Hello, everyone. The theme of the week is hot air balloons, so I sat down and tried to write a story about hot air balloons. That didn’t happen. Not quite.
I did write a story that I like very much, but it’s not quite about hot air balloons. Instead, it’s about bubble gum that works kind of like a hot air balloon. I could try to explain, but maybe you should just read the story instead.
Three Lucky Things
By Matthew Swanson
Three good things happened to Fred on Monday morning.
1) He found a dollar on the sidewalk
2) He won a race to the corner against Billy, who was a big bully
3) He found another dollar on the sidewalk.He went to school and learned about spelling, math, and social studies. After school, he went to the store and bought a lot of bubble gum, which he put in his mouth all at once.
Fred’s mouth was so full that he could barely chew the gum. Once it was all chewed up, he blew a bubble. It was huge. Just then, Billy the Bully walked by and tried to pop the bubble. The bubble burst, and when it did. Fred got completely covered with gum.
Billy felt a little bit bad for Fred, so he helped Fred wash all the gum off of himself. Fred thanked Billy and Billy decided to stop being a bully, once and for all.
Best friends now, Fred and Billy decided to go out and look for more dollars. They each found two dollars. They used their money to buy more gum. This time they both blew huge bubbles.
Just then, a huge gust of wind came along and lifted the bubbles. Instead of letting the bubbles go, they held on, and the wind blew the boys and the their bubbles across the ocean to Japan.
Once they landed in Japan, they ate a lot of noodles and learned how to speak Japanese. Once they learned how to speak Japanese, they got jobs working in a Japanese factory that made blenders.
Every afternoon, they boys went out on the street and looked for money. But instead of finding dollars, they found Yen. They used their Yen to buy Japanese bubble gum and blew huge bubbles and stood outside in the wind hoping that the wind would carry them home.
They liked Japan, but they missed their families.
One day, a helicopter landed in the field outside the factory where they worked. The boys stepped inside. The helicopter carried them to the top of a mountain. The boys wondered what to do.
The helicopter pilot told them that this was their new home.
The boys got out and looked around. There was nothing but snow and wind.
The boys had a few handfuls of bubble gum left, so they blew big bubbles and lifted their heads to the wind.
The wind picked them up and carried them high into the sky. It was cold and dark. They sailed through clouds and over jungles and oceans. They wondered if they’d ever get home.
They landed in the middle of a cornfield in Kansas, far from where they lived.
The walked to the road and waited for a taxi cab to come along. They offered the driver the rest of their Yen to take them to a town. He didn’t want the Yen but took them because he didn’t want two kids to be stuck in the middle of nowhere.
When they got to the town, they went straight to the roller rink. They hadn’t roller skated in a long time. At the roller rink, there was a television producer who asked them to star in a new show about friends who speak Japanese.
The show was a huge hit. The boy’s parents’ watched the show and came to pick them up in Hollywood. The boys bought one big house for their parents and grandparents and friends to live in together. The house had three swimming pools, a roller skating rink, and bubble gum machines in every room.
After a few years, the show was canceled, but by then the boys had saved up enough money to spend all of their time doing nice things for people who didn’t have enough to eat.
They bought another house in Japan and went there every once in a while to visit their old friends, make blenders, and practice their Japanese.
It’s so lucky that I found those two dollars that day, said Fred.
It’s lucky that someone invented bubble gum said Billy.
And there you have it. Although that story wasn’t really about hot air balloons, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have written if if I hadn’t been trying to write a story about hot air balloons. Which is a really important point: a prompt is a helpful thing, even if it takes you somewhere completely unexpected. In fact, maybe that’s the real point.
So…now it’s your turn to write a story about a hot air ballon. Or a story that’s not about a hot air balloon at all. In fact, we’d love to hear any story you have to tell us, whether or not it was inspired by hot air balloons. Just as long as it comes out of you.
Just add your story to the comments below. We can’t wait to read what you post!