The bodies were all snug in their pods, not to be awakened until the ship arrived to the Gamma Sector.  They hung down from the ceiling suspended by tubes.  Mr. Mercutio came into the room wearing a suit of leather with little zippers all over it.  He touched the side of one of the pods with his hand.  He pushed the pod, and the pod knocked into another one, causing a minor chain reaction as the three pods knocked together like bells.  Mercutio grinned.  When they arrived in the Gamma Sector, they would all be fresh and preserved like little sardines.  Mercutio, however, would be eighty seven years old.  The best years of his life would be spent in this spaceship. He was going to enjoy himself.

   When you travel in hyperspace all the little stars go by so fast they form these streaks you can see while you sit in the cockpit.  Mercutio sat there blowing smoke bubbles from his bubble pipe.  One of his pipes blew bubbles and another one made little spirals.  He set the coordinates for one of the seedy sections of outer space.  Mercutio saw a giant red star approach.  He sat back and smiled.

   Soon red images of women appeared in the sky.  He slowed his ship down to cruise speed.  The images danced and rubbed their thighs together and pointed at Mercutio's spaceship.  There was the look of lazy pleasure on his face.   One of the women wiggled her hips and pointed at Mercutio.  Mercutio pointed at himself.  "Me," he whispered.  "Yes you," the red woman in outer space seemed to whisper.  Mercutio hurriedly put on his spacesuit and set the spaceship for auto drive.  He climbed a ladder to the hatch of the spaceship.  He closed the hatch behind him so no bad air would get in the spaceship.  Then he opened the porthole to outer space.  He did a breast stroke and slowly swam through nothingness towards one of the voluptuous women from the space brothel.  "Lerlene." The name glowed on the belt of one of the topless space women.  Like a little fish in a pool full of bread crumbs,  Mercutio paddled his way towards one of the giant women.  What he didn't know was that the women were electrical in nature, and as he tried to embrace the leg of one of them he was shocked by twenty-thousand volts of electricity.  His hair stood up for a split second before his body broke into a thousand little tatters.  The spaceship was traveling through space unmanned now.

   Thomas awoke from his slumber.  He was tired and lazy and covered with down.  When he breathed in, he felt the feathers against his face.  He moved the film back from his eyes.  He was surrounded by a metal shell.  He wondered if this was how he felt when his mother gave birth to him.  His eyes being tired and heavy, and his body feeling all weak and shriveled.  When he pulled down a lever the pod opened, and the light hurt his eyes.  It was a very dim light, but to him it was like a fireball.  He plopped on the floor like a wet rag.  If he could only turn off that light, but he was so weak.  He crawled on the ground towards it, and when he got there he put his hand over it.  Now his eyes didn't hurt anymore.  There were others in the room with him.  He heard them bump around a few times.  He separated his fingers to allow a single ray of light to shine forth.  He focused it on the ground and saw the bodies of his brother and sister laying on their backs with their tongues hanging out their mouths.  Good God! How long had they been in this stinking space shuttle?  His brother and sister looked almost freeze dried.  He turned the light to himself.  He wasn't in such great shape either. 

   After lying like a puddle for several minutes, Thomas tried to slowly stand up.  He kept his hand over the light as he got his feet under him.  He slowly let more and more light come through his fingers until his eyes could see like normal.  The room slowly became brighter like the sun was rising.  And then he could see again.  His brother and sister were lying against the side of the room's wall completely buck naked as was he.  How did they ever get into this?

   Vacation Bible school.  Now Thomas remembered.  He and his siblings were supposed to go there for the summer to learn about Automobile Christ.  Something must have gone horribly wrong.  They had been on long journeys before and nothing bad had happened.  Wasn't someone supposed to man the shuttle and wake them up when they got there?  Thomas now felt strong enough to leave the pod room.  His brother and sister had gotten up and were shaking their legs.  Thomas left the pod room and looked around.  Someone had left the porthole open.  Thomas climbed into the hatch and closed it.  Next, he made his way to the cockpit and looked out into space.  They were drifting.  Thomas looked at the screen of the interstellar positioning system.  His ship was traveling right at the edge of the universe.  New space was being laid out like a carpet under the ship as the universe expanded.

  "Where are we?" Sarah asked.

  "We are somewhere near the outer rim of the galaxy."

  "The galaxy is like a bowl then.  What happens if we fall off the rim?"

  "You can't fall off.  There's nothing to fall off into.  It hasn't even been invented yet."

  "Where does it all come from?  It has to come from somewhere."

  "Did you expect to see guys with pickaxes chipping away space rock?"

  "I didn't know what to expect quite frankly, but I don't even care about that anymore.  Me and Ricky are hungry.  Let's get something to eat."

  "All right.  I just need to get this shuttle turned around."

   Thomas pressed a few buttons to turn the ship around and then fired the accelerator.  The ship was now sailing like a boat in the sea of space.  And at the helm was the brave Thomas.
There was other debris and space junk that passed by the ship as it glided by.
 
   "Hey, I think our ship just caught a space wind."

   Thomas pressed a button and let out a mast on top of his spaceship.  He turned off the accelerator and put his hands behind his head.

   "That's crazy Thomas.  There aren't any space winds this close to edge of the galaxy."

   "Well, we just got caught by one."

   The ship let itself be carried by the wind.  Soon other trash was floating right by their side.  Then they began to twist into a circle with all the other junk hugging close by, like they were in a bowl of cereal.   A giant worm came out of the sky.  It was long and gray kind of like a sock puppet with red fangs in its mouth, and these big white eyes permanently opened with black pupils.  It went right into the middle of the cereal bowl and swallowed two large asteroids.

  "Thomas, this place isn't safe.  We need to get out of here.  Fire the hyper drive already!"

  "I would but I don't know where the hyper drive controller is.  Have you seen it?"

  The space worm twisted in the air like a slinky and was once again facing the cluster of space trash.  It was coming down right at them like a torpedo with its mouth wide open.

  "No, I haven't seen it anywhere.  What are we going to do?"

  "Wait! What's that Ricky's chewing on?"

   Ricky appeared to have some sort of controller in his mouth.  Sarah ran over and pulled it out of his mouth.

   Ricky gave this look as if his entire face was about to break into tears.

  "I think I've got it, Thomas.  How do I use it?"

   Sarah had what looked like a Nintendo controller on her hand. 

  "I don't know.  That looks like a new one.  Those are way too complicated.  Does it have a start button?"

  "Yes, I think so."

  "Then press it.  Press it quickly!"

   Right as the spaceship entered the giant worm's mouth the hyper drive began.  The ship shot like a speeding bullet right into the mouth of the worm and out through the end of its tail.  The stars lengthened out into long bright lines.  All three children took sunglasses out of the space ship's glove box.  After traveling for several minutes, images began to appear in the ship's cockpit.  

  "Where are we now?  Why is there food hanging down in front of the spacecraft?  Hey, it looks like ice cream!  How yummy.  I almost want to put my spacesuit on and go swimming after it."

  "No, don't even think about it, Sarah.  That's only an advertisement.  Space traveling wouldn't be so cheap if it wasn't for all these crappy advertisements that satellites are required to send us."

  "Oh, let's go get ice cream.  That makes me so hungry.  Come on, let's get some.  You'll make Ricky upset."

   Ricky began crying like a typical three year old who had been denied a piece of candy.

  "Look sis, we might be in a lot of trouble.  We have no idea how long we've been preserved in those pods, and I know we were supposed to be at vacation bible school a long time ago.  The people from the orphanage are going to be coming after us if they aren't already, and I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to be going back there.  I would much rather keep playing in this spaceship.  We need to keep a low profile. I don't know if we'll be safe."

  "But ice cream Thomas!  We haven't had ice cream since we were freeze dried in those little pods."

  "I think you're forgetting Sarah that we haven't had anything to eat since we were frozen."

  "Then come on.  Let's get some.  You're the oldest so it's your decision."

   Thomas pondered for a moment.  He looked down at his folded hands and silently pondered as though he was a powerful man and his decisions would affect the future of an entire space colony.  Then, he looked up with a magnificent gleam in his eyes. 

  "All right.  We shall get ice cream.  Sarah, send the pod over with enough cash for three cones of ice cream."

  "Yippee!" Rick yelled with the mercurial emotion of a three-year-old.

   Thomas turned off the hyper drive.  They were drifting on empty space.  The advertisement said the ice cream parlor was near the vicinity their interstellar positioning system indicated they were in. Thomas was first to see it.  It was almost like a buoy in the ocean, because it just hung there out in space and rocked back and forth.  On top of the little hut a scoop of ice cream sat in a dish that also served as the satellite signal and rotated.  Thomas used the craft's airbrakes to stop right next to the ice cream parlor. 

  "So who wants to get the ice cream?" Sarah asked.  "I think Ricky wants to go.  Look at him, he's jumping up and down."

  "No, Ricky's too young to leave the spacecraft.  Why don't you go Sarah while I man the craft?"

  "Fine then.  I'll go.  That means I get to choose flavors."

Sarah walked over to the port and put on her spacesuit.  She had designed it herself.  Her visor was red, and her suit was white with little hearts she had drawn all over it.  In the middle of the hearts were the names of all the boys she had ever liked.  Being thirteen, she had run out of space years ago.   Ricky sat next to Thomas in the cockpit.  They watched as Sarah swam gracefully as a swan towards the ice cream shop.  The ice cream advertisement had now begun to virtually melt, and Ricky was licking his lips.  Sarah came out of the parlor with three ice cream cones in her hand.  The colored ice cream showed bright and tasty in the blackness. Ricky ran over and opened the port so Sarah could get back in. Ricky and Thomas took the ice cream out of her hands as Sarah got out of her spacesuit.  They all sat down at the front of the spaceship which was now drifting aimlessly through space.

  "Oh wow! You gave me four scoops.  Gee thanks, Sarah.  Hey this tastes great.  It's making me cold though.  It's too bad we still don't know where our clothes are."

  "I've always thought clothes were stupid anyway.  You know Thomas, we better get away out of range of these satellites.  The people from Missing Children will latch onto our signal.  They certainly would have sent someone out to track us down by now.  We're not safe so long as we're in their range."
The ice cream cone on the monitor disappeared.  It was replaced by a darling teddy bear with brown hair, a white stomach, and its little arms raised as if to say "hug me".

  "I swear they make these advertisements look too real.  Some dumb kid is going to think that's a real teddy bear and go swimming after it.  This place is way too dangerous to be outside with all the black holes in the vicinity.  Look, you can even see one on the screen."

   A ways in front of the craft there appeared to be the glimmering outline of a mouth opening and closing, sucking in space air.  A large rock passed by it, and the mouth swallowed it and then spat it out in little pieces like a roman candle exploding.

  "Hey where did Ricky go?  He must have finished his ice cream already."

   The padding of Ricky's fat little feet could be heard towards the rear of the spacecraft.  He had already put on his suit and was getting ready to climb out of the spacecraft.

  "Oh no! Ricky!" Thomas yelled.  "Come back that's not a real teddy bear.  Sarah, man the spaceship, I'm going after Ricky."

   Thomas put on his spacesuit and ran after Ricky, trying to balance the four scoops of ice cream at the same time.

  "Thomas, drop the stupid ice cream cone."

  "But it's going to spill all over the floor."

  "So we'll mop it up.  We're orphans, we should get used to cleaning things.  Drop the stupid ice cream."

   Thomas thought for a moment and then let go of the ice cream.  But it was for a moment too long.    Ricky had by now made it to the hatch and had stepped out into space. 

   Thomas made it to the hatch and reached his arm out a great ways and grabbed Ricky's foot.  But he was barely in the spacecraft himself, and as he grabbed Ricky's leg his foothold gave way and now he too was in space. 

  "Thomas! Not you too!" Sarah shouted.  She put on her spacesuit and ran across the spaceship's floor.  On her way her feet slipped on the ice cream, and she slid across the floor to the port.  When she got there, Thomas was barely within reach.   Sarah stretched her arm out and the end of her fingers just barely touched his.  She reached just a little farther, and her hand clasped his.  They were all together now in a line.  It was like they were playing a game of tag, and the ship was base.  As long as someone was holding onto the ship, the rest of them would be okay.  The problem was no one was manning the ship, and it was drifting closer and closer to the glimmering mouth.  It was almost as though the black hole realized they were there, because the mouth began sucking especially hard in their direction.   The ship was slowly drifting towards the interstellar mouth. 

  "It's no use, Thomas, we're done for.  If I can't let go of you I can't get back in the ship.  We're going to die.  We're too young to die."

   They drifted closer and closer to the mouth until the ship got there.  The mouth opened wide and the front part of the ship entered the hole.  The black hole was cramming the ship into its mouth as though it was a piece of cake.

  "Wait, Sarah!  What's that Ricky's got in his mouth?"

  "Oh my God!  It's the controller.  Ricky give that to me!"

   Ricky spat the controller out of his mouth and Sarah grabbed it in the air.

  "What should I press Thomas?  There are so many buttons."

  "Try them all.  Just don't press the hyper drive.  WAAAAH!"

   The ship shot backwards out of the hole, flinging the three children through space.  This did not put them in a good situation, but at least they were out of harm's way.  Luckily, they had not let go of each other.  They flew aimlessly through space and enjoyed the various star patterns that passed them on their way to nowhere.  Life was not bad for the three siblings as they enjoyed their trip. 

  "This is a great view!" Sarah said through her spacesuit.

  "And Ricky is totally spellbound."

   Ricky was gazing through the glass screen of his helmet with his eyes full of wonder.

  "Do you think we'll just keep floating around until our oxygen runs out?   How long will our oxygen last?"

  "I don't know, but I'm more afraid of getting impaled by the points of one of these stars."

  "Well we can't be too far from that ice cream parlor, so we're probably in somebody's radar range."
There was a loud whirring noise behind them, and a large net was lowered in front of them.   The children drifted into it, and the net lifted them up as though it were a giant spoon.  The net turned out to be attached to a spaceship, and they were thrown in back as if the spaceship was throwing salt over its shoulder.  They landed in a crate on top of pieces of space junk.  A cover came over the crate to keep them from flying away.  After sitting idle for several minutes, a door popped open and a man came out.  His skin was yellow, and he had a perfectly square body with a black helmet on.  He wore boots that stuck to the floor of the pod.

  "Welcome to my spaceship children.  You have just landed on space junk freighter RS058.  My name is Lego.  Would you like to come in?"

  "We sure would," Thomas said.  The three children went inside the spacecraft and took off their suits.
The space ship had a lounge area and they sat there as Lego prepared them hot chocolate.

  "Do you kids have to be anywhere soon?"

  "No, we don't have to be anywhere anytime soon.  How long does your shift last before you go home Lego?"

  "Oh, only about fifty seven years.  I wouldn't worry about it though; there is a lot of ways to stay busy here."

  "Yeah, this is a real cool spaceship. It's too bad all the little bumps on the floor," Sarah said.

  "Really, I like those," Lego said.

  "Yeah, I guess they're not so bad," Sarah said.  She took a sip of her hot chocolate.

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