Trapped

Trapped

On a bright summer day, in 1969, in USA, a mother wakes her three children up. 
“Wakey! Wakey!” said Joanna, to her three children, James, Clara and Jack. After the three children had breakfast, they went out with their dog, Roofus, to a store to do some shopping.When they had finished buying everything and were about to leave, the doors to the store closed automatically and the cashier disappeared. The windows were tinted so the kids could not call for help. James, Clara, Jack and Roofus were trapped!

Clara started crying but James and Jack knew there was a way out of this. For a few hours, they feasted on the food in the supermarket (and gave some dog biscuits to Roofus too). Suddenly, James found something that would give him, his brother and sister a ray of hope. He had found a hammer. As soon as he touched the hammer (to break the windows), the whole supermarket caught on fire. Quickly, they jumped up onto the cashier’s desk to avoid getting burnt. After they got into a kiddie night costume made of plastic, they attached a fire extinguisher to themselves, which acted like a jet pack (they could not find a costume that would fit Roofus so they just put him in a cardboard box and attached a fire extinguisher to the box) and burst out of the roof. Once they had crash landed on to the pavement and looked back at the supermarket, it had disappeared.

“It’s like the supermarket is under an invisibility cloak,” said Jack, confused.

All three of them decided not to tell their mother about this incident or she would not let them go out by themselves again.

Nothing happened for a month. One day, the children’s mother said that she had to go on an urgent business trip for an unknown amount of time but she would be back as fast as she could. She asked them to take care of themselves. After seeing her mother off at the door, Clara settled down to read the newspaper. She spotted an article in the paper about a new mall opening. She told her brothers that they should explore the mall so they gathered up all their pocket money and headed to the mall. They had a super fun day at the mall but soon it was time to leave. When they were about to exit the mall doors, the mall shuddered and shot into the sky. The mall had turned into a flying machine and the children were trapped again! Another thing the children noticed was that all the other people at the mall had disappeared.

Since the children had nothing else to do, they went to the book section to read some newly published space books and magazines.

“Look!” cried Jack, pointing to a page in a space book. “This book says that Neil Armstrong is landing on the moon on July 20^th and today is July 19th. I have to see Neil Armstrong land on the moon tomorrow on our television set.”

“I hope we will be able to go home by tomorrow,” said James yawning.

“What time is it?” asked Clara. “I am feeling sleepy.”

“It’s 11:56 p.m.,” said Jack looking at his watch.

“Come on! Let’s go to bed,” said James, pulling three air mattresses out of a shop called Home Centre.

The kids woke up the next day at 8 a.m., sharp. Then, they took three bags from a luggage shop and put oxygen masks and diving suits in the bag for an emergency. As they finished putting the last item into the bag, the mall did a few flips (which made the children feel queasy) and stopped completely. Wondering what was going on, they opened the mall entrance door. They saw themselves being sucked down a long tunnel. Then, they crashed on to a shining, gold floor. A robotic arm picked the children up, flung them into a room and locked the room door.

“Why do we always have to be trapped?” groaned Jack.

With nothing better to do, James went to look out of the window. Clara and Jack followed him to look outside too.  They were hovering over a surface pitted with craters and a painting suddenly appeared out of one of the craters. The painting resembled a picture of the moon.

“I think that the painting resembles a picture of the moon,” said James.

“W-w-we are on the m-m-moon?” stammered Jack.

At that moment, a flying saucer landed on the moon. The three children saw the aliens on board the flying saucer for the first time. They each had one eye, six legs and six hands. One of the aliens raised a hand and a small room made of transparent material came out of one of the craters. The robotic hand unlocked the door of the room that the children were trapped inside, picked the children up, and dropped them near the entrance of the flying saucer. A look-alike of the robotic hand that was onboard the flying saucer also popped out of one of the craters. It took a large transparent bag, put the children inside it, tied it and moved it to the transparent room, put the bag with the children inside the transparent room and locked the room door. The bag and the room were heated so the children would not freeze to death, but it had no oxygen so the children took their oxygen masks out of their bag and put it on. Jack ripped the bag and pulled everybody out of it. Then, they just admired the moon and the alien spaceship.

“What is the time?” asked James, “I cannot tell because I do not have the moon or the sun to guide me.”

“Four p.m.,” said Jack, “and no need for the long explanation.”

“Hey,” said Clara, “I forgot that I sneaked a few things into my pocket when we were at the mall.”

With that, she put her hands into her two pockets and pulled out a tiny doll, two matchbox cars and three, equally-sized Cadbury chocolates. When they were about to eat their chocolates, the transparent room that they were in started vibrating. They quickly looked out of the box and saw the Apollo 11 lunar module ‘Eagle’ land on the moon. “I forgot about it,” said Jack, “but it is July 20^th and the moon landing is taking place! Wow! We got front row seats to witness it!”

Right after Jack finished this sentence, a door of the lunar module ‘Eagle’ opened and a man with the word ‘Armstrong’ sewn on his astronaut suit came floating out. Only then did the children notice an odd device on the floor of the transparent box that must have been creating gravity. This was why the children were not floating around. The children knew that Armstrong could help them in some way so they took out their pocket flashlights and shined it at Armstrong’s helmet. When he turned their way, the aliens ran to their spaceship, started the spaceship’s engine and flew away. This odd viewing (in Armstrong’s opinion) and seeing the kids stuck in the transparent box was too much for the poor man. He fainted and started bobbing around.

“Oops,” said James, “Looks like he fainted.”

Then, another man with ‘Aldrin’ sewn onto his astronaut suit floated out. Luckily, when he saw the children, he did not faint. Instead, he half-ran, half-floated to the transparent box and gave it a hard kick. The box broke off quite easily and floated away. Inside the box, the children also started floating as the gravity device was broken. Aldrin followed the box, got hold of it, and started pushing it back to the lunar module. Then, the worst thing happened. The children’s oxygen tanks ran out of oxygen. Noticing this, Aldrin tried pushing the box faster.  Finally, they arrived at the lunar module. As soon as they entered the lunar module, Aldrin took a hammer (which luckily was near him) and broke the transparent material. Once the children took a deep breath of oxygen, they explained about Armstrong and how he had fainted and bobbed around. Aldrin asked Jack to wear the extra spacesuit and together, they pushed Armstrong back to the Eagle and revived him. After Armstrong was revived, (which was quite a difficult process) he and Aldrin completed their scheduled work on the moon and flew the lunar module back to the Apollo 11, which was circling above. The children then met the third astronaut, the one who stayed back in the Apollo 11. His name was Michael Collins. So, Collins, Aldrin and Armstrong piloted the Apollo 11 back to Earth while Jack, James and Clara watched them and admired the lovely view. They also enjoyed floating in the Apollo 11 because there was no gravity.

When they were close to Earth, Armstrong got up and said, “Oh no! I forgot. NASA will put us in prison for taking kids to the moon without the U.S. government’s permission!”

“Wait, we did not take them to the moon. We found them on the moon and brought them home,” said Aldrin.

“Who will believe that story?” asked Armstrong.

“You are right!” said Aldrin, “What do we do?”

“I have an idea,” said Armstrong.

He pulled out three large suitcases from a corner and told the children, “You have to get inside these suitcases because nobody should see you. There are holes in the suitcases so you will be able to breathe.”

Just then, it got difficult to breathe so Armstrong left the cockpit. He came back a while later saying that since there were more people breathing oxygen, he had to use the emergency oxygen tank. After Armstrong’s lecture, the children got into the suitcases (one child per suitcase).

As Apollo 11 entered Earth’s atmosphere, it became extremely hot. Finally, everybody was relieved as they had passed the re-entry phase. A few minutes later, everybody heard a splash. Armstrong told the children that they had landed in the sea and that was what caused the splash. A Navy helicopter picked them up and brought them to NASA. After de-briefing, Neil Armstrong could finally go home. Once he went into his house, he opened his suitcases, shook hands with the children, called a taxi and asked the taxi driver to take the children to their house.

A few minutes the children reached home and their mother opened the door. As soon as she opened the door, the children came running to her and narrated the full story. Till date, only experts and scientists know about this matter and they would not leak this information to anybody. They still do not know what caused this. They could not find the people who disappeared in the supermarket and the mall.

Aden Shaffiq (10 years)

Elizabeth Moir School