The crew discovers an underwater city and king (Jon Bass) that miiiiiight not be the exact one they’re looking for. Featuring two new stories: “The Snowball Safe,” a story about a girl who discovers an ingenious method to thwart yetis, by Brynn, an 11 year old from Michigan, and “Claudia the Cloud,” a story about a shape-shifting cloud that discovers it’s true purpose, written by an 8 year old from the UK named Cecillia.
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Illustration by Camila Franklin
Listen to the episode, and scroll down for the original stories!
Original Stories
The Snowball Safe
by Brynn, age 11, Michigan
There was once a girl named Lily. She had dark hair, green eyes, and was 5 feet tall by the time she was 10 years old. That was when it all started. She had just wanted to build a snowman. Being kids, her brother and sister, James and Ginny, wanted to build it with her. She allowed it without knowing what she was getting herself into. Her mom came out with them to make sure they didn't get into any trouble. Lily decided that they could make a GIANT snowman! She invited all of their neighbors to help build it.
Then, something started, that she had never meant to happen... A snowball fight!!!!!
It all started when they had been putting the middle onto the bottom. Part of the middle had fallen off because it was bigger than all off them combined. It fell onto one of their neighbors heads. No one noticed. Except for the neighbor, that is. The neighbor threw a snowball at someone else and it caused a chain reaction.
Soon, everyone started throwing snowballs at each-other.
People were throwing snowballs so rapidly and shouting so loudly, that they woke the king of the yetis, Jeff, from his sleep, making an eternal winter. Jeff came down, froze everyone in sight, and crushed the house. Then he buried them in the snow. Everyone, that is, except Lily. She was an extremely quick thinker and had been able to hollow out the inside of the bottom snowball. She had then climbed inside the snowball and built a wall of snow in front of her so she wouldn't be found. She called it The Snowball Safe. Jeff couldn't let all of the snow go to waste, and so he sent down his whole kingdom down to play in it. When they got down, they looked at the snowman.
"So Bob," said one, "Does this snowman look at all suspicious to you?"
"No Frank," said Bob, "It just looks like a normal snowman to me."
"Well, if this is important later, I'll say I told you so," Frank replied.
"Foreshadowing!" said Lily.
"Who said that?" asked Bob.
"Nobody..." Lily answered, "It's just me, the wind!"
"Oh. That makes total sense and will never backfire!" said Frank.
Eventually, The Snowball Safe froze and the wall in front of it became a door. Shortly after that, the yeti kingdom became bored and decided to go back to the palace. Lily heard the foot-steps recede and once they were gone, she ran to the store and, since no one was there, she was able to get everything for free. She bought 38,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of ice cream, ran back to The Snowball Safe, and put it all in, with room to spare. She went into what remained of the house and found a TV, spare clothes, her guitar, a bed, her toothbrush, a pillow, and some blankets. She put them all into The Snowball Safe too.
Then, she searched the snow for the frozen statues of James, Ginny, and her mom. When she found them, she brought them into The Snowball Safe. It was warm in there for some reason, warm enough to melt ice. But The Snowball Safe was magic so it didn't melt.
Apparently, so were the statues that were once her family. She then realized what she had to do. She had to put the yetis back to sleep.
She grabbed her guitar and sprinted to the castle and by the time she got there, she was panting, which was weird, because it was less than 20 steps away.
She disguised herself as a yeti and broke into the castle. She told all of the yetis that she was a musician who had been traveling across the world on tour.
They let Lily play and slowly they fell asleep. Lily ran back home and brought everyone into The Snowball Safe.
"What is this place?" asked Ginny.
"This, my friends, is The Snowball Safe." Lily replied.
"Whoa!!!" Ginny gaped at The Snowball Safe.
"I think this is going to be where our family lives now," Lily told them.
"Do you think we can all fit?" James asked.
"Well," Lily answered, "This snowball is more than twice the size our house was, so, yeah, definitely."
"Yeah!!!" They all exclaimed.
And so they've lived in The Snowball Safe ever since. And it's said that if you go to their house, it still stands.
Claudia the Cloud
by Cecilia, age 8, UK
Once there was a cloud called Claudia. Claudia was a special cloud. Claudia could morph. When she morphed she could change into as many shapes as she wanted. She loved to do this because she loved to watch the humans down below watch her fun unique shapes. Unfortunately where she lived there were loads of rainy days so whenever there was a rain cloud she would go as high high high as possible to get away from all the stormy weather and when ever there was white weather when all the clouds would get stuck together and there was white sky she would heave and pull apart but it was often too hard. She needed everyone to help pull but the all just simply refused. One day she got fed up with all the bad weather. When its raining the people didn’t want to lie on their back and stare at her morphing in to bunnies and trains. So she visited and old friend and went to their treehouse. She asked for advice about all the storm and cloudy weather, and to her surprise he said yes. But how? Well you have to go far far away all the way to the Sahara dessert and help all the people. Oh that’s easy so she set off on her long journey to the Sahara dessert across seas and mountains and cities she finally arrived. To her surprise she noticed no other clouds for MILES! She also noticed that all the people were sad and VERY VERY thirsty. Immediately she began morphing into as many funny, weird, unique & satisfying shapes but no-one seamed to bother. This got her puzzled, suddenly un idea came “all these people are thirsty not bored they want water!” So she puffed up her chest (or the bit that counts as a chest) and made it rain she found a big hole and created a fresh water lake the people were so happy! She rushed back and thanked him for his help, she went outside and made it rain.THE END!!!
