Allan Almondson Age 8 in: Museum of the Mole-People! OR Elevator to the Center of the Earth!

Allan Almondson

Grade 2

Mrs. Wimbley’s Class

What I Learned On Our Fieldtrip

     Today we went to the famous Harrison Museum located roughly in the center of the earth. Again. Seems like we go there EVERY year. We see the same displays of the same dinosaurs discovered by the same boring old explorers. Yeah, yeah, yeah we all know about their famous expedition to the center of the earth. And we all know about their discovery of a prehistoric oasis filled with dinosaurs and all sorts of crazy creatures nobody had seen for thousands of years. And we all know and feel horrible about how they were all hunted to extinction and then stuffed and put in this stupid museum. Sure it was cool the first couple times, but I was 6. Everything is cooler when you are six and haven’t been around and seen things like when you are 8. Anyway, its dull, but its lucky things were different this time or I might have puked from boredom.

     The fieldtrip started as usual with the million hour ride in the most boring elevator ever, crowded together with the whole class, random couples, and people from out of town who you know have never been there because they are actually excited to see all that old crap. Really fieldtrips are all about telling yourself “at least I’m not in school,” but they always make you fill out some stupid questionnaire or write some stupid essay like this one, and it ends up being just about as bad as going to class. Anyway after the elevator ride you get to wait in line in order to get a stupid bracelet and a little radio thing that tells you boring facts about the boring displays you are looking at. Then finally after all that waiting for the elevator ride to end, and waiting in line, you pair off and get to explore the museum. Unfortunately I always end up with Jimmy Donaldson. Its always me that ends up as his museum partner because nobody else can stand him. The kid smells and only ever wants to go look at the dumb little kid displays- those lame screens that play the cartoons describing how we think life survived down there all those years next to those little tables you can sit at and draw your favorite dinosaur. Jimmy always draws a stupid stegosaurus. I usually draw a t-rex ripping apart a stegosaurus. Jimmy is not a fan of my drawings. Or rather, Jimmy was not a fan.

     Really its lucky that Jimmy made us go over to the kids area, way away from the cool stuff where everybody else was. Jimmy pretty much saved my life. When the Mole-Men’s bombs went off caving in the south end of the museum it killed a good half of the class. The dust cleared and as I understand it the people on that end of the museum found themselves at gunpoint, held up by the Mole-Men forces. We were pretty much alone on the other end of the museum and had time to react. Jimmy’s immediate reaction was to duck under the table and hide. I wanted to go see what was going on on the other end but being Jimmy’s museum partner I had no choice but to crawl under the table with him.

     We laid there under the table for what seemed like a couple hours trying not to breathe too loudly. Luckily the tables are low and wide to accommodate tiny museum goers. They actually make a pretty decent hiding place. After a while we heard footsteps coming closer and closer to the little kid area, and then closer and closer to our table. We held our breaths as he passed by but something must have caught his eye on our table because he stopped right in front of us. Jimmy looked at me wide eyed and mouthed the word “radio.” The moron had set his radio that tells you boring facts about boring displays on the table instead of clipping it to his belt like a normal person. Fortunately Mole-Men’s eyes aren’t that great and really all he had noticed was that this table had something different on it than the others, but unfortunately Jimmy picked this moment to get up and run. I still don’t know why he did it. Maybe the fear just got to him and he just couldn’t sit still and wait to be killed. Maybe he was trying to distract the Mole-Man so I could make my get away. Maybe it was just Jimmy’s time. Whatever the case may be it was Jimmy getting up and running that saved my life. Again. Jimmy sprinted away from the table towards the turnstiles at the entrance that led back to the elevator doors but the Mole-Man, being a soldier and all, was just too quick for him. He pulled his plasma pistol out of its holster and without even aiming squeezed the trigger and buried a ball of plasma in poor Jimmy’s back. It knocked Jimmy down and he slid a couple feet on the tile floor before coming to a stop. Smoke rose out of the burning plasma wound as the Mole-Man slowly lumbered over to Jimmy’s body.

     Tears in my eyes, and filled with a righteous anger, I quietly climbed out of my hiding place. I peeked over the table at the back of the grotesque Mole-Man. Reaching out I pushed Jimmy’s stupid radio out of the way and picked up a handful of colored pencils and stood up. Walking over to the Mole-Man, tears in my eyes and pencils in my hand, I got angrier and angrier with each step. How dare that Mole-Man. Jimmy Donaldson was not a bad person. He may have smelled, the other kids may not have liked him, BUT HE WAS MY MUSEUM PARTNER! I stabbed one of the colored pencils deep into the Mole-Man’s back. He stumbled forward and when he turned to look back, I was there. I pushed a red colored pencil into his tiny left eye and a green one into his tiny right eye. He dropped his plasma pistol and clawed at his face, stumbling and lurching back and forth, squealing in pain. Calmly and coolly I reached down, picked up the plasma pistol, pointed it at his face, wiped the tears out of my eyes and said “that was Jimmy Donaldson. He wasn’t the best museum partner, but he was sort of my friend, and he liked stegosauruses.” Then I pulled the trigger right in his stupid Mole-Man face.

     Realizing this would probably draw attention to whatever other Mole-Men there might have been I booked it past Jimmy’s smoldering body towards the elevator. Leaping over the turnstiles I suddenly noticed that there had been a guard posted. Not knowing what to do and knowing that he would probably smell me with his great big Mole-Man nose really soon I ran as fast as I could at him and his all my strength I smashed him across the face with the plasma pistol. He slumped to the ground and I dove into the massive elevator. I pressed the up button over and over and over until finally the doors slid shut just as the Mole-Man was coming to.

     The elevator ride took what seemed like three times as long as normal and my heart was pounding in my ears the whole time…

     The rest of the story you probably know because it was in all of the newspapers. How I contacted the authorities in charge of underground affairs. How they found out that the Mole-People had been planning an uprising and were going to use the elevator as an entry point into our world. And how they sent down a thermonuclear warhead in the elevator and detonated it when it got to the bottom. All that stuff is old news now. Yet I still have to write a stupid paper on “what I learned.” I learned that the stegosaurus wasn’t all that lame, museums suck even when they are being invaded, and that even the kid who smells can save your life. Thank god I don’t have to go to the Harrison Museum for next year’s stupid field trip.

THE GREATEST DETECTIVE EVER IN: HOT-TO-TROT-TUB! OR: HOT TUB HEADACHES- A STORY ABOUT FEELINGS!

From the Diary of P.J. Parkington P.I.
August 8, 2005- The Day it All Began

The moment she stepped into my office I knew I was in for trouble. Sauntering over to my desk with a disarming amount of confidence and sexual energy she lit a cigarette and began to lay out (figuratively speaking) plans that would change my life as well as lay out (literally speaking) plans for a brand new hot tub. I had been a detective for my entire life but nothing in my 37 years of detecting could have prepared me for the deal she had hit me with, and when out of her ruby red lips the words “installation included” dripped, I almost asked her there and then to marry me. Upon further investigation and great amounts of detecting it turned out (luckily) that she already was my wife. Pushing my investigation ever further (as any good detective would) and questioned my so called “wife” on what she was doing in my office and not at home with the children that we had made together earlier. She told me she had gotten the neighbor lady (could she be trusted?) to watch our children. Blast! A flawless cover. My wife had thought of everything, but I still wasn’t sure that her intentions were “on the level” as it were.

This hot tub plan- could it be her idea or was someone conspiring against me. Lord knows I have made my share of enemies in my time detecting. This could be some kind of trap. Unfortunately the only course of action I could see to take was to test the information she had brought me. Perhaps under scrutiny her story would fall apart or at least show some discrepancies, and if not that then there’s only one way to find out who is behind a trap- spring it. Asking the wife to go and leave me to my investigations and also maybe make me a sandwich, I went to work. And what work it was! Using my super secret investigation method I consulted the one source that always gave me a leg up on my detection- the internet. A flurry of fact and figures detailing competitors policies, pictures and blueprints scrolling past, a cacophony of clicking keys nearly deafening me as I worked to get to the bottom of the whole sordid situation. I worked late into the night and then early into the morning, the sun running laps in the sky.

Apparently I had worked my self to exhaustion because I woke up in a pile of printed hot tub consultations- their inky words reflected on my palm and across the side of my face. I’m sure I looked like a mess but I had found my answer. My wife had in fact been telling me the truth. The plan she had laid out in my office so many days ago was in fact the best deal in the whole state and contrary to my first impressions, my wife had proven her self trustworthy. Unfortunately time was running out for I had detected that if we did not pounce and take advantage of this deal within the next 48 hours, it could slip right through our fingers like so much water in the tightest of grips. Grabbing my hat off the desk and ripping my coat off of the coat rack I made a beeline for my car. I was about to put key into keyhole when I came to my wits and thought better of it- someone could have wired my car to blow. There was no point in taking chances and taxi drivers couldn’t be trusted in this situation. Turning my collar up so as not to be recognized by anyone who may be watching I headed out on foot.

Making my way to the hot tub salesroom proved to be quite a simple task, which made me uneasy. Pulling my collar back down I walked over to a payphone in the corner of the lobby. Using what was supposed to be my lunch money I made a call to my wife, this could be the last. I heard her pick up and before she could respond I said “I’m about to make a deal” and hung up. Hopefully she would understand my cryptic message for it was all I had time for. The salesperson was nice enough but I didn’t let on about how much I knew. He promised prompt delivery and his prices matched my research. He would go free… for now. I flashed my ID and placed my wife’s credit card, which he was a little to eager to take, on the table that separated us. Upon return of said card I was out of there as fast as my tired feet would carry me. I let myself relax a little there on the sidewalk but I knew that it wasn’t over. Not yet. Not until I was soaking in that pint sized pool filled with water of increased temperature.

I made my way back home with less urgency than the days previous activities had required and upon arrival greeted my wife and kids. It was good to see them alive, but I only had a moment for them before I had to get back to work. I set up a secondary office/observation station in the backyard, cordoned off the area in which there would soon be a hot tub, and started the stake out. Several days later (just as planned) men arrived and with them came a crane and the exact hot tub that I had ordered. Aha! The stake out had worked and I had caught them in the act. It was exactly as my research said it would be with the digging, and craning, and so forth, and upon completion (or at least what I detected was completion) the men made their ways back to their trucks and left- never to return again. I knew that I would miss them, but it wasn’t until later that I knew how much. But there was time for missing people later. Right now I had work to do, and that work included- but was not limited to- checking the area for those who might spy on that backyard of mine, de-clothing, and making myself at home in the hot tub that through an un-tangle-able web of events had found its way into my life and leave the mysteries for another day.

An Autobiographical Poem

PUNCH AN OLD MAN IN THE FACE

JUMP ON A TIGER

AND HEAD FOR SPACE

THE ADVENTURES OF REX RODGERS: SPACE GROOM: AN ADVENTURE IN TIME AND SPACE

Today is the day, dear reader, that my life was ruined just because of my lack of punctuality. For it seems there are few worse things than being late to one’s own space wedding. I lay here cradling the lifeless body of the woman who should be my space wife, on what should be a joyous day, but she is, and forever will remain, my dead space fiancé. But alas, I am getting ahead of myself dear reader. Today didn’t start with such sorrow. In fact today started with a thump.

THUMP. That was the sound my body made when it hit the ground after falling off my hover bed. I had set my electric turbo alarm ten minutes early the night before, knowing that I would have a little bit more than being late to work as space senator at the laser senate and resort to contend with. I would be in a world of trouble if I showed up late today. My space fiancé Janine 7 would never let me forget this dear reader. Clones, female ones in particular, have a tendency to never let things go. So like I said, I had set my alarm for ten minutes earlier than usual, but I had forgotten that I had set my hover bed to maximum! When I had sprung out of bed, ready to start the day off on the right foot, I had instead forgotten to switch off my hover bed and ended up falling ten feet to the floor, and knocking myself out! You can imagine the shock I got, dear readers, when I awoke and saw the laser display on my wrist and realized I was now four hours late!

I had no time for anything. Rushing around my gliding cloud level apartment I quickly tried to find the assorted pieces of my outfit and space travel safety gear. Jamming my arms and legs into my smart looking one-piece lycra tux, I barely had time to press the self tie button on my bow tie before shoving my regulation senator class space helmet. Because I was in such a hurry I hadn’t realized what a pain it would be to put on my gloves, jet pack, and boots with my helmet already on but there wasn’t time to backtrack now. Hurriedly going through my safety checklist I remembered at the last minute to grab the bouquet of Neptunian lava roses I bought for my lovely Jeanine 7 last night before heading out the door and onto my launch pad. Lava roses in hand I set the space coordinates in my wrist laser locator and blasted off for the moon.

Jeanine 7 had always wanted a moon wedding ever since reading about them in her space bride magazine so many months ago. I was determined to make it happen for her, because you get married twice, but you only get space married once, and nothing was too much for my little cloned beauty.

Whizzing through the clouds and weaving in and out of sky traffic I swore under my breath. If sky traffic was this bad space traffic must be horrible. And sure enough as I made my way out into the black of space I immediately found myself at the end of a long line of space travelers backed up for what seemed like miles. It turned out that there had been a space accident dear readers! Of all the luck! And believe me when I tell you dear reader, I almost lost it. There wasn’t anything I could do but wait for the space cops to show up and clear everything up. Even my status in the space senate couldn’t grant me a police escort or even access to the moon turbo direct highway. Not since it had been shut down after that incident with the robbery of the galactic savings and loan last year. So many innocent lives…

After waiting for several hours for the wreckage to be cleared out and for people to get moving again I raced to moon wedding hall 9 on the edge of the sea of tranquility. As I drew closer to the great glass dome where my space wedding was supposed to have been held 7 hours earlier I started to be able to make out the shapes of people- guests, catering staff, family, pastor Q-Bot… but something seemed wrong. Was it just my imagination or was everyone laying down? Alas dear readers, how I wish it was my imagination…

I flew right up to the glass. I got so close to that dome I could have touched it and just hovered there. Looking. Looking at their faces, their unmoving faces- their unmoving hands- and in pastor Q-Bot’s case, his unmoving pneumonic tendrils. Now, dear reader, you may want to stop reading and go outside, go walk your lifelike tin dog, go do anything else but continue with my tale. For if you are faint of heart or tear up easily the next bit of information will absolutely ruin you dear reader.

Setting my wrist mounted laser powered scanner to its full power setting I did a quick scan of the room inside the dome. And here is the sad part dear readers, the readings stated plainly- "Oxygen: None. Death: Yes." In the time it had taken me to get there, they had run out of air. It was all my fault my faithful readers. Tears streaming down my face and no longer caring about safety I removed my galactic senate issued laser pistol from my dress holster and aimed it at the dome. Several short bursts shattered the dome completely and I slowly hovered down to the floor covered in the bodies of what where once people I had known, now lifeless. Locating my space fiancé was an easy task because she was the only one wearing the ceremonial neon red of a space bride. I knelt down and gently wrapped my arms around her, rocking back and forth. Only the glass of my helmet separating me from her skin, but also from a freezing suffocation filled death. The death that she had faced not long ago. Without any more reason to live, and wanting nothing more than to feel her face against mine, I reached up, and undid the safety clasps on my helmet…

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? YOU DECIDE!
Thanks for reading THE ADVENTURES OF REX RODGERS: SPACE GROOM! Don’t miss next weeks exciting installment and remember kids- KEEP YOUR CHIN UP AND YOUR BLASTERS CLEAN FOR YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN THE NEXT ADVENTURE WILL REACH ITS SLIMY TENDRILS OUT AND GRAB YOUR ANKLES!!!!

The Spaced House

Took a little trip to the UK. Went on an adventure and found the house where they filmed the exteriors for the UK television show "Spaced" which starred Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and was directed by Edgar Wright. Sure I saw all sorts of historically important, beautiful, and important places on my trip but I have to admit seeing the spaced house was one of my favorite bits.

Tonight

spider in my bed

disappeared amongst the sheets

sleeping on the couch