Journey to the Yellow Planet Revisited

I wrote this story over six years ago, and I thought now would be as good a time as any to look over it again. You can read the version without commentary here, or read a condensed version of my consensus here.   

Journey to the Yellow Planet

  I dipped my dirty toes into the clear, cool water of the lake. (Maybe too many adjectives, but still...) With so many people living nearby, it was hard to believe that it wasn’t trashed. (Environmental commentary. Interesting.) Suddenly the water turned gray. I heard a “pop” and my friend Xavier appeared beside me. (Jumping right into it...)

            “Problem, Lucy,” he said in that fake English accent he always used when he was nervous. (One of those character quirks you'll probably never see in reality, yet still seems to bring a character to life.) He was pacing in circles on the now gray grass. 

            “What is it?” I asked. He pointed at the sky. I nearly fainted when I looked up. (Possibly a little melodramatic, especially given that she wasn't surprised at all a few seconds ago when her friend appeared in front of her...)

            About a hundred spaceships were circling above, each with glowing yellow letters on the

side: Venus XOX. (The first real hint this came from a seven-year-old brain: why XOX? I don't know.) I had no idea why the aliens weren’t getting sick of flying in circles for that long. But they didn’t seem to be getting bored. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying themselves, shooting everything in sight, turning even the pedestrians gray with their guns. (ALERT: The world is turning gray! Why does it seem like these two kids are the only ones noticing?)

            “Where did they come from?” I asked anxiously. (The beginning of my cringeworthy overuse of adverbs...)

            “I don’t know. Venus, probably,” Xavier told me. (Well, duh.)

            “What’re you waiting for?  Let’s go!”

            “We don’t have a spaceship,” Xavier said.

            “WE DON’T HAVE A SPACESHIP?! ARE YOU A WIZARD OR NOT?!” I yelled. (The first real sign that this is shaping up to be a weird Harry Potter fanfic.)

            “Not a very good one,” Xavier muttered. (I was setting up a nice mini-character arc here that disappears later as suddenly as Lucy and Xavier theoretically could have to get to Venus.)

            “C’mon, believe in yourself for once!”

            “Umm… All right,” Xavier said reluctantly. "SPACESORTA!”

            I almost got crushed by the thud that followed, as a large vehicle dropped from Xavier’s wand. It looked sort of like a car with wings. (Don't worry, the description gets better.)

            “Hop in,” he said, grinning.

Inside, there were two soft blue seats, with a trunk in the back (“It can hold anything,” Xavier said proudly), and, instead of a steering wheel, there was a joystick like inside of a plane. (Wait, do planes have joysticks? Really, I did no research for this story.) The thing that really baffled me was the buttons. Millions of little buttons dotted the sides.

            “Want to drive?” questioned Xavier, smiling. (I didn't know back then that "asked" was a perfectly fine word in most situations involving questions.)

            “Sure,” I said nervously.

            Xavier knew I was confused. “….So, this is the brake, the red one here.  The blue one, that’s the gas and, of course, (he indicated the joystick) the direction,” Xavier instructed. (Doesn't sound like millions of buttons. And if it is and we're just skipping to the end, I will say it again. ALERT: The world is turning gray! Can't the guy who made the spaceship appear fly it?)

            “Gee, thanks,” I said. (Who says "gee?")

            “You’re welcome,” he replied.

            “Let’s go!” I held down the blue button and punched the green (light speed).

            “Whoahhhhh!” I landed the ship on Venus and hopped out. (The shortest part of the story is the actual flight to Venus. Weird.)

            I almost burned my skin off. It was boiling. No one could last long. (How about, um, no one could last AT ALL? Oh, well, suspension of disbelief. We've already had wizards and aliens and a world rapidly becoming monochromatic.) The surface, instead of rocky and yellow, was changing color. One second it was a putrid green that reminded me of mucus, next it was light lavender – the color of the flower. (OK, this makes it a little better -- it reminds the reader that this is a sci-fi.)

            Suddenly, an alien walked up to us, (or flew, as Xavier would describe it). (Wait, why wouldn't you describe it as flying?) However, he was not green; he was yellow (probably to camouflage). His dazzling blue eyes moved around, scanning the scene. (Do they really have to be "dazzling?" SO. MANY. ADJECTIVES! GAH!) His black antennae bent over his forehead, slightly covering a tuft of red hair, as he said, “Why are you invading our planet, Earthlings?”

            “Because we want to know why you’re invading us, Venusling,” said Xavier.

            “Xavier, be careful what you say!” I said. (Well, he might have a point -- no time to be polite. The world is turning gray as we speak on the surface of a planet that, what with the acid clouds and such, should have killed us already!)

            “It’s okay.”

            “So, why are you invading our planet?” I asked.

            “I don’t know.”

            “So who does?” I asked worriedly. (They don't need to be saved from the aliens; they need to be saved from the adverbs! They're everywhere!)

            “Ask our leader.”

            “Where does he live?” I wondered loudly.  The alien scribbled on some paper, then handed it to me and we were off. (Wait, they have paper on Venus?)

We pulled ourselves up to the top of a hill. (You'd think the burning surface would still be bothering them.)

“Finally – there!” I panted. A mansion-like fortress stood at the top. Golden gates blocked the path. A large red sign on them said: 

IF YOUR PREDICAMENT DOES

NOT NEED ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY,

YOU ARE ENTERING AT YOUR OWN RISK.

A padlock was attached to the gate. I pulled out my wand (unicorn hair and pine, twelve-and-a-half inches). (OK, this is now pretty clearly a bizarre Harry Potter fanfic.)

“Penetro!” I shouted.

There was a crash and we jumped backward. A second later, a broken heap of metal lay in the street. We stepped over it and I muttered, “Mende!” The gate sprang back. We ran up some silver steps and I pulled the black knocker. (Ooh, so many colors.) The door swung open.

            “Why are you invading our planet?” Xavier asked into the dark void.

            “Earthlings send spacecraft to Venus and their camera flash distorts our planet’s surface,” an odd voice croaked. (More environmental stuff! Interesting.)

He was right. Instead of being rocky, cloudy, and yellow, the surface was flat, clear, and black at that very moment. (Convenient: it changes to illustrate his point!)

“We’ll tell them. Please stop,” I pleaded.

            “No! We enjoy watching your greenery fade,” the alien exclaimed.

            “Go get the fan!” Xavier whispered. (This is where it gets REALLY weird...)

            “What fan?!” I hissed.

            “The giant, solar-powered one in the glove compartment!” Xavier said quietly.

            “Why?” I whispered back, bewildered.

            “It’ll explode him!” Xavier said, lowering his voice even more. (How does he know that? And isn't exploding a little extreme?)

            “I didn’t even know the spaceship had a glove compartment,” I whispered.

            “Just go!”

            I whispered, “Intercept Fan!” I almost got flattened by the weight. “Xavier, come on!” We ran, blowing the fan at the guards in our wake. (Wait, what guards? What happened to the alien leader?) We made it to the spaceship, just as one of the aliens we had missed was only feet from Xavier….. (OK, good tension -- though usually ellipses have THREE dots, not five.)

“Drive!” Xavier yelled. The sweat dripping from my glasses did not stop me. (With all that time on freakin' Venus, you'd think there'd be more dripping from her glasses than sweat. What about sulfur?) Once again I pressed the blue button and pushed the green for what felt like a hundred times. Finally, the spaceship took off like a bullet.

            The next morning, the front of the newspaper said:

Our Daily Earth (A worldwide newspaper? Hmmm...has potential.)

TWO EIGHT-YEAR-OLD WIZARDS SAVE PLANET (#3 on 1,000 Headlines to See Before You Die)

Xavier Dunn and Lucy Perspire (Does this have something to do with the sweat dripping off her glasses, or did I just not know what "perspire" meant?) traveled to Venus to save our planet from aliens. (Yeah, cool, but where was the military?) We are glad to offer Xavier and Lucy a position in the National Hall of Historical Figures. (If this is a global newspaper, then what nation is the Hall of Historical Figures in?)

We accepted gladly.

“Will they have statues of us?” asked Xavier hopefully.

            “I hope so,” I said. “Maybe we’ll be carrying a golden fan.” (There's that Burr sense of humor.)
To conclude, with all its little inconsistencies and adverbs, this quirky little story is actually pretty decent, especially when you consider it's the work of a seven-year-old. It reads a lot better now than it did a couple of years ago when I was so hung up on how crazy it was that I took it for granted.