by Kai Strand
Windy pulled my tentacle as she scampered past.
“Ow! Are you trying to pull it from my head?” I called.
“You’re it Blasty,” Windy said, before she dropped into a moon tube.
“I really don’t like this game,” I mumbled. “Ready or not, here I come!”
Stinch and Cantu were nowhere in sight. Either they were in tubes too, or they’d burrowed into the soft dust of the moon dunes. Sand rays are very good at hide and seek.
“Hey, Blasty, are you it?” I heard Cantu call from far off.
“Maybe . . . where are you?” I called back. Her giggle sounded like it came from directly behind me. I whipped around, but saw no one.
Suddenly the ground shook. I scrambled over to the nearest tube and splayed my body over the top of it. I waited for a hot blast to launch me into the air.
“They don’t call me Blasty for nothing,” I said, securing all five feet in a star formation around the opening.
Windy popped her head out of the tube next to me. “Blasty, that shaking wasn’t a tube blaster. It wasn’t even a ground tremor. Something’s going on. Let’s see if we can figure it out.” She called out for Cantu and Stinch. “Come on out! We want to investigate.”
When we were all together, Stinch suggested we look over the ridge. Windy and I scrambled behind the
two sand rays up a steep incline to the ridge. We crept up to the crumbly edge and peeked over.
A huge metal machine stood in the center of the vast valley. A hulking white creature emerged. It moved slowly, as if it waded through a waist deep moon dune.
“What is that?” Windy asked. Her face scrunched in confusion.
“Windy, it kinda looks like a really big . . . you!” Cantu said.
“It has two arms and two legs, but look at the weird bubble head and that shiny, flat face,” Windy said. “It doesn’t look that much like me.”
It looked like Windy but it moved much slower. Yet it didn’t have the same long silver hair Windy had or the bright blue eyes. Did it have eyes?
“Windy, it sure does look a lot like you,” I said.
“What do you know? Your brains are scrambled in all those tentacles,” Windy joked.
The big, white creature moved in long leaping steps. It playfully bounced around outside its machine.
“What do you suppose it’s doing?” Stinch asked.
The creature scooped some moon dirt into tubes and then bounded around gathering rocks.
“He looks like a collector. Maybe he does this all around the moon,” Cantu said.
“Then why haven’t we seen him before?” Windy asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cantu growled. “Why do you ask so many questions?”
The creature drove a colorful flag into the ground.
“What’s that thing for?” Windy asked.
“I don’t know, but I like the stars,” I said.
The creature climbed back into his huge machine and started it up. The ground trembled while the
machine blasted into the air.
“Wow, I’d love to be able to do that!” I said.
“Maybe when you grow up,” Windy said. “Now, you’re it!”
She jumped into the nearest moon tube and disappeared. I whipped around hoping to tag Stinch or
Cantu, but they were already gone.
“I don’t like this game,” I said.
the end.
Question Time
1. What game was Blasty playing with his friends?
2. What did they go to investigate?
3. What came out of the huge metal machine?
4. What did the white creature stick in the ground?
5. What do you think the white creature was?
