Read Me a Bedtime Story
Splendid Auction Finds
Chapter 2
Jonathan Joy
The Ashland Beacon
Lulu Campbell loves storage unit auctions.
If you’ve seen the Storage Wars TV show, you know the deal. Would-be treasure hunters gather to bid on abandoned storage units that are being auctioned off to the public.
Lulu likes to flip storage units located near Splendid, West Virginia. The town is rich in supernatural happenings and sometimes the items discovered in these units are quite magical. For example, in Splendid Auction Finds Chapter 1, Lulu found enchanted shoes that made her super-fast.
A few weeks later, Lulu returned to bidding at an auction at Steve’s Storage on the west side of Splendid. As usual, she brought along a wheelbarrow, borrowed from her neighbor, to carry home her winnings.
Lulu outbid her competitors, spending eighty-five dollars to win a locker full of possibilities.
“And a whole lot of trash.” Lulu said to herself, realizing that half of the unit would likely wind up in a nearby dumpster.
“This won’t fit in my wheelbarrow.” She said about an old refrigerator she ended up selling to another auction hunter for twenty-five bucks.
“That’s not what I was after, anyway.” Lulu turned her attention to a big red toolbox. Tools are expensive and Lulu was sure this toolbox would contain hundreds of dollars’ worth of merchandise she could sell. Unfortunately, it was empty. “Oh, no. I’m going to lose money on this unit for sure.”
She looked around. “Let’s hope whatever is under this tarp is worth something.”
Hidden behind all she’d found so far was a large blue tarp that covered…
…”What is this?” She pulled the tarp off to reveal what appeared to be a spacecraft made of several large cardboard boxes, aluminum foil, and a bunch of duct tape. Someone had written the words Kids Space Force in sharpie on one side. “Oh, great. I just spent all my money on someone’s cardboard craft project.”
Lulu’s attitude would change when she squeezed inside the ship to discover that it actually worked. After playfully pushing buttons on what appeared to be a fake, painted on control panel, the spacecraft lifted a few feet off the ground and hovered there.
“Impossible.” Lulu was shocked.
She made another series of keystrokes on the control panel and suddenly shot out of the unit and flew high up into the sky.
“Wow!” Lulu soared up and up and up, out of the Earth’s atmosphere, to and around the moon even, then back again.
She steered the flying Kid Space Force saucer above Splendid University and then zoomed at lightning speed over her grandfather’s home and eventually crash landed in his back yard.
Lulu’s grandpa popped his head out the backdoor. “You okay, Lulu?”
She responded. “I bought this in a storage unit and it’s a real flying spaceship. I mean it. I went to the moon and back!”
Grandpa, seeing nothing but a ramshackle collection of cardboard, tape, foil, and paint, simply responded, “Okay, dear. Have fun.” He went back inside.
Lulu must have attracted some attention while hovering above the Earth and around the moon, because suddenly and out of nowhere she was surrounded by three sleek, steel, real-looking spaceships.
Four aliens stepped out of each one and lumbered slowly toward Lulu.
Lulu screamed and ran inside.
“What’s up?” Grandpa asked her, without even looking up from his crossword puzzle.
“There’s a bunch of aliens out there. They’re after me. I’ve got to get out of here. And fast.”
“That nice, Lulu.” Her grandfather responded. “You always have had a good imagination.”
“The shoes!” Lulu said to herself.
She had hidden her super shoes from the previous auction in her grandfather’s attic. “Hidden…until I really need them…like now!”
When Lulu reappeared outside in her super cool, super powered red and silver chucks, she shot past all twelve of those creepy alien dudes with astonishing speed. They chased after her into the nearby Don’t Go There Forest, but her pace was unmatchable.
The aliens, who really just wanted to ask Lulu questions about her unique flying craft, eventually shrugged and gave up. They all got back into their spaceships and launched into the sky.
Lulu decided to keep her Kids Space Force ship concealed deep in those nearby woods, so it wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention from Martians. “Or from any nosy earthlings, for that matter. This is all mine.”
She’d go out into the woods once a week and play with that ship, fly it around a bit, and have a blast.
The young one did technically lose money on that particular storage unit, but the intergalactic adventures she had were priceless.
THE END…FOR NOW
Check back for Splendid Auction Finds, Chapter 3, coming soon to an Ashland Beacon near you.