All Sorts of Crazy Smarts for Kids

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.

It was hard to see through the goggles but it got easier to see as we approached the volcano of blue light. We approached the edge. I was about to ask what we were doing here when they tossed me in.

The ductopi led me across a catwalk above the center of the floor and I saw the source of the blue glow. There was a large hole in the floor with an intense volcano of blue light flowing out of it. I tried to ask, “what’s that?” but with a gag on it came out more, “Mmphf, pmphf.”

When I came to, it took me a while to adjust to the conditions. For one thing, it was freezing everywhere. The metal slab I was sitting on was cold as ice and the air around me was even colder. The light was dim, but it was bright compared to what I had experienced inside the burlap sack and it took my eyes a while to adjust.

When I came to, a couple of hours later, I was in a dimly lit cave with two hulking shadows standing above me. Then all of a sudden, like you see in cheesy alien movies, the lights came on really really bright, as if they were about to examine me. The two hulking beasts were. . .

ducks?