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Space was quiet and peaceful - well, at least as quiet and peaceful as space could actually be.
After all, there were asteroids and black holes and stars forming and….
Yeah, you get the point.
But this near-peace was interrupted as a rather colorful rocket ship passed through the…. space.
The driver was one Will Wood, along with one of his pet rats (Mr. Algernon Socrates Boy, to be specific.) as a passenger.
The man looked down at his rodent companion with a smile on his face. “We’re almost there, Socrates. You’ll get to be the first rat on the moon, and we’ll finally get to find out if the moon is made of cheese!”
Socrates gave a squeak as his tail wagged. His whiskers were twitching and his eyes were boggling as well, so it was obvious he was extremely excited.
Will chuckled at the display of happiness as he focused on driving again.
They were getting closer and closer to the moon, which was a yellowish-orange color up close. It sure looked a lot like cheese.
The rocket finally landed. They’d made it.
Will put on his astronaut helmet before helping Socrates do the same. With a small ‘woosh’, the door opened, serving as a ramp down to the moon’s surface.
Will walked out slowly, while Socrates perched on his shoulder. “Okay…. We have to be careful. It’s dangerous out here, Socrates.” Will said, glancing at the rat as he finally stepped off of the door.
He bent down, pulling a loose piece out of the ground and squeezing it. From what he could feel through his thick gloves, it at least felt like cheese.
“Hm…. It looks like cheese and feels like cheese… I’m not sure about the smell or taste, though. I mean, it’s not like we can take our-“
He stopped as he saw that Socrates had run off and removed his helmet, and was now eating cheese.
“Socrates!”
Will forced the helmet back on, sighing in exasperation.
“Are you trying to suffocate or something?” he said, the worry he felt for Socrates obvious in his voice.
Thankfully, Socrates was okay. But he was making puppy dog eyes at Will now, and he looked incredibly sad.
Will shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that! You could’ve… you could’ve died!” he said, putting a hand on his helmet as he sighed in exasperation “I guess… at least on the bright side, we got the taste test done. It did taste like cheese, right?”
Socrates nodded, letting out a tiny squeak that sounded a bit grumpy.
“Okay, good. You know what that means, don’t you?” Will said as he started to smile again.
He ran back to the rocket and grabbed his trusty shovel, a bag, and a spoon. “Let’s start digging.”
The two worked together to harvest the moon cheese. Socrates wasn’t as efficient as Will was, which was kind of obvious.
I mean…. Did you really expect a tiny rat to be as efficient as a six foot tall man?
Either way, it helped.
Once they had harvested enough cheese, they climbed back into the rocket and started to drive back to Earth.
“Well, that was easier than I expected.” Will said with audible surprise and delight. Socrates nodded again as he started to nibble on a new piece of cheese.
“I just hope NASA or…. or ESA or JAXA doesn’t arrest us or something.” the black-haired man said in a half-joking tone.
Fortunately, none of those organizations were going after them.
But unfortunately, the ship was now being pulled up by a tractor beam.
Will blinked, before sighing. “Well, here we go again.”
The rocket got pulled up into the UFO, sending Socrates and Will on a detour that they hadn’t expected to any degree.
At least they had their moon cheese though, right?