In honor of the flight of Apollo 11 to the moon on July 16, 1969 we bring you the following Ollie Bug tale…

The friends of Moonwater Meadow are a crafty bunch. A crafty bunch indeed.  Sometimes I’m not sure if they’re inventing new things or trying to find creative ways to set everything on fire.   You mustn’t bring that up to them because they get very testy about flammables. Today is such a day in which something new is invented (or set on fire).

One night not long ago, but not too recent, the small group of dreamers were lying out in the field looking up at the moon.

Ticklebit wondered what it would take to get to moon from where they were.

Clownley Bear thought it was funny (which isn’t unusual) and Ollie’s wheels turned in his mind.  He wondered aloud, but not too loud, if it was possible to build a ship to reach the moon.    Bearly There Bear, who is the brother of Clownley Bear and isn’t quite all there, asked the important question, “How hard could it be?”  They all looked at each other in a bit of wonder.  Then they finished the burrito pizza they began earlier in the evening.

Sometime later, but not too much later, the group adjourned to the workshop (which doubles as the secret crime lab) and built themselves a spaceship. They studied plans, experimented with designs and when necessary, they watched old space movies for inspiration.  Caramel popcorn was always on hand.

Perhaps it was their youthful enthusiasm. Perhaps it was a bit too dark in the workshop.  When they rolled out the new ship, dubbed The Parmesan Explorer, they noticed the engines.  There were so many of them.  And they were rather large.

Many large engines make fire. Lots and lots of fire.

The flowers voluntarily relocated.  Far but not too far.  Far enough.

What if, instead of blast off there was just blast?  Alternate arrangements were made just in case the Parmesan Explorer packed a little too much punch.

Now you know the part of the story in which the day evolved to include Fire Extinguisher Appreciation Day.

Did the little ship lift off?  Did Ollie make it to the moon?   Were the fire extinguishers deployed?

Why would you concern yourself with such silly things?

All you need know is there was a group of explorers out in a field who had a dream to make something from nothing and go somewhere new.

 

 

Tom Serafini is a writer, illustrator and sometime stand-up comedian residing in Brooklyn, New York  (until California let’s him stay).  His first illustrated picture book, Ollie Bug and the Icky Sticky Thing From Space, will be funded through a Kicktarter crowdfunding campaign coming this summer.