The Commander's Story

Chapter 1

"Gather 'round children," said the volunteer. "Miss June is going to tell us a story."

The children came and sat in a half-circle around me. As I looked at all of the little kids watching me expecting something great, I wondered what story I was going to tell.

"Hello, I am June and today I am going to tell you the Commander's story. It starts about twenty years ago."

I woke up to my mother banging on the door. I was fazed for awhile until I realized it was Choosing Day. The day when Commander, whoever it is at the time, chooses ten teenagers from Cadet School to go to Space School to prepare for the next Alien attack.

That year's commander, John Muncin, was also the last year's commander and he had picked my brother, Lucas. It is abnormal for a commander to pick two kids from the same family, but I want this more then anything. I had applied for Space School the week before and I really hoped to be chosen.

"June! Get your butt up!!" my mother yelled.

I got out of my sleeping pod and went to my bathroom. I touched my mirror and the home screen popped up. In the corner was my blog, Alia, my best friend, posted a picture of her Choosing Day dress. The bodice was blue, lime green, and the skirt was blue with lime green flowers. In the other corner was live streaming of the Commander preparing his speech.

I was starting to brush my long, wavy, dark brown hair when an IM popped up. Are you getting ready for the choosing? It was Alia so I called her and her live stream popped up on half of the mirror. She was curling her short, super straight, blonde hair. Alia started talking immediately "Hey girl! Why aren't you dressed yet? What are you going to wear? OOH you should curl your hair!" she said talking a mile a minute.

"You are talking too fast for seven in the morning. HAHA! Let's see I am wearing my purple gown with sparkles on the bodice and pink swooping on the skirt," I said trying to keep up with her making agreeing tones. "You think I should curl it? I don't know, maybe just a few braids."

"If you turn on the Zapper I will just pop on over and do your hair!" Alia said excitedly.

I was not about to turn on the Teleport 3000, or the Zapper as Alia calls it, and get grounded right before the Choosing ceremony. You see the Teleport 3000 is a machine that you type the full name of who you want on the screen. Then after they accept the request they will show up wherever the machine is. I got grounded from this machine after too many late night visits from Alia. My parents had completely forbidden me from even thinking about using it.

"Alia, You know I am grounded from it and if I use it my parents would never let me go to Space School. That is if I get picked," I said thinking about it.

"June, you know you are going to get in. You pass every test with flying colors, you are amazing and the commander would be crazy to leave you here." Alia said with confidence. Yeah, I guess I passed every test but I hadn't ever had experience on the simulators, a result of too much time spent studying. What if I couldn't do what they wanted when I got there or what if I didn't get in because of that!