Image by Stefan Popovici from Pixabay
“I would hate to be alone on Mars because who wants to see the blue sunsets alone?”
“Ain't it the truth, because that would really have you feeling kinda blue.”
Seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow and eight-year-old Gracie Trent were discussing what they knew about life on Mars on a fine summer morning on Earth.
“Edwina was saying that we have to really focus on what shade of red Mars is so our astronaut suits match,” Amanda said.
“I think it is probably between rust and orange, because the pictures look more like rusty sand, but when you look at Mars in the sky, it does look kinda orange,” Gracie said, “so both should work.”
“OK, so then Grayson is going to build us our spaceship,” Amanda said. “The new Lego sets came today, so he says that we just need to scale up the space station and ships and stuff and we should be good to go.”
“The nice thing about space travel is that there's no traffic out there,” Gracie said, “so if we aim right on a clear night, we should be good on that too.”
“Yeah, but, airplanes, so we probably should call and make sure that we don't run into one of them.”
“I guess we gotta call the airport,” Gracie said. “Does your family have a favorite airline that can tell the others?”
“I don't really know,” Amanda said, “because Papa was gathering the seven of us and had all of them get their lives together so we could be together as a family, so I'm guessing all of them would be OK for a job like this.”
“OK,” Gracie said. “One of my cousins works for Delta, so I'll just call over there to take care of that part when we are ready – hey, Grandma, isn't it our Cousin Delia still over at Delta?”
“Yes, Gracie, she is – why?” Mrs. Velma Stepforth said, and then had to hold a straight face while Gracie gave her a complete answer.
“Well,” Mrs. Stepforth said, “we certainly wouldn't want there to be a collision between y'all's Lego spaceship and a plane.”
“No, because they are not ready for all that, with all these plane crashes and stuff,” Amanda said. “Grayson builds his stuff solid, but I don't know what any of these other people are doing.”
“Ain't the the truth,” Gracie said. “It was like that documentary – how are you just going to put up a convertible airplane like that without telling people when it was time to let their ponytails out to blow in the wind?”
“And then, sometimes it's winter, and people don't wanna be cold,” Amanda said. “We have really smart grown-ups here, but sometimes I wonder what the rest of them are thinking.”
“Ain't it the truth, Mandie, ain't it the truth,” Gracie said.