As the Story Pirates begin to traverse the different underground layers of the earth, they encounter a dance party led by EDM-loving dinosaurs (Kimmy Gatewood and Rebekka Johnson). Featuring two new stories: “Snakes and People,” a story about a massive, national effort to teach snakes to talk, written by Mikayla, a 9 year old from South Africa, and “The Fish Person,” a story about the weirdest-flavored donut you’ve ever tried, written by an 8 year old from Arizona named Mia.
Scroll down for the original stories behind the episode!
Illustration by Camila Franklin
Mission from Rolo
Rolo has a mission for our listeners! Each week, Rolo is going to share a mission so that your kids can put their imaginations to work after they listen to the new episode. Starting next week, these will be a Creator Club exclusive.
This week, everyone can access the activity for FREE! Rolo wants your kids to draw their own dinosaur catchers. Then, grownups can submit their creations and Rolo will share some of them with next week's activity!
Original Stories
Snakes and People
by Mikayla, age 9, South Africa
nce upon a time there was a snake. And a person. This person was picked at random to teach the snakes how to speak English. And the snake was picked at random to learn how to speak English. But there was a problem: snakes can’t understand humans. So scientists decided to make a device that would translate snakes’ language into human language and human language into snakes’ language. And these scientists were picked at random.
One of the scientists thought, “Why don’t we just learn how to speak snake?” “Because we can’t understand the snakes,” the other scientist said. So there was a problem with their whole plan. And that’s why they went out seeking a girl with super powers who had a fortune-telling cat.
They had a lot of fun when they were playing together, but the bad guys have been stirring up a lot of things lately. So that was also a problem. Yeah, the world is full of problems.
But there’s only one kid who could fix it: Mikayla. But there was a problem: she was on a different planet. So they had to send a spaceship off to get her. And this one spaceship was a national space station, and it would take about two light years to get there. So that was also a problem.
They just gave up. They would never talk to snakes. This wasn’t fun. And then suddenly someone who could talk to snakes appeared. But every human on earth vowed to never try to talk to snakes again. So this was a problem.
So the scientists said, “Vows are meant to be breaked.” And someone said, “But didn’t we vow that so that the national space station could stay in orbit around earth and we wouldn’t have to go two light years to get Mikayla?” And then the scientists said, “Good point.”
This really isn’t the end but this story’s way too long for me to finish, so — THE END.
The Fish Person
by Mia, age 8, Arizona
title the fish person
hi mom I'm back from school! cool are you still gonna sell those dounuts? oh yes I forgot! ok bye mom see you in an hour! ok i'm all set up here are my custemers! ok what flavor dounut would you like? chacolote. ok that will...be free! here you go.Hi what flavor would you like? Fish! fish? Sorry we don't have that flavor. what other flavors? fish! I said we don't have fish. we have strawberry vanilla and chocolote that is free so what flavor?! Fish. WE HAVE NO FISH! fish? Please go away. sigh. fish. why why why can't you understand me?! FISH! Go Away. can you only say fish? Fish? Stop saying that. Fine I will make you a fish dounut here. Meat? I thought you want fish? I was here for 5 hours! Bye take all the dounuts. Sigh. I quit! the next morning Fish meat you been here all Night! here is some meat and fish plain. cheese?
The end
Story Spark
MikaylaLuke, who wrote "Snakes and People," is presenting this week's Story Spark!
Write a story about a person trying to learn an animal language. What language do they try to learn, and how do they learn it? If they succeed, how do they celebrate?”
Roll Call Stories
Delivery Gets A Delivery
by a 7-year-old named Emery in California
Dad I am gonna watch tv. K?
Okay sweetheart.
(Knock knock knock)
I wonder who that could be. Oh it’s delivery guy.
-Here is your delivery.
-but my name is already delivery.
-no, this is your delivery.
-I already sed my name IS delivery.
-this package is called a delivery.
Oooooooohhhh…..
The end
The Magical Pasta Maggots
by 13-year-old Clara in Pennsylvania
Once there was a girl named Violet, who was eating her dinner. It was pasta, her favorite. When she looked down in the bowl, she noticed something different. The pasta kind of looked like maggots. And the more she looked at it the more it looked like maggots. It started wriggling and squirming, climbing over and under each other. One of them fell out of the bowl and smiled up at her.
“HELLO”
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH” she dropped her spoon and jumped up, but it was too late. The magical pasta maggots were already in her stomach. They were bouncing around and singing Christmas carols.
“Don't you want to be friends?” The maggot looked terribly offended. “Well, I guess you will have to be. Weeeeeeee” it flopped off of the table and rolled on the ground toward her.
“No, get away, get away!” Violet scrambled back trying to leave the kitchen, and hit something soft and squishy. When she looked at what it was she realized the walls had turned to jelly.
“Yummy isn't it?” asked the maggot. “Hot dog flavored, mmmmm. I'm Sally by the way.”
A glob of jelly fell from the ceiling and landed in violet's mouth. she gagged, because it tasted, as you would expect, terrible.
“What's happening?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Everything and nothing. Now, just be still and quiet while we take over the world. Or you could help. More hot dog jelly!” a fish swam past them, its pink scales glistening in the orange moonlight. Soon much more fish came, so much that they lifted the whole house up. They flew it up on their fluffy wings, buzzing amongst themselves. Soon they are above the clouds, then in space until they dropped off the house on the moon.
“Well that's unfortunate.” said Sally the maggot. “It might be a bit hard to take over the world if we are on the moon. Well, why take over the world when we can take over the universe, eh?”
Violet gulped. She started feeling nauseous, but couldn't tell if it was from eating too much pasta or because the pasta was magical pasta maggots. They were feeling great though. They had hung up a disco ball and were doing the chicken dance, while eating the hotdog jelly violet accidentally swallowed.
“This is life!” one shouted, lying on a purple couch.
“Yeah!” another replied. “More fish head juice? Or do you want an oyster cupcake?”
There must have been a hundred maggots, all dancing and singing, so it's understandable why Violet felt like her stomach was doing backflips. Meanwhile, Sally was flipping through some blueprints.
“Should we take over the world one planet at a time, or everything at once?” asked sally.
“I dont know.” violet barely managed to say.
“We need some space ships first. What do you think we should use to make them? Hey, you guys in her stomach, stop partying and get to work!”
“But we don't want to!!” a bunch of small voices called out. “We want hotdog jelly! Hotdog jelly! Hotdog jelly! The world is made of hot dog jelly!” and it was. When you looked down at earth you could see it was not earth anymore. Hotdog island fluttered in the slimy goop, with dinosaurs playing chess.
“Well, that's good I suppose.” said Sally “Why are you just sitting there human, help me” she glared at Violet, as if it was her fault they were on the moon. It kind of was, since she ate the magical pasta maggots, but that's not the point.
“I just want to go home,” Violet sobbed.
“That's not going to do you any good, but fine go ahead. One of the fish swimming under them broke the surface and threw up a piece of paper. The paper folded itself into a house that looked just like violets.
“Go on then, here's your house.”
“But it's too small,” said the girl.
“That's not my problem. Take it or leave it, I don't care.” Gingerly, violet crawled toward it, and when she opened the door she somehow fit inside. Everything seemed normal, purple walls and orange chairs. violet sighed with relief.
“Bedtime!” her mother called from the other room. Violet got up and started walking up the stairs, but something was wrong. In all the family photos were maggots, and they oddly looked like her and her family.
“Mom, what's wrong with the photos!”
“What do you mean?” her mother answered, her voice sounding closer.
“They’re all maggots!” violet exclaimed.
“Of course they are!” her mothers voice was inside the room, and when violet turned around she saw that her mom was a maggot.
“AAAAAAHHHHH” she looked down, and realized she was a maggot too.
“What's wrong, did you eat something bad? It must have been some magical human pasta. I think you need your favorite bedtime snack, hotdog jelly sandwich and fish head juice.” said her mom.
Zuzzy Week
by 9-year-old Polly in Nebraska
Nessie The Limerick
by 11-year-old Raedyn in Indiana
Nessie is not all what she seems
People like to make Nessie memes
Some people have seen her
They are true believers
Others people crush all my dreams
The Mystery of Someone Threw Something
by 9-year-old Emmy in Texas
One day at recess, someone threw a ball at Holland and she said, “Who threw that at me?!” And she was very mad. She told the teacher. That actually happened. That’s a true story.
We’ll feature new stories every week!
