Cory waved good bye to his friend Norton and walked inside. Even Norton knew that this was the house. The house on Maple Street. And there, anything could happen. Cory dropped his backpack by the front door, adding it to the pile of others and he kicked off his shoes, leaving them in the line of shoes against the wall. He ran, ran, ran up the staircase and into the room that he shared with his brother Leo. He was surprised to find Leo counting marbles on the floor. “Leo! You said you’d cover my shift while I stayed for denention!” Leo looked up. “But it wasn’t four ‘o clock yet!” Leo protested. Cory pointed at the clock, it was a quarter past five. “Fine,” said Leo. “I’ll do it now.” He sat down on a stool next to the window and stared out the tube of a telescope. “Sky, clear. Coast, clear.” He observed. “Already?” Cory asked, and he stumbled down the stairs. “Mom! All clear!” He said in a loud voice. Cory’s mother looked up from her knitting. It looked like a scarf for Leo. “Already?” asked Cory’s mother. “Why, it’s only a quarter past five!” Cory nodded. “Leo forgot to cover my shift, but it’s clear now!” Cory’s mother stood up and rang a big bell. “Everyone get ready!” Cory dashed up the stairs along with his triplet sisters, Hattie, Amy, and Felicity. Leo stood next to the window in his soccer clothes. Cory quickly changed into his. “Ready!” said nine voices from the nine children. “Are you all wearing polyester?” asked Cory’s mother nervously. “That’s the only thing that can slip through the sensor…” She checked to make sure her children were safe. “Cory? Will you do it?” she asked. “I get nervous around electricity.” Cory walked into the laundry room and pulled aside the secret tile door. Many elecric control panels stood behind. Cory quickly pushed the right buttons and pulled a lever. Jet boosters under the house fired up, and they lifted off the ground. The house on Maple Street was off again. It was a perfect lift-off.
As they soared into the sky, special lights inside the children’s socker clothes lit up as the whole house delved into pitch-black darkness. The only thing Cory or anyone else could see was each other, glow-in-the-dark green outlines. “Can’t catch me!” Cory’s other brother James teased, tagging Hattie on the shoulder. Hattie took off after James and together with Amy and Felicity, they managed to tag him back. A game of glow-in-the-dark tag. Who could resist? Cory joined in the fun, on James and Leo’s team. Cory’s last brother Benjamin joined the team and they made a fort under the table… Cory jumped out and tagged his sister June. June tagged Benjamin. Benjamin tagged Melissa. Melissa tagged Leo. Leo tagged Felicity. They looked like lightning bugs flitting around in the pitch-black darkness. When their mom arrived to quell the game, they compared collections. Cory dragged out little boxes of moon-rocks, stardust, shooting stars, and buttons. “I have the most stardust!” Felicity discovered. “Well I have more shooting stars than you!” Leo pointed out. “I have the most shooting stars!” Melissa bragged. “I have the most buttons!” Amy said with glee. “They’re the normal things.” said Hattie. “You can get buttons anywhere.” Cory had the most moon-rocks. “Stop one!” Cory’s mom cried. “Everyone take a pill…” She handed a pill to everyone and they swallowed it. Cory didn’t like the pills, but they were the only things that make them able to breathe in space. Everyone lined up to go outside to the moon. Once they were out, they climbed into the moon buggy and hurried to their favorite spot, the ditch. A big ditch was on the surface, and they loved playing in it… the children shoved moon-rocks into their pockets and jumped into the deep ditch.
“I can bounce the highest,” stated Benjamin. “I can jump almost as high!” added June. “I can’t bounce at all,” said Leo, his foot stuck on a rock. “I can bounce the second-highest!” Amy said. “I have the most moon-rocks now, adding these I have 157!” James said. “But adding these I have 165!” said Cory. “Drat,” said Leo. “I still can’t bounce!” Benjamin spotted a shooting star. “Hey! Look!” he said. “If anyone catches it, it’s mine!” Benjamin himself bounced almost 30 feet high and caught the star. “Ha!” he said. “I have 6 now! 6 wishes, and I havn’t even used them yet!”
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“Come on now, dears. I’ve made moon-dust cookies for when you come inside,” bribed Cory’s mom. “Hmm…” James thought. “Can we have an indoor campout too?”
“Sure,” said their mom. “We’ve been out here for a long time,” Cory went inside and called Norton. “Hey! Cool!” Norton said. “Where are you? The caller ID said the astroid belt…” Cory looked outside. “I guess we are nearing it now. We’re trying to make it to the dwarf planet Pluto by morning to measure some star thing or something for my mom’s work. I’m also doing my science project on dwarf planets, so it will be better to have some real experiance…”
All night, they had a campout, ate cookies, and had a lot of fun. In the morning, they arrived at Pluto.
A voice kept nagging at the back of Cory’s mind. Is it true? Is it true? Is it true? He swallowed the pill and stepped out onto Pluto and didn’t even stop to watch his mom calculate the star distance. He hurried a to certain crater and said the magic words and it appeared… just a drop. Cory hurriedly squeezed it into a bottle. He said them again… two drops. He squeezed them into the bottle. He didn’t stopp until the small vial was full with clear substance. He walked into the house, the house on Maple Street and poured it into his latest invention, the room-cleaner. It whirred. Then it sucked up all the papers on the desk and put them into neat stacks in Leo’s file system! Yes! It worked! But then again, at the house on Maple Street, anything is possible.