Transcript for Parent Storytellers
The white, fluffy space bunny was trying to eat an ice-cream cone without getting any on his whiskers.
He had found the shop while hopping across a little asteroid beside a magical Martian farm. Cows floated between the red barns, and the shop sign turned slowly overhead.
The bunny took a lick.
A purple blob landed on his nose.
“Nearly,” said Oni Pepperoni.
Behind the counter, Captain Milky Way, an astronaut cow, scooped six cones, caught a floating spoon, and answered a bell.
“Coming!” she called.
She had said “Coming!” eleven times. Oni had counted.
“Don’t you ever take a break?” the bunny asked.
“I’d love to play my space game,” said the Captain. “But someone has to run the shop.”
The bunny’s ears stood straight up.
“I could build someone!”
From his bag he pulled a snap-together circuit set. These were magical space parts, with moon-shaped buttons and a little silver robot body.
Oni held the pieces while the bunny clicked them together. The bunny added a scoop arm, a cone holder, and a screen that could play games when the robot finished serving.
He saved one small button for a mouth. A tiny star-shaped light shone beside it.
“What does the mouth button do?” Oni asked.
“Not sure yet,” said the bunny. “But a robot should have a smile.”
They set their invention behind the counter, beside a clear screen that kept splashes away from customers.
“One cone, please,” said Oni.
The robot scooped a perfect spiral.
“Another cone,” said the bunny.
Another perfect spiral.
Captain Milky Way sat down beside the game screen.
Then the robot tried a third cone. Its little star light faded.
Its scoop arm twitched.
Its cone holder wobbled.
“Round and round!” said the robot.
It spun.
Ice cream flew over the counter. A pink scoop landed in the Captain’s empty chair. A green scoop balanced on Oni’s cap.
The bunny ducked behind a stool.
“My helper is making MORE work!”
“Behind the clear screen!” called the Captain.
Oni and the bunny joined her. She pressed the stop button. The robot froze with its scoop pointing at the ceiling.
A final blob dropped onto its head and dribbled down to its mouth.
Plop.
The bunny’s ears sagged.
“I wanted you to have a break.”
“I still want one,” said the Captain gently. “Let’s find out what happened.”
Oni looked at the cone he had caught.
“First cone, good. Second cone, good. Third cone, spinning. What changed?”
The bunny inspected the scoop arm. It wasn’t bent.
He checked the wheels. Nothing was stuck.
“Maybe it doesn’t like three,” he said.
Oni pointed to the robot’s smiling mouth. A smear of green ice cream covered the little button.
The little star light blinked gold.
“The ice cream made its light come back,” said Oni.
The bunny wiped the smear away.
The light went dark.
He put the smear back.
Blink.
Captain Milky Way leaned closer.
“That’s my magic Martian ice cream. It makes ordinary things do rather extraordinary things.”
“Even a robot?” asked Oni.
“Especially one built from moon buttons,” said the bunny.
The bunny looked from the glowing light to the robot’s mouth.
“I made it a mouth,” he said, “and forgot to offer it a scoop.”
Oni held a little dish beneath the robot’s smile. The bunny lifted a spoonful of green ice cream to its mouth. The ice cream vanished with a tiny slurp.
The star light shone steadily.
The Captain kept her hoof on the stop button.
“Ready?”
The bunny nodded.
She switched the robot on.
Its scoop arm lifted.
Everyone waited.
“One cone,” said the robot. “For my engineer.”
It handed the bunny a neat green spiral.
“And one for my clue finder.”
Oni took his cone.
The bunny’s whiskers lifted with his grin.
“Now you can play,” he told the Captain.
She pressed the game button. A tiny spaceship bounced across the screen.
The robot served the next customer without a single spin.
Between turns at the game, Oni and the bunny wiped the counter. The robot handed them a cloth, then wiped its own ice-cream hat.
Oni brushed the forgotten scoop off his cap and into a dish.
“A hat is a terrible ice-cream bowl,” he said.
The bunny looked at the purple spot still on his nose.
“So is a bunny.”
Captain Milky Way laughed so hard that her little spaceship bumped straight into the game’s largest pretend moon.
For once, she didn’t call, “Coming!”
She called, “One more game!”