by Ella Holland, age 9
Venus had just got home from school and her parents’ faces were in huge smiles.
“Will you go on a school trip in space?” they asked.
“Wait, did you just say ‘school trip in space?’” Venus asked in excitement.
They nodded. They were so excited because they worked at NASA headquarters.
“Our boss thought that it would be nice to let kids in space for the first time,” said her mom.
“And he picked your school to go to space,” her dad said.
“What do you think?” asked Venus.
“Hardy-har,” said her sister Luna, who had just got in from work.
“She would never go. What if she got the Swimming Planet?”
Luna was right, ever since Venus was little she had hated swimming.
The school got everything ready. Venus got to pick her design on the small spaceship and she got to pick her buddy to go with to the planet and she picked Mars, her best friend.
Venus got on the bus.
“Can you believe that we are going to space in a school bus?“ she asked her best friend Mars.
“Yeah, and that it’s a school trip,” Mars replied.
Mars was right: it was a school trip and the bus that they were riding in was about to go into orbit.
10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . BLAST OFF!
And in seconds they were in orbit. The bus stopped on the Glitter Moon and in their stylish spacesuits, they walked out of the special space hatch on the bus. The Glitter Moon was the coolest thing they had ever seen.
“Settle down, class,” said Ms. Pluto.
Ms. Pluto was handing out scavenger hunts and planet cards. Venus and Mars were a pair and they got the Candy Planet. They hopped in their spaceship that they made in art class and they were off.
Once they were there, they parked the spaceship in a free parking space because they were all full. Then they jumped out of the spaceship and they started to jump.
“Yes, this is so fun!” Mars said.
“Yeah and imagine if we got the Rock Planet. Like, that would be so funny,” yelled Venus.
They saw so many aliens. They checked that off the scavenger list and went to collect a water source. They started to skip. Then they looked back and they didn’t see anything.
CRUNCH!
They turned around and saw a big shape. They ran as far as they could and hid behind a giant gumdrop.
“Mars, do you think that that thing ate our spaceship?” Venus whispered.
“What do you think . . . YES!” Mars said, mad and annoyed.
“Sorry,” said Venus.
They started to pick up all the sleeping aliens and then they darted away.
“Yes!” said Venus.
“What is it now?” Mars asked.
“We got another thing to put on our scavenger list,” Venus said, checking off “Giant monsters that want to eat.”
The aliens finally started to wake up and we're rolling down Tootsie Roll Mountain.
“Do you think we should roll too?” asked Mars, in a better mood now.
“What do you think?” Venus replied with a smile.
They started to roll down the soft mountain that was like a pillow. They stopped at the bottom of the mountain and there was an ice cream sidewalk. They pressed a button on their spacesuits and they were licking and skating at the same time.
“Wow, this is so fun!” Mars yelled excitedly.
Then they saw a big river of hot cocoa and Luna’s voice started replaying in her head: “Hardy-har. What if she got the Swimming Planet?”
Oh no–Luna was right, thought Venus.
“Venus . . . Venus, come on, we have to swim across the river!” Mars shouted.
“No, no, NO! I will not swim! I will never swim, ever!” replied Venus.
“Come on, we have to swim!” Mars said. “The monster will melt in the hot cocoa.”
A star and a black hole came and sat on Venus’ shoulder. The star had a pool tube and a rubber duckie in one hand and the black hole had a tracksuit and running shoes and looked like he was about to go on a run.
The star said, “You have to swim.”
“You have to run around the river,” said the black hole reassuringly.
“Fine, I will swim. But only this once,” Venus said.
“Good! Now we have to swim because the monster is gaining on us! So we better swim now! Let’s go!”
Venus jumped into the hot cocoa river.
It was so warm and there were giant marshmallows in the hot cocoa river and they started surfing on the marshmallows. Once they got onto land they started running, and they saw candy mountains and they started to climb a mountain.
The monster came out of the hot cocoa river even stronger. He started to climb and search for Venus and Mars.
“Come on, we have to climb,” said Venus
“No I will not,” said Mars.
The star and black hole popped up again.
“Oh, you forgot that Mars was afraid of heights so she won’t climb,” said the star.
“Can you keep climbing so the monster won’t get you and us?” the black hole asked Mars.
“Wait, I think that it wants you to climb so you don’t climb,” said Venus.
“Yes,” said Mars. She was terrified of heights so she felt good about not climbing.
They saw a frozen treat land that looked like an ice skating rink so they started to skate as fast as they could (which was pretty fast because they had a gold medal at their school).
They were ready to face anything.
“Wow,” said Mars.
Wow was right. There were more mountain-hill thingies, so they started to climb. They weren’t that high so Mars wasn’t scared so that was good. They climbed and climbed.
“It feels so long,” groaned Venus. They were not even that high.
“Look down,” Venus said, trying to scare Mars.
Mars was still on the ground when a yeti came out and asked them what they were doing.
He said, “Whatcha doing?”
“We’re trying to run away from a monster,” they replied.
“Really, guys? I am a yeti, not a monster,” replied the yeti in a sad voice.
“No, not you,” they said. “The big monster on the ice skating rink.”
The yeti turned his head to the frozen lake and saw a big monster and said, “Oh, that big monster.” The yeti was ashamed of what he had said a moment earlier.
Then he picked up Venus and Mars and took them to his little log cabin and set them down by the fire.
They asked, “Can we have hot cocoa?”
At the same time the yeti sang, “Going to get fresh hot cocoa from the hot chocolate river,” and he walked out the door.
They started to sneak around his comfy log cabin.
“Stealth mode activated,” said Mars in a computer-sounding voice.
They saw a wonderful, comfy space.
“Wow, this place is amazing,” said Mars.
“Yes, it’s amazing,” replied Venus. “It’s so comfy and soft,” and with this last word Venus plopped on the big bean bag in the living area.
Then the yeti came in and he said, “I found a portal going to planets and there is one on each planet so you can find your planet.”
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go!” said Venus, picking up the hot cocoa and running out of the cabin. She was holding open the door waving her hand for them to come out and they started running out the door.
The yeti grabbed his bag and ran out and then closed and locked the door.
The portal is a big round circle filled with purple glowy stuff and when you stick your hand inside the purple stuff, you will see another planet, thought Venus.
“What if this doesn’t work?” Mars whispered.
“Well, we will be stranded until our time limit is over, which is in two days. And Ms. Pluto will come and find us,” Venus whispered back.
“This goes to the Diner Planet,” the yeti said.
They all jumped out of the portal and landed in a chicken-soup hot tub. It was so awesome and warm. They all slipped out of it, regretting it a lot.
Thirty-two minutes later, Mars said in a sad voice, ”I really regret getting out of the chicken-soup jacuzzi.”
“Ya, but I see the next portal!” yelled the Yeti, who was ahead of them.
They all ran to the next portal and hopped in.
They were on the Library Planet. There was one book-shaped moon, but it was probably the Book Moon, so that was the wrong moon.
“The book portal is at the end of the Fiction Forest, so we have to go through the Biography Beach and hop the Sci-Fi Stepping Stones and we will be there,” said the yeti.
“How did you figure this out?” Mars asked.
“I saw a map and also because I could see the book portal,” the yeti said.
So they started to walk.
They crossed the Biography Beach and stepped on the Sci-Fi Stepping Stones.
“What now?“ Mars asked.
“We’ll go through the very dark Fiction Forest,” the yeti said in a shaky voice (because he was afraid of the dark).
“Well, let’s go then. No time to lose, less than twelve hours to get back to the Glitter Moon, chop-chop, hurry it on,” said Venus.
“She’s in a hurry, shesh,” Mars said while trying to comfort the yeti. “Oh, we forgot to ask your name,” said Mars in a calming voice, while Venus was checking her watch and mumbling to herself.
“Oh, it’s just ‘Yeti’, but thanks for asking though,” replied the yeti.
So they walked through the Fiction Forest because Yeti had a flashlight.
“I think that this portal leads to the Glitter Moon,” said Venus excitedly.
“Well, there is a problem in this solution: we might land on the Glitter Moon, but like all planets, the Glitter Moon is very big, so we might not land in the right place,” Yeti said, still shaking.
“Well, I don’t care, because we have less than an hour,” replied Venus.
“But it doesn’t matter if we are on the Glitter Moon. Ms. Pluto won’t come and find us, because we are on the Glitter Moon,” Mars said in a cool voice because she had figured that out.
They hopped in the portal so they could get to the Glitter Moon. They landed in a pile of glitter.
“Yup, we are on the Glitter Moon,” Venus said.
Yeti and the girls saw Molly and Tessa (their BFFs) and ran to them. Molly and Tessa also had a monster with them.
“This is Summer, a water dragon,” said Molly.
“We found her at the bottom of the Diamond Sea,” Tessa said.
“Oh, I forgot that you got the Water Planet,” Mars snickered.
“What is it?” Venus asked.
“We went swimming,” Molly and Tessa said at the same time.
“No . . . Is that why you are snickering,” Venus asked Mars.
“Yeah,” all three of the other girls said at the same time.
“Wait, how did you get there? Because we jumped portals to get here,” Mars asked.
“We used our spaceship and Summer flew,” Molly said.
“Wait, why did you jump through portals?” Tessa asked.
“Well, a monster ate our ship. I guess we didn’t realize that that was the monster’s parking space, sooo yeah,” Mars replied.
“Wait, where are Yeti and Summer?” Molly asked.
“Oh, they’re up there flying,” Venus said.
Yeti was riding on Summer. They called the monsters and they started to walk to the base. The monsters were there when they got there, and Ms. Pluto was trying to get all the kids on the bus.
“Can the monsters come?” Molly asked.
“No they can’t, sorry, because we are the only ones that know about these wonderful creatures and they might be endangered so we cannot risk these creatures,” Ms. Pluto said in a sad voice.
And with that, they got on the bus and blasted off to Earth.
“The School Trip in Space” was published in How to Feel Happy for Other People. Written by our Write Away Workshops and Write After School students, How to Feel Happy for Other People is a collection of stories, poems, letters, short plays, and more on how to celebrate our friends, stories, and ourselves. Click HERE to download your digital copy!
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