It was just an ordinary day. I was sitting on my bed in my cozy little room. The clock on my wall just struck three o’clock in the afternoon and I was thinking about what to do while I waited for my mom. Suddenly, a bright shaft of light came through the window and illuminated a strange object that lay on the floor. It was a book!
I bent over and picked it up. It looked very old. The front cover was an amazing blue. On it were embossed letters that looked like gold. They shone so brightly in the sunlight they seemed almost alive. They read:
“THE BOOK OF WONDERS.”
I opened the book. Strange! There was not a single letter or picture to be seen on the white pages. They were totally blank. I laid it on the cover and remained staring at the letters that glittered so brightly. I felt I was being bewitched by them. I took my pencil and began to draw on the first blank page. While I drew, I imagined a page torn out of my favorite comic book, an action comic titled “SUPER MONKEY.” I began to think how cool it would be to be the real “Super Monkey,” with superpowers and all that. Suddenly the pencil’s point broke. I blew the tiny shavings off and continued my drawing with a ballpoint pen. Without even realizing it, I drew and drew until the entire page was filled with drawings. Finally, I put down the pen, and there was, one page filled with drawings and a weird amazed face looking at them. The drawings seemed to come alive, and “Super Monkey” was ready, pencil on hand, right in front of me and smiling as if he was thanking me for drawing him. But I had no time to lose — I had to finish my homework before my mom came home!
I looked at the clock. Time flew — it was already half past five! Suddenly my mom called from downstairs, “Nina! Open the door!” Wow! Time traverted! My room was still filled with daylight, but I knew that down in the garden, night had already fallen. My mother laughed, “Nina! Hurry up, supper is ready!”
I put on my pajamas, washed, and went upstairs. My mom was waiting for me at the dining room table. I sat down and had a lovely supper, but I was dying to go down and open again “The Book of Wonders.”
As soon as I finished eating, I took a shower, brushed my teeth, put on my pajamas, and hurried down to my room. If you ever get a book like I did, be careful. Strange and wonderful things may happen that usually never happen. I hoped that especially strange things would not happen to me. But I was really really curious!
As soon as I reached the foot of the stairs, I froze. What if the book was gone? I turned on the light, went inside the room, and took it with shaking hands: wonderful! It was just where I had left it. Quickly I came to the first page and looked at my drawing. Then I gasped with amazement. “Super Monkey” was going on an aerial adventure up in the sky! He was drawing all things that were happening in a strange white smoke that came from his pencil. Then a fountain pen appeared by his side with all five different colors of ink! There was a yellow one, a green one, a red one, a blue one, and the fifth one was black. I gazed open-mouthed at his adventure. Suddenly I got an idea. I thought how amazing it would be to float down from the sky right in the middle of the amazing flights of “Super Monkey.”
And then I laughed. Huh! But why not? I believed in fairies, didn’t I? “I want to fly!” I shouted. Wow! The book began to vibrate right in my hands. As if written in the wind, these words appeared:
“If a wish were made with a heart that was really true,
The Book of Wonders would be opened for you.”
I remember I held my breath while I read. The book whispered things in my ear that made it and my heart vibrate at the same time. I shut my eyes, inhaled deeply, and whispered: “I want to fly!” The book gave one last vibrate, and in the next moment I found myself high up in the sky flying side by side with “Super Monkey”, my feet firmly planted on a pair of huge oleaginous clouds.
The air was thick. It even carried a flavor that tasted like cocoa with whipped cream. In the distance there was a speeding red sports car. Suddenly it stopped in the middle of nowhere, and from its exhaust pipes the most wonderful fragrances began to emerge. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry — these were some of the delicious flavors wafting by. The sports car was stopped for a delightful washing! A splash of strawberry sauce, followed by one of chocolate sauce, was pouring onto the car instead of water. Hard to believe, huh? But soon I’d discover that anything was possible in flying space!
The sports car was soon well washed, and away it flew! I heard the sound of music, a very pleasant orchestra was playing an amazing tune, and suddenly the mucky clouds we were standing on seamed to come alive! They began to sway right and left following the rhythm of the music. They were having a wonderful dance! My socks began to slip off, and in the end I found myself sitting cross-legged on one of the swaying clouds. Nobody seemed to mind, I began to dance with the clouds too, and soon my arms and shoulders were swinging left and right with the music. The clouds swayed more and more dangerously left and right, and soon “Super Monkey” and I were standing on the tallest peak of the craziest mountain one could ever imagine! The peak was the highest of what should have been a normal mountain, but the lowest point of this strange mountain was the surface of the sea! On the flashing top there was another musical concert going on. The musicians, buzzing and crawling about, were insects who transformed themselves into puny baby people each time they played their instruments! Flies played violins, dragonflies played cellos, and locusts played kilos on a whole bunch of trumpets! Can you imagine?
“Incredible,” I thought. And suddenly a huge wall of jelly began to rise up in front of me. “Super Monkey” stepped on it, took his drawing pencil, and started drawing letters into the wall. The jelly wasn’t a wall anymore; it turned into a big, bright pink canvas where he was painting a giant eye. “Want to come on in?” he asked, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at the big round hole in the eye he had just finished painting. “Inside the eye?” I asked. “Sure! What better place to have astronomical observations? My hardest passion!” he said smiling.
He waved goodbye and stepped into the big, round hole. In the next moment, the sun rose up in great splendor, and there were the constellations of maybe three or four hundred galaxies thereof calmly twinkling by. They were so bright they were illuminating everything! Still standing on the jelly canvas, I gasped. My sneakers were just beginning to melt right there on the bright jelly I was standing on! Instead of flying into space and risking disappearing in the vacuum that lay at the end of the galaxies, I’d better wake up immediately before it was too late!
I spent a big part of the night trying to wake myself up. I slapped myself hard several times, hoping that such brute shaking would wake me up! I even lost one of my cheap, comfortable Eastpak slippers — it fell right into deep outer space! “Bye slippers!” I said bitterly.
“I wouldn’t give up if I were you, kid!” said a tiny tiny voice nudging my back. “Your adventure is only just beginning!” I turned around just in time to say goodbye to “Super Monkey.” But to tell the truth I didn’t believe my own eyes — his rubber cape was fortunately not going to fall victim of an accident like my slipper.
As I soared in the sky, the round half that you see at noon began to fade away, slowly unveiling the jelly canvas I had danced on’ and a funny, shining blue sky-box. All of a sudden I spit out the tastiest gummy-bear I’d ever tasted in my whole life!!! The blue box dissolved into the sweets of a very large chewing-gum making the entire half of the Earth disappear!
Sky and Earth glowing like crazy bright ice-cream cones! That was the lesson I learnt, the universe, it seemed, had a bottom, and that was really comforting to know!
Off I flew again through a straw that grew from the split half of the sky! I knew it wanted to suck me into the formed ice-cream cornice down below. “Blue raspberry,” I mumbled, discovering a series of different flavors for the first time.
I began to wake up — the desire to go on tasting those flavors though was sooo big I held my breath in order to float in mid-air longer.
I was sitting on the floor in my room. It was too quiet. The telephone was ringing mercilessly upstairs. In the next moment my mom stuck her head through the door. “Are you alright?” she asked. My body felt siesta-like. I knew I wouldn’t speak a word about this crazy trip I had though drawn thousands of words about it somewhere else, just in case-not.
I jumped into bed as soon as my mom left the room. I prayed my cell phone would never ring me out of this delightful dream again. Meanwhile I took the bedcover off. Trousers, sweater, pajamas — for some reason they were all sticking wet to my skin! I closed my eyes and in a twinkling, “Super Monkey” and I were flying hand in hand, right through the delicious cotton candy of a giant fair huge enough for all the kids and grown-up kids in the universe!