It's Not What You Think

Chapter 4

I'm not entirely sure what happened here, but it was certainly something.

"What's that?" Svetlana asked two hours later, pointing at an approaching object in the sky.

"Oh!" Catherine exclaimed. "That's the ship. Trixie's here."

"Already?" Ben asked.

"Yes," Catherine said. "You really think that if our people were able to come all the way from Pluto we wouldn't be able to get any faster transportation than you people who've barely made it to the moon?"

The ship landed. Now, it wasn't a stereotypical flying saucer sort of thing. ("The aerodynamics of that would be awful," Catherine had said.) Rather, it was a strange sort of cross between an airplane and a spaceship.

Trixie got out of the ship and waved awkwardly. "So how's it going here?" she asked Erica.

"Mike came in contact with some of mom's more powerful sedative," Erica reported. "Also, I may have accidentally hypnotized Zoe into being obsessed with boxes. She's naming them now."

"Accidently?" Trixie asked skeptically.

"It was one hundred percent on purpose," Catherine said. "Though I have to admit, I think we were all a little surprised that it actually worked."

"So, did you unhypnotize her?" Trixie asked.

"Oh, Markothon!" Zoe said dramatically. "Someone's written all over you! Your cardboard has been marred with the most heinous of weapons: sharpies!"

"I'll take that as a no," Trixie said, then clapped three times. "Box alert!"

Zoe immediately snapped back to normal. "What was I doing?" she asked, getting up from the ground, ignoring her once-precious boxes.

"Erica hypnotized you," Svetlana said. "Then Trixie unhypnotized you."

"Thanks," Zoe said to Trixie.

"How was your flight up here?" Catherine asked Trixie.

"It was pretty good," Trixie said. "A little turbulence, but nothing terrible."

"Good," Catherine said. "Now, we might as well get going again."
"Where were you going to go?" Trixie asked.

"Just away from here," Catherine said. "We thought about going south a ways, but I think wherever's fine. Children, if there's anything else you want out of the helicopter, you had better get it now."
Mike dragged out as many cans of chocolate frosting as he could and gave them to Trixie to load into the spacecraft.

"Do you really need all of this?" she asked as Mike headed back to get more.

"Yes!" he said.

"But why?" Trixie asked. "It's not as if you'd be able to eat it all."

"I would never eat my friends," Mike said horrified.

"Your friends?"

"He's still a little out of it from that sedative," Catherine explained. Then, lowering her voice, she added, "Just go along with it for now, and we'll dump the excess once he's back to normal."

"Alright," Trixie said, annoyed she was going to be made to pack up all the cans. "But can we at least go to the moon? Grandma never lets me go, and it's so nice there this time of year."

"We don't have enough spacesuits for that," Catherine said. "Just Erica's and maybe one extra."

"Well, can we go pick some up?"

"If you can get the others on board with going to the moon, we can go pick up spacesuits for them," Catherine said.

Trixie turned to look at the others. "So," she asked. "How do you guys feel about going to the moon?"