Gershwin Goes to Mars

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Gershwin, and he was an adventurer. He'd been to so many places. He'd been to the jungle. He'd been to the bottom of the sea. He'd been to the North Pole. He'd travelled through strange pipes along with a guy called Mario.

He'd been to so many places, but even though he'd been to space, he'd never been to his favourite planet. Now, his favourite planet was Mars. He used to look at it through his telescope. He'd been looking at it for many, many years, seeing the red glow in the sky, so he wanted to go there.

He had a friend with a spaceship, because he'd been to space with them before. So he gave them a call.

“Hello. Is that Gershwin?”

“Yeah, yeah, it is,” he said. “Is that Sarah?”

“Yes. Can I help you with something?”

“Yes, Sarah. I'd really like to go on a space adventure. Do you think you can take me?”

“Oh, we'd love to. Where do you want to go?” said Sarah.

“I would like to go to Mars.”

“Oh, are you sure?” said Sarah.

“Yes. Very sure,” said Gershwin.

“Okay, then meet me at the launch pad in two days.”

Gershwin had two days to get everything ready. Now, what would he need for his trip to Mars? First of all, a spacesuit. Then a change of underwear. He would need some nice T-shirts to sleep in, and he would need his trusty camera.

He thought that was probably all he'd need, so he packed it in a bag, then turned on the television to watch a bit of TV before he set off. He was flicking through the channels and saw a programme all about Mars. He thought it was a perfect time to watch.

So he did. He watched for a bit, and they just kept talking about the fact that Mars was really, really hot. Now, Gershwin hadn't realised this. It was further away from the sun than Earth, so he thought it would be cooler. But it turned out Mars didn't have a proper atmosphere like Earth. That meant the sun's rays could get to the surface of Mars much, much more easily, and that made it much hotter.

That was a very strange thing for Gershwin to find out, but he didn't mind because he liked the heat anyway. He liked the heat on his own planet, but he didn't like the heat on Mars.

Very soon he set off. He got to the launch site just in time. He could see the spaceship ahead of him, pouring out gases, keeping itself cool before it shot off into space.

Gershwin climbed up the big, big, big ladder to the cockpit, where he met Sarah. They both climbed inside together and put on their spacesuits. Sarah and Gershwin gave each other a high five, walked into the cabin and strapped themselves in. It was just like being in a car. He put his seatbelt on and got ready to go.

“Five, four, three, two, one, blast off!” said the commentator.

Smoke flew from the thrusters. He could feel the heat from the fire burning in the back of the rocket, and suddenly the spaceship started flying up, up, up into the sky.

He could see all the houses and trees and buildings getting smaller and smaller below him, and very soon everything started to get darker and darker. He realised that he was entering space.

Soon the bottom of the rocket disconnected and fell back to Earth, leaving Gershwin and Sarah piloting a much smaller ship made to travel through space. It blasted off with its own rockets and headed towards Mars.

At this point, Gershwin could unbuckle from the spaceship and just float around in space, so he did. He had some fun doing flips and twirls and barrel rolls and all sorts of fun acrobatics in the air. It was just like doing exercises, but much easier.

The ship kept flying, and Gershwin saw the moon passing by, getting further and further away. In the distance, Sarah pointed at the very small, red, glowing planet.

“There's Mars. We should be there in about twenty minutes.”

Gershwin pulled out his Nintendo Switch and played a bit of Mario while he waited, because he was very impatient and the Switch made things go so much faster.

Very soon the planet had got much, much bigger, and Sarah told him to buckle up. Gershwin got back in his seat and fastened his seatbelt. The spaceship did a massive flip, then started heading towards Mars backwards. It reversed down onto the planet and landed with a bump.

The doors opened up, and Gershwin took his first steps out onto a planet that he'd never been to before. Mars was just red dust and red brick. It was all red, that bright, glowing red in the distance when he looked through his telescope.

He walked around, he jumped around, and he left ginormous Gershwin-sized footprints on the surface of Mars. Then he realised he was getting a bit hot. He knew it was going to be hot after that documentary, but he didn't think it meant this hot. This was stupidly hot.

So he ran back to the spaceship very quickly and got inside.

“Everything okay?” said Sarah.

“I didn't know it would be this hot,” said Gershwin. “It's very, very hot out there. I think I need to cool down.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Sarah. “It can be quite daunting, your first visit to Mars. It's very hot. Tell you what, let me close the doors and turn on the oxygen, and we can both have an ice cream.”

The doors shut. They took off their space helmets when the oxygen came through and had a very, very tasty and very cooling ice cream together. This was just right for Gershwin.

Inside, the spaceship had two ginormous fans to keep everybody cool. These were on full blast, which was great because it meant that their ice creams did not melt in the heat. So they spent a long time eating them.

When they'd finished, Gershwin decided he'd quickly go out, take a few more photos, plant his flag and then come back. That's what he did. He bounced around on the surface of Mars. He had a big flag with Gershwin's face painted on it and knocked it into the ground so that everybody knew Gershwin had been there.

Then he took a selfie of himself next to the flag, with a ginormous crater behind him.

It was time to go, so he dashed back to the spaceship as fast as possible. When he got there, Sarah was already closing the door.

“Wait for me!” Gershwin shouted.

He ran as fast as he could, and he could see the door shutting in the distance. So he jumped, and he jumped with all his might. He was practically flying, which was great. He'd never felt like that before, which was weird because gravity on Mars was so much heavier than it was on Earth.

But at this moment he didn't care about that. He was just flying to make it back onto the spaceship in time. The door was closing, and he landed on his belly just in front of the door, on the ramp below.

He wasn't going to make it in time. So he clicked his heels together, and two rockets shot out from his boots. [A short phrase about the rockets is unclear; the rocket boots and their effect are clear.]

He flew forward fast and slid under the door just in time as it went clunk and shut.

“What are you doing?” said Gershwin. “You almost left me out there.”

“Sorry,” said Sarah. “But there's a big storm coming this way, and we need to leave immediately. I knew you'd make it because you had those rockets, but it was really important that we shut the door, or else we might never have left the planet.”

“Oh, okay,” said Gershwin.

He quickly ran back into the cockpit and strapped himself in as Sarah pressed the button. The ship took off into orbit again, and as he looked out of the window, he could see the massive storm that would have hit the ship. It was huge. It looked like it had been going on for days, and it had only just reached them.

“Phew, that was close,” said Gershwin.

“I know,” said Sarah.

They flew off, heading back towards the blue dot in the distance.

“Is that Earth there?” said Gershwin.

“Yeah, that's Earth, that beautiful blue planet.”

Gershwin grabbed his Switch again and started playing Mario. Before he knew it, they'd passed the moon and were starting their descent onto Earth. The ship rocked back and forth. It buffeted. It shook. But very soon it touched down on the ground.

It was very fortunate that they arrived at that point in time, because just as they came in to land, Gershwin's Switch started beeping to signify that all of his time had run out. That was good, because all he had to do now was get off the ship and head home.

He did that, and when he got home, he connected up his camera and printed the biggest, biggest picture ever of him, the flag and Mars in the background. He put it in a frame. Then, because he was so tired, he curled himself up into bed to dream about the day he'd had.

And that's the story of Gershwin going to Mars. The end.