went up to Landon and told him about everything, and He had no clue what I was talking about I decided to raise my hand and I said to Mr. Pouton that I went down in to the earth, and all he told me was that it was impossible to do that, and out of all people, it would not be me. I was so mad. I sat hack down.

Later, I put my hand in my backpack and I felt a journal and a bunch of jars I remembered about that and I stood up and took the jars out. I showed them that these were samples of the crust, mantle and core in each jar. Mr Pouton looked at them and said that this was the real thing. He could not believe his eyes. "Then I looked in the journal and told them about the core, mantle and crust. I also told them about sea-floor spreading and Pangea. I told them so many of the things that I learned and that it was very interesting going into the earth.

When I finished, every mouth was open with amazement, even Mr Pouton. He did not even know as much as I knew. The lesson that I learned was you have to see it in the point of view as if you were there to enjoy science. After science I asked Sarah and Landon one more time to see if they remembered anything and they said they never even went on a trip. I was so confused and did not know if that was a dream or real. I did have evidence that it was real though. I did not know what to say or do. I remembered everything I did and everything that happened and that the transporter was called the Sandapulent 3000 and it was a ship. I did not know what happened, but when I told Sarah that whole story she brought me to a lab. She said that Her dad works for a guy named Greg who was working on something. It was called the Sandapulant 300 and it looked just like the one I went on I could not figure this out. Was I dreaming or was it true. Maybe I went into the future. I didn't know.