The Jopgobbies by Tortellini Smith

Mandy sat in the kitchen at the table. The front door was open and warm air was floating in from the outside. Mandy had her head in her hands, and her brown eyes were staring into space. Her mouth was bent into a slight frown. The soft breeze had a happy feel to it, but Mandy wasn’t happy. After a few minutes, a boy about five years old walked in.
“If a parrot flew in you wouldn’t notice.”
Mandy, surprised, turned around. The boy stood on a stool at the kitchen counter. The cabinet above him was open and his small hand was reaching up toward a cookie jar that was just out of his reach.
“What did you say?” Mandy asked.
“I said,” the boy explained to her, “that you wouldn’t notice if a parrot flew in.”
Mandy shrugged. The boy came over to the table and dragged one of its chairs to the counter. It made a loud, scraping noise across the floor. Mandy put her fingers in her ears.
“By the way T.J., Mom probably won’t enjoy the fact that the cookies are all gone when she comes home,” shouted Mandy in an irritated way. The screeching continued. “Can you stop!” she yelled.
T.J. parked the chair at the counter. Then, putting on a smug grin he said,
“Now, now, Mandy, that won’t work… will it now? No one is going to tell Mom... are they?”
Mandy muttered something that sounded awfully like,
“Maybe.”
“No you won’t,” T.J. said, ”because I brought my forget-ray down here.” T.J. fished around in his pocket, finally pulling out a small metal box with a big silver dial and a bright red light on it. He flashed it at her warningly, and then put it down. If T.J. had used the forget-ray in the way that he wanted, Mandy would have forgotten the whole cookie incident.
Mandy turned away from the sandy-haired boy, but T.J. was determined to get her out of the room.
“Mandy,” he said walking toward her. “Have you had your half-hour of nature? I think not!”
Mandy pretended to ignore him. T.J waved the forget ray in front of her face threateningly. Mandy rolled her eyes at him, sighed, picked up her mini-laptop and ran out the front door, slamming it behind her.
I shouldn’t let him boss me around, Mandy thought, easing herself in front of a grapefruit tree. Mandy looked around the yard. Many people from earth would say that Mandy’s planet, Koipz, was beautiful, but humans from Koipz were so absorbed in technology, they didn’t even notice their own planet’s beauty. In fact, that is why this worldwide, enforced spirituality was invented, spending a half-hour in nature every single day, to separate people from technology for a little bit, daily.
Unfortunately, people like Mandy brought technology outside with them during their nature time.
After a half hour of I.M.ing her friends underneath the grapefruit tree, Mandy went inside. Her mother was at the stove cooking.
“Hey Mandy,” she said . “I heard you didn’t get in to the space/technology competition. I know you were so set on winning and getting that free trip to space.”
“Yeah,” Mandy mumbled. Mandy’s mother gave her a comforting hug.
“It’s O.K. Mandy, you’ll have another chance.”
Mandy had her mind set on going to the MASC competition. Main Astronaut Space Corporation. Maybe then she could go to space, which was her dream!
“By the way Mandy,” her mother said, “Do you know what happened to the cookies?”
“Yes, I do.” Mandy said. “T.J. ate them.”
Her mother groaned.
“Trevor Jackson! Come in here!” Mandy’s mother shouted.
T.J. slunk into the kitchen murmuring something in a regretful way that sounded something like, “should have,” and “forget-ray,” and “Mandy.”
Mandy, thinking this was none of her business, crept out of the room. She walked slowly up the carpeted stairway toward her bedroom.
All of a sudden a voice said,
“Mandy...is that you?”
Mandy realized it was her father.
“Can you come here for a second?” he asked her. Her father was in his bedroom working on a book he was doing about the atomic structures of planets. He was an astronomer/scientist/astronaut.
Mandy walked into the bedroom. Her dad was sitting at a desk, working on the computer, and watching a football game on a wide plasma-screen T.V. Mandy went over and turned the T.V. off. Her father turned around to face her.
“Right,” he said. “Mandy, sorry, I heard you didn’t get in to the MASC competition. I was wondering if you could come to space with me. You see, a person that was going to come with me on a space expedition broke her hip, so I was wondering if you could come in her place. I’m going to the planet Kuop to investigate its atomic structure for my book.”
Mandy stood there open-mouthed.
“M-m-me?” she asked disbelievingly.
“Yes,” her dad said.
“W-w-when?” she continued.
“In a week.” Her father told her.
Mandy was amazed. Her dream had been filled so easily!

υ

A week later, Mandy was getting ready to go to the space station.
“Now, dear,” her mother said as Mandy lugged her suitcases to the hover-car. “Take good care of yourself”
“I will,” Mandy replied. Mandy’s mother and T.J. were standing on the front porch, watching Mandy and her father get ready to leave. Mandy was taking her pet robot, B41, to Kuop, and he was walking around, helping Mandy get the hover-car set.
“I think that is it,” Mandy’s father said appearing in the doorway, arms loaded with bags. He piled everything in the back of the hover-car, and wiped the sweat off his head with a bandana. He embraced his family members and then hopped in the hover-car. Mandy then kissed and hugged her mother and brother goodbye and joined her father and B41 in the hover-car.
As her father started driving, her mother pulled out a silk hankie, and waved them good-bye. When Mandy and her dad were no longer in sight, Mandy’s mother blew her nose and while she wasn’t looking, T.J. disappeared.

It took about 5 minutes to get to the space station from Mandy’s house. Once she got there, they found her father’s private spacecraft, the CRAB VI. When they got on, her father’s friend, Dr. Harry Copol was there. He was going to help her dad with the work he needed to do. They were soon ready for take-off.
The countdown in the control center went off loudly in Mandy’s ears. The spaceship shook so much she could feel her brain jiggle in her head. Her whole chest felt very heavy, and her hands and feet were vibrating. They were in the atmosphere for about 10 minutes. Then, finally everything was free.
“Dad?” Mandy asked. “I’m going to get something to eat, O.K.?”
“O.K.” came the sound of her dad’s voice.
Mandy snapped out of her seatbelt and rose to the ceiling. Swimming like a fish she made her way over to a cupboard. Opening it, she came face to face with a boy.
It was T.J.

υ

At supper that night Mandy and her father learned how T.J. had snuck aboard the spaceship. Now that they were in space there was really nothing they could do about it.
T.J. had used some sort of transporting device to get on the space shuttle. Mandy was not happy about this. She had wanted this to be her adventure.
Mandy spent her days in space with technology. Even though she had always wanted to be in space, now that she was here, she wasn’t sure she liked it. The air was stuffy, the beds were uncomfortable, and the shuttle felt just like home. What Mandy wanted was for space to be different than home. She wanted a break. One day she told her dad that she needed to do computer and technology. She felt as if it was her life.
B41, however, loved space. The 1 foot tall silver robot could often be found steering the spaceship, or mapping out distances amongst landmarks. On the springs he had for legs he would hop around and speak to Mandy, her dad, T.J. or the doctor. B41’s voice sounded very mechanical but he could be understood very well. Mandy found him a great companion because he would never yell at you or criticize you, which were Mandy’s pet peeves.
On the 6th day they landed on the planet Kuop. When her father opened the hatch he was hit with a fit of sneezing.
Later in the day he and the Doctor had gotten really bad colds. They were really sick.
“Mandy,” her dad told her, sneezing multiple times, “Would you get me my measurements? I’m afraid I’m too sick to get them.”
Mandy handed her father a box of Kleenexes and said,
“Sure!”
He told her to wet the earth with a special liquid, and fill a capsule with the wet dirt.
The next morning T.J., B41 and Mandy set out. There was plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere, so that was not a problem. The CRAB VI had landed in a rocky area, so Mandy decided to walk a little before getting the measurements. They walked a few kilometers, and soon the ship was out of sight.
“Why don’t we rest here guys?” Mandy proposed to T.J. and B41.
“O.K.” They answered. They lay down under the shade of a tree-like object. Mandy pulled out her laptop and typed furiously. After a few minutes she looked up. T.J. was not in sight.
“T.J.?” she said. She looked at B41 who was shaking.
“What’s …” she started, but was interrupted when something musty-smelling knocked her to the ground and she passed out.

υ
She woke up in a clean white room. Sun was coming in through a small window. Three soft piles of fluff lay on the floor. B41, and T.J. were there too.
All of a sudden an unfamiliar voice said,
“WILL THE NEW BOY, GIRL, AND ROBOT PLEASE ENTER THE GREAT HALL.”
The voice stopped and the door to the room magically opened. The three of them stepped silently out the door into a gleaming hall. The hall was lined with what looked like rabbits, but rabbits made out of lint and dirt.
“Well,” boomed a tall bunny on a throne, the king or something.
“Why!” T.J. said. “You guys are dust bunnies!”
“More or less,” said the king. “But we prefer to be called Jopgobbies.
But anyway, we have taken you prisoner, and you will remain here forever!”

υ
“T.J.,” B41 said the next morning. “How will we escape?”
Mandy, her brother, and B41 sat around a television watching some random show. All of a sudden Mandy had an idea.
“T.J.?” she asked. “Can you make a tracking device?”
“Maybe,” he answered. “But it will take awhile.”
“That’s fine,” Mandy said. “At this point only technology can save us.”

υ

A few days later the locater wasn’t ready. When Mandy went to visit her genius brother in his room. He had dismantled his forget-ray and the room’s television and was putting together a combination of the two in order to make a locator device.
“It’s just about ready.” T.J. told her.
Despite that, she figured things were going pretty badly. Mandy was starting to lose hope. She spent her days in front of the T.V. finding little excitement in anything. Once a day they would go on a walk, which Mandy hated. One day though, she found a pretty black rock on the walk. In her room she absentmindedly dragged it across the ground while watching TV. It made a big black mark. She decided to draw with it. One day she was watching a soccer game and writing a poem on the floor when a maid jopgobbie came in with a bowl of hot water for Mandy to bathe in.
“What are you doing?” the maid asked.
“I’m writing,” answered Mandy plainly.
“You can write?” the maid said amazed.
“Yes, I can. Quite fluently actually. Why. Can’t you?”
“Certainly not,” the maid told her. “No jopgobbie can. Not even the King. I suppose you can read as well then?”
“Of course,” Mandy said, puzzled.
“How strange,” said the maid. “Can the other two read too?”
“Yes,” continued Mandy. “But not very well.”
“Well then, I must tell the King. He dreadfully wants to learn.” The maid quickly left the room.
Mandy found the whole thing amazing. Not read? How could they live that way?
The next day the maid told her that the king wanted to see her.
The King’s name was Burt Beddddkinz and he was a grumpy guy. Mandy was not looking forward to meeting him. She stood before him in the throne room.
“So,” he said. “You can read.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered proudly.
“Well, I can’t, so I have decided that you are going to teach me.”
“Yes, sir,” Mandy said again.
“Good. You start tomorrow. You may leave now,” the king commanded.
Mandy did not leave.
“Sir,” she asked, “I was wondering if I could get something in return for my effort.”
“Like what?” he replied huffily.
“Like if you take me and my brother and robot back to our spaceship.”
Now, the King wanted to learn how to read very badly.
“Fine,” he said gruffly.
Mandy quietly exited the room.

The next day, Mandy worked with the king in the dining room. She longed for some media. Then she slowly went over the letters with him. He was a really fast learner, but sometimes he got stuck on letters and Mandy would get really frustrated.
“Girl, “ he said one time when he had trouble writing the letter S. “If you get impatient with me one more time, the deal is off.” Mandy concentrated harder after that.
Slowly, the king got better at reading and writing.
Mandy got better at being kind and friendly. Soon she became friends with the King. They would go on walks together and she would teach him to read and spell the different things. He would also teach her what the things were and she took a new interest in her surroundings. It inspired her to read more too. They looked funny together; the big 6-foot jopgobbie and the petite, blond, twelve year-old human Mandy. One day on a walk, she took a sample of the dirt for her dad.
Soon, the King became almost as good at reading as she was. It had been about two weeks since she had been kidnapped, although it seemed longer. She had almost forgotten how homesick she was. One day she told the king that she needed to go home. The king reluctantly agreed.
As they neared the Crab VI spaceship, the door was opened. The doctor and Mandy’s father came out. Both looked tired and bleary eyed and they were both sneezing violently.
Mandy went and hugged her father. She then introduced her dad to the King of the jopgobbies.
“Nice…(sneeze) to…..(sneeze)meet you…(sniff) your highness…(sneeze)” Mandy’s father said.
The king apologized for abducting B41, T.J., and Mandy and gave the Doctor and Mandy’s father nose plugs because the reason for their sneezing was that they were allergic to the jopgobbie’s hair.
Mandy promised to email the king, and said goodbye to him. T.J., B41 and Mandy then walked into the crab VI. On the flight home Mandy learned a lot about space and spent as little time as possible on the computer.
Mandy went back to space often after that. She visited her jopgobbie friends multiple times and explored new places. She also learned to deal with her problems in her head, not with technology.
When Mandy grew up she became a famous astronaut. People admired her later for her love of nature and space.
The planet Koipz learned eventually from Mandy’s and other people’s experiences, that technology wasn’t exactly the answer to problems.
Mandy then lived a happy life.

Thursday, March 8, 2007