Bubsy and the Bublonium (Bubbles from Outer Space)

I wrote this story with Bubbles from Outer Space as the name, and became published in bazoof! magazine. I'm not getting paid for the publication so I thought I'd share it here.

Once upon a time, on a tiny farm, in a
tiny town, in a tiny valley, lived a girl named, Ruthie. Ruthie loved to blow bubbles and watch them soar to the sky, then POP! POP! POP!
She thought it was great fun.
One day, Ruthie was sitting in her tiny house doing homework, which kept her from being out in the warm sun blowing her beautiful bubbles.
As she looked at her paper filled with
multiplication tables, a shadow arose and
covered the numbers and symbols. She
said, “Oh! What fun is this?” because she
was the kind of girl who saw adventure in
everything, even something dark and
scary like shadows.
She went outside and looked up at the sky.
Where there once was a blue sky, there was some kind of flying object! It was silver and shaped like a bell with two rows of multicolored lights that flashed in a strange pattern. At the bottom of the bell-shaped craft was a glass globe,
almost like a gumball machine! Within the
globe there seemed to be moving balls in all kinds of colors that resembled gumballs!
Ruthie was so excited. Bubblegum from
outer space! As she stood staring, a hatch
opened in the globe and one of the balls
floated out. Upon seeing the floating ball, the girl’s excitement grew as she realized, these are BUBBLES!
The bubble that came from the craft was
wonderfully light blue and seemed to be a bit larger than the other bubbles in the globe.
The little girl had a terrific idea. She ran
inside and grabbed her bottle of bubble stuff.
She came back outside, pumped up her
bubble wand and blew a bubble.
It floated up, up, up, and met the blue
bubble in the sky. They bumped a few
times, and to the little girl, it looked like they were having a conversation. Ruth’s bubble reached its end of existence, and popped in a colorful shower of bubble-rain. The alien bubble started to float down towards Ruthie, pulsating through various shades of blue.
Ruthie was not afraid, because she was not
a girl to be frightened easily.
The alien bubble reached her and floated
at eye level with her. It bumped her forehead and she knew it was saying, “Hello!” She smiled and suddenly, a smiling mouth appeared on the alien bubble! She gasped and her mouth made the shape of an ‘O’. The alien bubble’s smiling mouth turned to the shape of an ‘O’ too!
Ruthie was ecstatic. Then the alien bubble
began to grow. It grew as big as Ruth’s head and then its elastic bubble body began to pull downward, into a neck! Then it stretched its body down to shoulders, arms, a torso, and legs with a bubble-crown upon its head.
Now Ruthie was very smart and she knew
this alien bubble was also smart, and she
could teach him people-talk. She said,
“HELLO!” as loud as she could, and the alien bubble said, “HELLO!” right back. Ruthie then pointed to her chest and said, “Ruthie,” and the alien bubble pointed to its chest and then looked down sadly.
“Oh, you don’t have a name?” asked Ruthie.
“Oh, I don’t have a name!” cried the alien
bubble.
“I’ll give you a name,” declared Ruthie, “It
shall be…BUBSY!”
“You’ll give me a name,” said Bubsy, “It
shall be BUBSY!” pointing at his chest.
“Are you the king of your planet?” said
Ruthie looking at the crown on its head.
“Yes, I am the king of my planet, Bubblus!”
said King Bubsy.
“Your majesty,” Ruthie bowed, “What are you doing away from your home?”
“We have run out of fuel for our spaceship,” King Bubsy said, fluently speaking people-talk now.
“Do you need gas? I could get you some
gas,” offered Ruthie.
“Gas! That’s what we are made of! No, no,
my dear, we need Bublonium!” King Bubsy
seemed offended.
“Bublonium? That’s not on the periodic
table…” Ruthie put a finger to her lip.
“Peer-e-odd-ick-table?” King Bubsy
sounded out the word.
“It’s not important. Unless you want to be a scientist or something,” Ruthie mused.
“Oh…okay. Well, Ruthie, I am quite
embarrassed to say this because it’s such
a sneaky thing, but my bubble-people have
been keeping an eye on this planet for some time now.” King Bubsy blushed.
“Don’t be sorry! I don’t blame you for
checking us out before visiting. Not everyone is as nice as I am here. But please, finish,” Ruthie gestured for the King to continue.
“Well, Bublonium is made of two
substances, which we could not find
anywhere in this entire universe until
we came to your solar system.
You see, we have a machine which detects Bublonium and it led us here to
your, um…”
“Farm.”
“Ah, yes, your quaint little farm. The first
substance we’re looking for is oxidane,
and the second is some kind of cleaning
substance,” King Bubsy blushed again.
“Soap!” Ruthie exclaimed.
“Soap? Where can I find this soap?” King
Bubsy leaned in to hear better.
“Well, your majesty, I can give you
both substances. In fact, I can give you
Bublonium!” Ruthie was now shaking with
excitement.
“I thought you didn’t know what it was,” said King Bubsy, quite confused.
“After you explained the two substances, oxidane, which I know is water, and soap, I
realized I’ve been playing with Bublonium my whole life!” Ruthie grinned.
“Is that so? Are you able to
acquire these substances?” King Bubsy scratched his bubble-chin.
“Absolutely! Come with me,” and Ruthie walked, while King Bubsy floated, to the corner store.
The grown-ups gawked at them, but of
course Ruthie and her royal companion paid them no mind. They reached the store and
Ruthie used her allowance to buy every bottle of Bublonium in the store.
They made their way back to the tiny farm,
and Ruthie handed over all the Bublonium to King Bubsy, saying, “This should get you
home.”
King Bubsy thanked her a thousand and
one times and kissed her on the forehead,
which felt awful silly on account of his bubble lips. Then he shrank back down to the alien blue bubble shape he arrived as, and floated back up to the ship.
Before the spacecraft left, a lovely yellow
bubble floated down to Ruthie. She knew this must be the Queen. The Queen reached Ruthie and gently bumped her forehead to thank her.
“You are very welcome!” cried Ruthie as the Queen floated back to the spacecraft and shut the hatch. All the lights started flashing and in the blink of an eye, the silver bell-gumball-machine-spacecraft flitted away.
Ruthie shed a few tears for her new friends.
She would miss them, but she knew that she did something big. Bigger than her and her tiny house, on the tiny farm, in the tiny town, in the tiny valley.

Reviews

[TheRavensWoods]

Wow! This was a very cute little story! I loved it! It’s the type of story I could definitely see children enjoying. Amazing job!