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The Very Important Mission
Poppy Plum was eight years old and she had a spaceship.
It was not a big spaceship. It was not a shiny spaceship. It was round and flat and golden-brown, with a little bumpy dome on top, and it smelled a tiny bit like breakfast. That is because Poppy had built it herself, out of her grandpa's old pancake griddle, three frying pans, a bicycle bell and a great deal of sticky tape.
She called it the Starship Pancake.
"It's the best ship in the whole galaxy," Poppy said, patting the side of it.
"It's the ONLY ship in the whole backyard," said Waffles.
Waffles was Poppy's robot dog. He was square, like a waffle, with little square holes all over his body and a tail that went round and round like a propeller when he was happy. He was happy most of the time. But right now he was worried, because Poppy was packing.
"Where are we going?" asked Waffles.
"To the Moon," said Poppy. "To Grandma Plum's house."
Grandma Plum lived on the Moon. She had moved there last spring, because she said the view was lovely and the neighbors were quiet. She sent Poppy a postcard every week. The most recent postcard had a picture of a crater on the front, and on the back it said:
*Dear Poppy. It is my birthday on Saturday. I am going to be 80. Nobody up here knows how to bake a cake. Love, Grandma.*
Poppy had read that postcard eleven times. Then she had gone straight to the kitchen and baked the biggest, pinkest, most sprinkly cake she had ever made. It was so tall it wobbled. It had eighty candles and a sugar rocket on top.
"We are delivering this cake to the Moon," Poppy said. "By Saturday. That is our Very Important Mission."
Waffles's tail went round and round. "I love Very Important Missions!"
"So do I," said a small, gloopy voice.
They both looked down. Sitting on the step of the Starship Pancake was a slug. A bright purple slug, as long as a banana, with two wobbly eye-stalks and a slimy trail that sparkled like glitter.
"Who are you?" asked Poppy.
"I'm Syrup," said the slug. "I'm a space slug. I fell out of a comet and landed in your gran's vegetable patch years ago. I've been eating her lettuces ever since." Syrup blinked her eye-stalks. "I'd very much like to go home. And the Moon is on the way."
Poppy looked at Waffles. Waffles looked at Poppy.
"Okay," said Poppy. "You can be our crew. But no eating the cake."
"I would NEVER," said Syrup, looking at the cake very hard.
And so, on Thursday morning, with a cake in the cargo hold, a robot dog in the co-pilot's seat and a space slug on the dashboard, Poppy Plum rang the bicycle bell three times, pulled the big red lever, and the Starship Pancake flipped up into the sky.
