Boon On the Moon by John Huddles

Author:John Huddles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Notable Kids Publishing
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

By now Byron and José Ignacio were exploring the inner abyss of their lunar cave, using Byron’s flashlight to see by. They had just come to a fork in the rocky passage.

“You go east,” Byron said through his spacesuit intercom. “I’ll go west.”

Boy and robot turned in the same direction, bumping into each other, Byron’s nose jabbing a knob on José Ignacio’s torso.

“You go EAST I said!”

“I was!”

“No, you were not! THAT way’s east. What’s the MATTER with you?”

“All right! I didn’t want to go alone! It’s spooky down here! And dark!”

“So turn on some extra rotors!”

Without waiting for José Ignacio to do it himself, Byron stood on his tiptoes and cranked a dial on José Ignacio’s neck, causing various light-emitting mechanisms to start spinning inside the robot’s transparent cranium, lighting his path in various colors.

“Remember,” Byron said, “a real explorer can’t find new oceans unless first he has the courage to lose sight of shore.”

With a sigh, José Ignacio went off on his own, while Byron went in the opposite direction. He made his way through a tunnel of rock for about twenty feet before he saw something dead ahead that changed everything.

“José Ignacio!”

José Ignacio came flying back at top speed. He hovered beside Byron, staring in disbelief. Ahead of them was a thick curtain of green, leaf-bearing vines, completely blocking the tunnel.

“Vegetation!” Byron whispered.

“But there’s no atmosphere on the Moon,” José Ignacio said. “So how can there be flora?”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Byron admitted, taking a step forward, “but I’m gonna find out.”

“Wait! It might be toxic to the touch! It might be crawling with flesh-eating microbes! It might come alive and strangle you on contact! It might—

Byron grabbed José Ignacio by the claw and leapt at the vines, easily yanking the robot along, since he was already hovering on his jets in the low gravity.

They plunged together through the thick curtain of vines and exited the other side in a tumble. Standing up, they brushed themselves clean of stray leaves. Then Byron widened the angle on his flashlight, revealing a world of lush, blue-green vegetation. With only the flashlight to see by, it wasn’t sufficiently bright to get a very clear view of things, but it was good enough. Byron could make out leaves and ferns, ivies and wildflowers, even a waterfall.

“Rabiznazibar!” he whispered, coining a new word for himself on the spot. “It’s some kinda whole sub-lunar ecosystem! José Ignacio, do you realize what this means? I’m not just an explorer anymore: I’m a discoverer!”

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