Weasel started to follow but I explained to him that it was a maze, not just a hall. He pretended to understand and then shot out after Dave through the maze of corridors. The last thing we heard from him was, “I’ve had plenty of practice with mazes.”
“This,” proclaimed Dave, “is the great flying pickle jar!”
“And my friends are inside of it?” I asked suspiciously.
“I think so,” said Dave.
“Well, okay then, let’s go inside- Wait a minute- did you say ‘the great flying pickle jar’?”
“Yes indeed,” gushed Dave. “I came up with it myself.”
“Oooookay,” I responded in a dubious tone.
Dave slithered [...]
After about a minute of adjusting to the dim light, I looked up to see what an amazing thing could possibly be in this cavern. What I saw before me was the most stupendous thing I had seen upon reaching this planet. It was a humongous starship.
I started slinking backwards to the mouth of the cave. I was going to climb down the ladder and make an escape across the desert when I realized something: this cave didn’t have a ladder. I was ready just to accept my fate and be devoured by a giant monster when out of the darkness came. . . . a Goostopus?
In fact, fireflies weren’t the only animals in this room- there were huge cages with rainbow-toothed saber-toothed tigers and elephants with wings.
“Boo,” we heard from behind us, with a thick Irish accent. The alabaster lion roared, I jumped, and Plittereeg EEPED. We turned around and standing before us was a measly, furry little creature with two arms on each side of its body and close in appearance to a weasel.
I sat up with a jolt. Whatever was patting me emitted a screech and ran away. The last sight I caught was a two-toed foot fleeting from my range of vision in the cave.
The lion looked confused but then made an “oh, I get it” sort of face and went back into the ship and for the first time stood up on two legs and picked up a whole squadron of paper planes and threw them at me. When I unfolded them I said, “this is a really bad way to communicate. Take off your spacesuit. The atmosphere may be thin, but it’s safe.”
“Well, the real point of this story doesn’t come for a while, so why don’t I tell you something interesting in the meantime. Right before you were tossed into the pit, there was another boy that I let out. His name was Ruth.”
The room was a large, rust encrusted iron room with gears and cogs whirring up on the wall. As I stepped backwards even farther in amazement, I touched something. Instinctively I reached backwards to feel what it was and I landed my hand on something soft and furry. I felt it more and realized it was long hair. As I turned around I found myself staring face to face with the Alabaster Lion.
