Josiah and the Shiny Field Find - Rated G

Once, there was a little boy named Josiah. Josiah lived on a farm with his mother and father.

He liked living on a farm because he got to help his father take care of the family’s animals – and he got to help his mother raise all sorts of vegetables in the family’s garden. He liked living on a farm because he always had anything he needed.

One day, while Josiah was out working in the field with his father, he noticed something shiny in the dirt. He yelled to his father, who was driving the family tractor up and down the field, but the tractor was too loud and his father didn’t hear him.

Josiah stopped walking alongside his father’s tractor and stopped to investigate the shiny object. He got down on his knees and put down the tools he had been carrying. He pulled his spade out of his back pocket and began digging all around the strange thing.

It was purple, blue, and even had glimmers of pink on it. It looked like it was made of some sort of metal. As he dug the dirt from around it, he quickly saw that it was the size of a baseball.

He dug the dirt away from the weird little thing until it was completely free. …and then he picked it up. In his hand, it felt warm and cold at the same time. One second, it felt like it had just come out of his mother’s refrigerator. The next, it felt like it had just been warmed up in her oven. Though, no matter how cold or hot it felt, it never burned him or made him want to put it down.

As he held the strange little thing, it started to hum. He put it up to his ear and it got louder and louder. He could hear parts moving inside of it, and started to think that maybe putting this odd thing up to his head might not be the best idea.
Louder and louder it got, until Josiah panicked. He threw the object as hard as he could.

But, as it flew through the air, something incredible happened. Instead of flying away from him like a normal ball would – it stopped in mid-air.

Astonished, he walked up to the object and stared at it in disbelief. Floating in the air right in front of his face, he could hear it humming, even louder than before.

Suddenly, it started spinning. Faster and faster it spun, and he quickly realized that it was growing more and more with every spin.

He backed up as quick as he could, and before he knew it, the baseball sized object he had just dug up was the size of his mother’s car. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Then, as quickly as it had started spinning – it stopped.

This huge bluish-purplish-pinkish object THUNKED back down to the ground in front of him.

Confused, curious, and a little scared – Josiah inched closer and closer to the object, which wasn’t humming anymore. He reached a hand out to see if it was hot or cold, but as soon as the skin of his fingers touched the massive ball, the whole thing lit up.

He heard a hissing sound, like air being pushed out of a balloon. Josiah pulled his hand back as quick as he could, but before he knew it, where his hand had been – a doorway appeared.

He looked around and could see his father driving away from him on the tractor, completely oblivious to what was going on not half a field away. As he stood there in disbelief staring at this gigantic metal ball that now had a door on it, Josiah got a crazy idea.

He would crawl inside.

Crawling inside of the huge metal ball, Josiah was quickly surprised how bright it was inside. From the outside, he couldn’t see through the ball, or even into it. From inside, he could see everything that had been outside through the walls.

In the middle of the ball, there was a chair.

He walked over to it and sat down. As soon as his bottom touched the chair, the doorway slid back shut. He felt a little scared, but this crazy ball didn’t feel like a trap. It felt, different.

He looked around, out through the see-through walls. He could see his father still driving away on the tractor. He could see the farmhouse and the barn. He could even see his mother’s car driving down the driveway. She must have been going to the store.

Josiah was starting to wonder why a big metal ball would have a chair in the middle of it for no reason, when suddenly a keyboard sprung up, out of one of the armrests.

It came straight up out of the seat, and then laid down across his lap – giving him a good view of all of the buttons on it.

He had seen a keyboard a few times before, when his mother let him play on the family computer – but this, this was different. The letters didn’t look like the letters his mother’s keyboard had on them. He wondered what country this this must be from.

Too scared to push a button that he didn’t understand, he had just decided he’d better not try to type anything when he saw a little red button at the top corner of the keyboard. On it, there was a picture of a little white house. “Home” he thought – and before he stopped to think about what “home” this little button might mean, he pushed it.

The ball began to spin around him. He could hear the whirrrr of the outside spinning, but surprisingly, his chair didn’t spin at all. Faster and faster the ball began to spin and the suddenly, it took off!

There he was in this see-through ball, flying straight up! If he hadn’t been so excited, he might have been scared. He looked down as he saw his farm and house get smaller and smaller.

He could see his neighbor’s houses, and before he knew it – he was high enough to see his little town a mile away. He had never been this high before and the view was amazing.

The ball climbed through clouds, past birds – up and up it went.

Suddenly, he realized that this ball was taking him out to space. This made him nervous. He was just a little boy, he wasn’t supposed to be out in space. What would his parents say??

Then, almost like it knew he was nervous, the ball stopped climbing. Peaceful music started playing out of speakers that he couldn’t see.

The music calmed him down some. Then, the other armrest opened up and a mug of cocoa came rising up out of it.

Josiah grabbed the mug and took a big drink. The warm, sweet chocolate helped calm him down even more. He realized that he had gone so high that he had left the earth’s atmosphere, but thanks to the music and the cocoa, he wasn’t scared anymore.

As soon as he started to calm down some, the ball started to fly forward – through space. Josiah was so excited and intrigued as he flew through space – looking down at all the different parts of the planet that he had never seen that he didn’t notice the giant space ship that he was quickly approaching.

He didn’t notice it until he was so close that a huge door had opened up in it and the ball he was flying in was headed straight inside!

As he flew into the space ship, he heard the giant door close behind him. The ball stopped flying and landed, and before he could think anything, the door in the ball had opened up again.

Today had been such a crazy adventure, that he decided he shouldn’t be scared, so he crawled out through the door.

Suddenly, a loud voice from behind him echoed through the room. “YOU FOUND IT!!”

Josiah turned around and saw a giant green alien wearing a white shirt with brown pants and suspenders running towards the ball. He would have been scared if the alien hadn’t looked so silly with those suspenders on. “I can’t believe you found it!” the alien said, looking down at him.

Josiah heard a familiar spinning sound and turned to see the ball shrinking back to its original baseball size behind him.

“What IS it?” he asked.

“This is my son’s Sleepy Sphere…” started the alien. “We put him in it whenever he’s being fussy and it flies behind the family’s ship so he can look around and have a good view of whatever planet we are flying by that day. It calms him down and helps put him to sleep.”

He chuckled.

“ It even gives him hot cocoa when he’s upset!”

Josiah thought about how when he had felt nervous, calming music had turned on and he had been given hot cocoa.

The huge alien in brown suspenders was smiling at him. “I’m so happy you brought it back! How can I ever repay you?”

“Repay me?” Josiah croaked. “I don’t need anything. I’m just happy you got it back.”

“Nonsense!” The alien father exclaimed, grabbing his big brown suspenders with his huge alien hands. “My wife has been carrying the baby around for hours trying to get him to calm down. Have you ever heard a Garlon baby throw a fit? I’d rather bob for apples in a volcano!”

“A Garlon?” Josiah asked, puzzled.

“Haha, I forget.. You’re from Earth. You’ve probably never even seen a Garlon at all. Well, never mind that. My name is Tom, and I HAVE to give you something. What is one thing you would like more than anything else in the world?”

Josiah thought and thought. What DID he want?

He had always liked living on the farm because it had everything he ever needed, right there. He had fun things to do outside with his father, and fun things to do inside with his mother.

As he thought about things that a boy his age might want, it hit him. When he had been inside the ball, flying up towards space – he had been so excited about the amazing view he had.

Living on the farm, he had seen a lot of things, but he had never seen the Earth from up so high. It had been an amazing sight.

“Could you..” he started, “Could you maybe fly me around the planet once, so I could see other things from really high up? I liked seeing the world like that. I felt like a bird!”

Tom laughed. “Could I? Little boy, I’m going to give you the treat of your life!”

He reached down and picked Josiah up, and lifted him all the way up on his shoulders.

“Hang on!” he shouted up to him.

Josiah held tight as Tom walked him from the back end of the huge alien ship all the way up to the front. He saw bedrooms, a kitchen, and all sorts of other things. This HUGE space ship was just like the camper that his dad had always wanted, but way WAY bigger.

Before he knew it, they had made it to the front and were staring out the biggest windshield Josiah had ever seen. There were two seats in front of the windshield and Tom reached up and then plopped him down into one of them.

As Tom sat down in the seat beside him, Josiah leaned back in his huge chair.

The seat he was in was super comfortable.

“Alright ship,” Tom started “We’re heading back to Earth. I’m gonna need two cocoas, umm.. some rock music..” he looked down at Josiah, “You Earth boys like rock music, right?”

Josiah nodded his head.

“Ok yeah, some rock music and two steering wheels.”

As the ship started to whir into motion around him, Josiah started to wonder if he had heard correctly.

Had Tom asked for TWO steering wheels?

Sure enough, just as he finished the thought, a huge steering wheel came spinning up out of the floor right in front of him.

“I’m going to get us flying over Earth,” Tom said, smiling at him. “Then, you can fly us wherever you want to go. You’ll get the best view of your entire life!”

Josiah clung onto the steering wheel in front of him.

Soon, they were flying over Earth. They were higher than he could believe, but still close enough to see how beautiful his planet really was.

“Ok!” said Tom, chuckling. “I’m going to turn on the ship’s invisibility field so we can go wherever we want without being spotted. Try to keep it under 500. I don’t want another ticket!”

That afternoon, Josiah had the experience of a lifetime. Flying from one side of the planet to the other. He saw mountains, cities, huge prairies, and oceans bluer than he could have ever imagined.

He had never felt so free, flying this high and this fast. He was seeing a side of his planet that he never thought he would get to see.

After a few hours, Josiah noticed that his part of the Earth was starting to turn to night.

He realized that while he had been having the time of his life, his parents must have been worried about him.

“Oh no!” he exclaimed, ” I forgot that my parents don’t know where I am!”

Tom let out a huge belly laugh.

“You’re such a good boy! You bring my son’s Sleepy Sphere back AND you think about how your parents feel! Well, don’t you worry.” And with that, he reached across the cockpit, patted Josiah on the back, and started speaking to the ship.

“I’m going to need a teleport tube with time travel here in a minute ship, got it?” he said, looking up at the ceiling.

“Affirmative, Captain. Preparing time travel teleport tube. Tube will be ready in five minutes.”

“Good. Go ahead and put the ship on auto pilot. I want to say goodbye to our guest.”

“Affirmative, Captain.”

Tom then stood up and stretched his huge green arms. “Come with me.” He said, smiling.

Josiah unbuckled and stood up. He stretched his arms, too. The last few hours had flown by, but when he stood up, he realized how long he had been sitting down.

The two walked back through the ship, but instead of going straight back to the dock where he had first seen Tom, they turned this time.

He saw more and more of the ship as he followed.

“Oh, is he leaving?” he heard a female voice behind him.

When he turned around, he saw a giant mother alien, carrying a little green baby, who was wearing a diaper that must have been bigger than Josiah’s entire body.

“Thank you so much for bringing the Sleepy Sphere back!” she said as he and the Tom continued walking.

Before long, they were in a big room filled with giant glass tubes.

The tubes looked like they were big enough even for Tom to stand in. Compared to Josiah, they were MASSIVE.

“When you get in this tube,” Tom started “you’ll be sent back home, and sent back in time to just after the sleepy sphere took off to bring you up here.”

“O.. Ok..” he stammered.

Josiah couldn’t believe the day he had just had. Going to space, meeting an alien, flying a space ship, and now he was going to get to teleport AND time travel??

As he stepped into the tube, Tom said “Oh, wait.”

Josiah looked up at him, curious.

“Take this, we got it for my son but he’s not quite old enough for it just yet. I think you’ll have fun with it.” He said, tossing a light blue, metallic Frisbee into the tube with Josiah.

Looking down at it, Josiah saw that it looked like a space ship out of one of his cartoon movies – nothing like the GIANT ship he had just spent his afternoon in.

“Thank you very much!” he shouted as the tube started to hum.

“You’re sure welcooooo” he heard Tom start - but before he knew it, everything had turned white around him.

His body felt warm and tingly. He blinked and blinked again, trying to figure out what was going on around him. There were no ceiling or walls, and below him, no floor. Everything was just.. white.

Just as he started to shout out to Tom, hoping he could hear him, he blinked one more time and then POOF, he was back in the field where he had started his day.

It was sunny outside, and he could hear his father’s tractor driving away from him halfway across the field.

He looked up and could see the Sleepy Sphere, spinning and flying straight up – taking the earlier version of him on his wild adventure. He shook his head in disbelief.

What a crazy day he had just had. He had started in his father’s field and ended up in the teleportation bay of a GIANT space ship.

It had been such a wonderful day, but he started to worry if it had maybe been TOO wonderful. He wondered if it had really happened, or if he had just day-dreamed the whole thing.

Looking down, he smiled when he realized he was still holding the space ship Frisbee that Tom had given him.

Clutching it tightly, he ran all the way across the field to where his father was turning the tractor around, just about to head back his direction. His father saw him coming and turned off the tractor.

“What’s got you smiling so big, buddy?? Did ya’ find something neat in the field?” He asked, looking down at Josiah and his new Frisbee.

Josiah looked down at his hands, and then back up to his father.

“I sure did.”