Short Story: Spinning the World
Couldn’t sleep last night, so I wrote this. I’ve never tried children’s fiction, or much fiction of any kind, so I thought I could use the challenge.
Spinning the World
It was a pretty ordinary morning, but not so ordinary that you would notice how ordinary it was. The wind was blowing, but not too much, the sun was just high enough in the sky for that time in the middle of the morning and somewhere off in the distance a lawnmower was buzzing away before its gardener went for his Sunday lunch. All in all, it was an average start to a Spring day with clear skies and the hope of more good weather to come.
But things were about to get better, because today was the day that Miles’s dad had promised to take him to the beach. They spend most of Saturday sorting out which buckets and spades and toys they would take along with everything else they had to carry on the bus to the seaside. Miles was so excited that he barely slept the night before.
He woke up early in the morning and bounced on to his dad’s bed. “Wake up! Wake up!” he said, “We’re going to miss the bus!” CLANG!
“Steady on,” said his dad, removing the bucket from his son’s foot, “we’ve got to have a good breakfast first. It’s more than an hour’s bus ride to the beach.”
Miles thought about this and nodded in agreement, then said, “How long’s an hour?”
“It’s two episodes of Power Rangers, or nearly a whole rubgy match.”
This didn’t make any sense to Miles, who thought that two Power Rangers was much shorter than a boring rugby match. He made a face and asked for pancakes.
With breakfast out of the way, he reached for his bucket and asked if his dad had everything and they set off for the bus stop. His dad bought the tickets and Miles told the driver they were going to the beach.
They sat down near the front and Miles looked out the window as the bus started to move. They drove past some of his friends’ houses and his old school and rolled off into the countryside. On the way to the beach they saw some geese pecking for seeds in a farmer’s field. His dad said the birds were returning from the warm countries where they had spent the winter and that they always stopped in the same spot on the way back because they can eat and have a rest while they make their way home.
After fifteen minutes, Miles said, “Daddy, you know the bus is moving and taking us places.”
“That’s right, it’s taking us to the beach.”
“Well, let’s pretend instead the bus is standing still but the wheels are moving and bringing places to us.”
“You mean we’re making things come closer instead of the bus driving towards them?”
“Yep -” said Miles, happily, “every time the driver turns the wheel, the planet Earth moves and makes everything go in that direction. Let’s imagine we’re spinning the world.”
“All right,” said his dad, going along with it, “Watch out planet Earth! We’re on the move!”
Miles liked this idea. When the bus went round the next bend, he said: “Let’s bring that road over to us!” and sure enough they did.
“Hey tree!,” said his dad to a willow up ahead, “Come over here, we want to take a closer look,” and it moved towards them, branches, roots and all.
Miles was thrilled. He thought it was amazing that the bus driver could bring anything he wanted towards them without Miles or any of the other passengers actually having to go anywhere. As long as there were roads between them and where they wanted to visit, the driver only had to spin the wheels and the places would come up to meet the them.
Miles was having so much fun he almost forgot they were going. It was only when he noticed his bucket by his feet that he remembered, and when he looked down he saw the seaside coming towards them as the bus moved the beach closer to where they were not actually moving.
“Hey look Daddy!” he said, “We spun the world so much that we brought the beach to us!”
“Looks like it,” said his Dad.
Once they were on the beach, Miles thought that if the bus had brought the sea was where they were, then they must have puched their house away from them. He asked his dad if this was something he should worry about.
“Of course not,” said his Dad, “we’ve just got to make sure we bring our house back to us when we get back in the bus and that will put the beach back where it belongs.”
“By the seaside?” asked Miles
“Exactly,” said his Dad.
But Miles wasn’t so sure. What if they forgot to spin the world back? What if instead of moving the world with the bus, they just drove back normally and the beach stayed in the wrong place forever.
He started worrying about the geese on their way back home not being able to find their field now that the bus had moved it bringing him and his dad them to the beach.
And maybe the astronauts on their way back to Earth would land in the field instead of splashing down into the sea like they were supposed to.
Miles began to feel very sorry for having moved places around like they did. He worried he was going to get in trouble, so he didn’t say anything to his dad and built a few sandcastles to get his mind of things, but it was no use. And since he thought he had spun the world for a whole hour, and judging that an hour was almost as long as a boring rugby match, he thought he had spun the world more than he should have.
He thought of the cold places he had made hotter and the hot places he made colder, and how somewhere polar bears were sweating away in the heat while camels shivered in the snow and how the sun would set in a different place when night fell and all because of his day at the beach.
Maybe he had spun the world so much that he couldn’t figure out how to put it back again. He sat quietly as he ate the picnic his dad had brought for them, but he didn’t feel like eating. He didn’t even enjoy the ice-cream his dad got because he kept thinking of the hot and sticky polar bears.
“Dad - can we go home now?” he said in a small voice.
“OK,” said his dad, looking at his watch.
“Can we get a bus back to our house?” said Miles.
“OK,” said his dad, puzzled as that was the only way home from the beach.
“And can we make the world go back the way it was by bringing it to us the opposite way?” said Miles
“OK,” said his dad, as he started packing up their stuff.
The whole journey back, Miles imagined again that the bus was spinning the world with its wheels, but this time instead of moving their home away from them, they were bringing it back to where it was that morning.
Little by little, the bus brought the places back to where they belonged. As the beach moved away behind them and the countryside rolled by, Miles started to feel better, especially when he saw the geese in the fields go by his window. The bus brought the town closer, and soon he could see his friends’ houses and his old school in front of them.
“Nearly there,” he said to his dad, “no more spinning.”
“No more spinning” said his dad.
A few minutes later they were home, and Miles knew the world was back the way it was before they left for the beach, and now the geese and the astronauts and the camels would all be safe and warm. And the polar bears would be safe and cold, just like they were meant to be.
He sat on the couch to watch Power Rangers while his dad made dinner and Miles promised himself that next time he went anywhere, he would go there himself instead of bringing the place to him. He made his dad promise to.
And the next time they went to the beach, they left the world as it was and moved the bus instead of the world, which stayed as it always did and always would, ready for Miles to explore it whenever he wanted.