Spaceman Ethan looked down from the doorway of his spaceship to see a princess astride a horse, with her flowing blond hair streaming out in the wind. Beside her were her guards, their mouths hanging open in shock. Ethan smiled and waved at them again.
“My name,” shouted the princess, “is Princess Anna. You are in the field of one of my villages and they were afraid that you were a dragon.”
Ethan immediately reached for the wet-noodle gun in the holster on his belt. “D-dragon! You didn’t tell me this was a dragon planet!”
“It’s okay,” Anna raised her hands in a calming motion, “there are no dragons around.”
Ethan relaxed a little, but kept his hand close to his trusty, high-tech wet-noodle gun. He stepped over the mounded furrows of dirt piled around his spaceship and approached the princess and her guards.
“I’m sorry that I tore up your field. My ship ran out of fuel because of a moon-storm and I had to land somewhere. As soon as I can get more fuel I’ll go back to space,” Ethan said.
“Where can we get the fuel you need?” Anna asked.
Ethan looked around, scanning the horizon. Nothing around looked like a good source for fuel and his ship’s computer needed fuel to run to tell him where to find fuel to run it. He thought about bringing that up with the engineers the next time he saw them, but realized that wouldn’t help him much right now.
“I don’t know,” Ethan said, “My ship runs on golden rocks, but I don’t know where you keep those on your planet.”
The princess scratched her head for a moment. “Do you mean gold?” she asked.
“No, no,” Ethan replied, “Not gold, but golden rocks. Gold you make into pretty things like rings and decorations. Golden rocks are for fuel.”
“Well,” said Princess Anna, “I’m not at all sure where we might find a golden rock, but I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“Thank you!” Ethan smiled. He was going to like this planet, he could tell already.
“First, we should go and let the villagers know that you’re not a dragon so they can get back to work,” Anna said.
So they went back to the village, Anna and the guards riding on their horses and Ethan rolling along in his space-rover that he’d picked up when he visited the Bat Planet. His rover looked like what would be a carousel on Anna’s world, but was actually a fast and powerful rover that could drive over any terrain. Also it was decorated with bats and Ethan thought that was pretty cool.
As they were on the way back to the village, Anna asked Ethan questions about his ship and about space. Ethan told her all about his travels exploring the different planets. He avoided the dragon planets, mostly because dragons were cranky because they could never eat ice cream due to their fire-breath. He liked going to the bouncy-castle planet, though, because everyone one there would bounce to work or school or home and no one ever had to wear shoes.
“Do you think that, maybe after we find some fuel for your ship you might let me see some of these planets?” Anna asked.
“Of course!” Ethan replied, “I’d love to. Exploring planets is always more fun with friends.”
“Great!” Anna clapped her hands in joy, “I’m always looking for more jokes to share with my people. I bet there are some wonderful jokes in space!”
“There are,” Ethan said, “Did you hear the one about the flagerbloopjambertron that went into the krumpfstrumfblumf?”
“Uh…” Anna said.
“They all went home with a case of zooloopooloogooloochew!” Ethan could barely keep himself from laughing as he delivered the punchline.
“Ha, ha,” said Anna politely, “Oh, look we’re at the village.”
Ethan looked up from his laughter to see the village walls lined with villagers peeking over at him. He smiled and waved, but instead of smiling and waving back most of the villagers ducked behind the walls to hide everything but their eyes. Spaceman Ethan liked to observe the local customs on the planets he visited, so he did the same, pulling himself down behind the windscreen on his space-rover so just his eyes peeked out from over the top. He knew he would like this planet.
“Villagers!” Princess Anna called out, “This is Spaceman Ethan. His space ship crashed in the field and caused the roaring and fire that you mistook for a dragon. There is no dragon, only our friend.”
The village responded with tepid and weak applause.
“But to aid our new friend,” Anna continued, “We must find for him a golden rock to power his ship.” Anna saw the mayor of the village start to raise his hand. “And before you ask,” she went on, “No, it’s not gold, but golden rocks. There’s a difference.” The mayor put his hand down. “Does anyone know where we can find a golden rock for Ethan’s ship?”
No one in the village moved.
“Anyone?” Princess Anna asked again.
Slowly a young girl made her way from the back of the crowd to the front. She stood straight and tall, which for her was not very tall at all, and raised her hand high.
“Yes?” Anna called on her.
The young girl cleared her throat and said, “I heard about a golden tooth, is that like a golden rock?”
Anna turned to look at Ethan; Ethan nodded and smiled. “Yes,” Anna said, “Where is it.”
“I heard that a High Gloom Master had a golden tooth,” said the young girl.
The whole village gasped in unison. Ethan looked behind him and reached for his wet-noodle gun just in case a dragon had sneaked up on them. But everyone had gasped about what the girl had said.
“What’s a Gloom Master?” Ethan asked.
Anna turned to him with a worried expression on her face, “A High Gloom Master is the gloomiest, grumpiest, meanest creature in the entire land of Grumpypuss. Around here we tell jokes and remind each other of the happy things in life, but in Grumpypuss they only focus on the bad things, the sad things, and the mad things. And the High Gloom Master is the baddest, saddest, maddest of them all.”
Ethan was scared of the High Gloom Master. Even though he’d flown to planets with dragons and planets with broccoli footed lizards and planets with giraffe-necked turtles and planets with spanking machines that spanked all the naughty kids even if they were really sorry, Ethan was still scared. In all the planets he’d been to, Ethan had never heard of anything as grumptastic, as meanalicious, as gloomarific as the High Gloom Master of the Land of Grumpypuss. So Ethan started to cry.
“What’s wrong, Spaceman Ethan?” asked Princess Anna.
Ethan wiped his tears and tried to smile, “It’s nothing. I just really like flying in space and I’m sad that I won’t be able to anymore. But I like being here, so I guess it will be okay.”
“Why would you say that, Ethan?”
Ethan shrugged, “Because we can’t get a golden rock and I need it to fuel my ship.”
Princess Anna drew herself up into a regal, princessly posture and said, “Spaceman Ethan, there is no gloom, no grump that can fight the powers of a great joke. And I have the greatest jokes around. We will go to the land of Grumpypuss and find the High Gloom Master and make him laugh so hard that he’s not gloomy, not grumpy, not frumpy, not sad, not mad, and not bad anymore. Then we’ll see about getting you your golden rock and flying through space again.”
Ethan smiled a little bit and nodded.
Anna knew that she needed something more to cheer Ethan up. She thought through all of her jokes and then chose the best one for the occasion.
“What do you do when you see a spaceman?” Anna asked.
Ethan shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”
“You park your horse there, man!”
It took Ethan just a moment, probably because he wasn’t accustomed to riding horses, and then he burst out laughing along with the rest of the village.
After the laughter subsided to just a few chuckles Anna turned to Ethan and said, “We’ll get you your space rock. Don’t worry about that. Besides, you have to take me to learn some new space jokes!”
Ethan grinned and said, “It’s a deal!”
