The New Planet
Lila Willington was usually the last one up but today she was stuck waking her sister up. When Lisa finally decided to get out of bed, she quickly freshened up and joined her sister and mother for breakfast. After breakfast, Sarah dropped her daughters off to school, where they met Kylie Harrington, Sarah’s childhood friend and their current next door neighbor, who was there to drop her son Max. The three went off to join their friends, Chloe and Charlie Spring. They all got to talking as there was still time for their class to start.
“Let’s have a sleepover!” John’s voice almost startled everyone.
“Yeah sure,” Chloe stated unaffected by the sudden presence. Lisa after collecting herself said, “We can do it our house as our mom would be out for her night shift at the hospital.”
“Works for us.” Everyone else shortly replied. The school bell rang and they all went to attend their assigned classes.
All of them assembled after school at the Willington house. All of them rushed to the living room and talked for a while and played a lot of board games. Eventually, they got tired and decided to call it a night as it was already very late. They all went to sleep after having dinner. Sometime during midnight, Lila woke up from a sudden tremble but chose to ignore it.
In the morning, Lisa woke up first and went to the kitchen to drink a glass of water where from the window she saw clouds around the house, wondering if she was dreaming or not she rubbed her eyes, she saw again and screamed.
Her scream woke the others up. The group rushed towards the kitchen to find her shaking. They inquired her as to why she screamed, but the poor girl could not utter a single word and filled with panic pointed towards the window. All were stunned to look outside and not one was able to move. They were frozen at their spot trying to process what was happening around them because flying houses definitely felt like a dream. Lisa having calmed a bit started with a still shaking voice, “What if this is the same thing that happened to Tom Johnson? What if we are also being abducted by aliens? …… ” Lisa continued rambling in fear as the others were still too shocked to intervene.
Finally Charlie found the courage to speak, “Stop it. Take a deep breath Lisa. We got to think this through.”
“Yes!” Chloe said.
“Come on,” John asked everyone to follow him to the main door. Chloe opened the door and lost her balance due to the rush of air and was about to fall down but John jumped into action and saved her. They could clearly tell by
looking down that they were very high up in the sky. It all felt surreal as they all sat down to discuss what to do next.
Max stated as a matter of fact, “Why don’t we call for help?” They all rushed towards the landline and tried calling Sarah but just to find out they had no cell service. Suddenly, darkness enveloped them and they rushed towards a
window and found out they were in space and could see the Earth as a round ball.
“Guys! ….. , Lila said to get everyone’s attention, “How are we still able to breathe as there is no air in space? I just learned that in science class recently.”
Charlie, who was really into space travel and spaceships, states, “Maybe, we are in a spaceship as they have inbuilt oxygen supply in them.” Everyone laughed because they thought he was joking but Lisa actually considered it and
said, “What if he is right because it is the logical explanation of how we are flying in space and are still able to breathe.”
Charlie mumbled to himself, “Every spaceship has a control center ……. ” And finally asked the twins loudly, “…. Is there any secret room present in your house?”
They both said at the same time, “Not that I know of.” “There is one actually.”
Lisa looked surprisingly at Lila and asked, “Really ?!?”
“Yes, dad told us about it once. You really don’t remember!”
“I think, I would have remembered if dad told me about our house being a spaceship “Silly! Dad once told us a story about a hero’s house turning into a spaceship, to save other planets. I really didn’t believe him and thought it was just a bedtime story until now.”
Charlie hastily said, “Well, we don’t need the whole story just tell us where the hidden room is.” Lila sighed and explained it was hidden under the living room couch so they all stood up and used all their force to move the sofa and found a hidden small trap door beneath the carpet. They tried to open the door but failed. John noticed a small digital lock on the side of the door carefully hidden away and a closer look at it revealed some inscription beside it. He called everyone and they found the words to be a riddle that said-
“Life is too short count your sorrows and make enemies. So remember the happy moments and make friends, Love Dad.”
“It is from Mr. Willington.” John said.
Chloe asks, “Does it give any hint to open the door?”
Charlie suggests, “It mentions sorrows, so maybe the worst day of your life.”
Lila and Lisa both said together, “Dad’s death.” They tried the date but it didn’t work. Then Max said, “You guys, it clearly says to not count your sorrows but remember the happy moments. So, maybe the happiest day of your life.” The twins collectively tried a date and the door opened. Everyone asked, “What was the password?” and they explained, “It was our tenth birthday that was the last birthday, we celebrated with our dad. We had so much fun on that day.
They all climbed down the ladder and see a full, highly tech command center. Charlie exclaimed, “This is so cool!” They all moved forward and saw various buttons for different functions and commands in front of them. There was a big green button with ‘activation’ written on it. Chloe pressed it and a message in robotic voice started playing, “You now have activated the spaceship fully. Here’s a message from the previous commander, Beep!!”
“If you can hear this, that means I have called for your help. In order to reach me, press the large red button.” Charlie presses the red button and the robotic voice says, “Set for Polaris.”
“Polaris?!!?” Chloe asked confused.
“Looks like we will find out soon enough.” John says pointing towards a red, blue planet visible through the window. Suddenly the robotic voice says, “Destination reached. About to land.” They land on the strange planet with little to no information about it. They were all confused as to how they would breathe outside of their spaceship in the new atmosphere but suddenly a little green creature knocked on their window and beckoned them to follow it. They were a little surprised and confused but followed him anyway. He led them through a very beautiful city to a very enchanting castle and was taken to the king. They were shocked to see that the king was a human and he bowed in front of them.
They all could hear other creatures in the court murmuring that ‘The prophecy is true.” ‘They have come for our salvation.” And so on…
The king finally spoke, “Welcome to Polaris. A home for Currigans, the peace loving creatures of the universe. Do you know why have you been called here?”
Lila replied, “No, we don’t have any idea.”
“Oh! Don’t worry. Do you know who Alberto is?”
“No!!” said everyone in unison.
“Alberto is a power freak who wants to conquer the whole universe. Currigans, even if peace loving are one of the bravest warriors of the universe, so he wants us to join his army and gave us no choice but to fight with him or against him. Currigans took a pledge to not fight till the end of time, so we have no choice. If we don’t join him, his army will destroy our planet and you are the people who have been selected to defend our planet.”
“But how are we supposed to fight this villain all by ourselves, we are just few 13 year olds.” Charles said.
“Well, it is said that Alberto has some power stones and they are kept in a secured facility and destroying them would weaken him and help defeat him easily.”
“A secured facility?!! But how are we supposed to cross it?” Chloe asked.
“To enter the facility, you will need to crack a few codes and know your way around computers and be able to cross high bars and ropes. If you are capable of doing all that you will be able to go through with destroying his stones?”
After a short while of discussing together they replied’ “Yeah!” and just like that the team was send to the mountains where Alberto lived in a small spaceship. They all made their way to the facility main entrance and it had a code inscribed on one side. Max read it aloud, “para entrar decir ‘puedopasar’. Everyone looked confused at each other meanwhile Max had thinking expression on his face and suddenly he said, “May I come in?” and the door creaked open. All of them looked at Max a little shocked. Seeing their astonished faces Max said, “What!! I take Spanish classes. Okay!!”
“Okay.”
“Yes.”
“mmhm.” Everyone acknowledged and entered the facility to find a raised platform surrounded by water. The way to the raised ground, almost 12 feet from ground, was made of planks and ropes. Lisa, who practiced gymnastics in P.Ed., took initiative to climb her way up. Having reached the platform swiftly, she saw a red button. There was nothing else there just a red button, so she pressed it and the whole platform moved down and joined the floor as it was a
part of the floor itself. The platform reaching to the ground caused a door to open on the other side of the room. All of them walked towards the newly opened room and found two computers displaying a series of codes.
John, who had computer classes as one of his classes, got to work. It was very easy to get through and another door opened. They found the gemstones there and took out the false gemstones, which looked pretty similar to the real ones because Alberto had shown them to public once to prove his power, to replace with the real ones. As they were going to switch them Charlie’s voice stopped them.
“STOP!!” he nearly yelled, “Don’t you think this is too easy? I mean think about it. It feels like something is wrong. This whole thing is like it was made specifically for us. I think we should not go through with the original plan.”
“And I think you watch a lot of movies.” John remarked.
“But guys……” he started but at the same time Lila said, “Yeah, think about it. The code for Max, the rope climbing for Lisa, the coding for John, maybe this is for Charlie because he watches adventure movies so I think we should do as he says.” They all discussed about the issue for a little while and agreed to follow Charlie’s plan to not destroy the real stones.
When they were about to leave, two familiar faces entered the room and the twins ran to hug one of them. Everyone was shocked and confused to see Mr. Willington (the twins’ dad) and Tom (the boy who was abducted by aliens) there. Mr. Willington having sensed their confusion explained that this was all just an elaborate plan to test their worth and that he was Alberto and he and the Currigan king with many others are the part of a universal hero squad but now a new squad was to be selected to continue the legacy. He also told them many more kids were made to give this trial before them but none of them was able to overcome all the challenges. He happily exclaimed, “You are the new hero squad.”
After the unexpected visit to a new planet, the squad returned home to the exact time they woke up and realized their house was flying only this time it wasn’t. They continued their day as nothing happened but they all knew they would go help the universe whenever it needed them.