The Great Donut Catastrophe

Written by Anya Lu and Emely Gurrola-Mariscal

The vibrant blue and green colors of Earth's surface always sparked Plum’s curiosity of Earth ever since she was a little monster. Her love of science and engineering has been a big part of Plum’s personality since Plum could walk. Her interest burst more and more as she grew up and a thought that always stuck with her was what it was like outside of her home planet, Pluto and she was about to find out. What could possibly be on Earth that Pluto doesn’t have? This thought stayed on her mind till the time came. 

Plum has been working on a rocketship to take an expedition to Earth since the moment she learned about other planets in school. Every day after school ended she would rush home and sit down and read books about what there is on Earth. The animals and the plants: she wondered about it all. At night she would gaze out of her window and see the Earth glow. Unlike Pluto, Earth is very vibrant and alive while her home Pluto was a dry, rocky, cold, planet. Or at least that’s what she read in the books. Her eyes glowed in love as soon as she touched those books, her pupil’s grew big and black like a boba pearl covered in honey.

After years of working on her own rocketship her rocketship was made. In relief, she was ready for the moment. Everyone always told her that she would never make it to Earth and that the idea of her just making a rocketship herself was just bizarre. But she didn’t care about what others thought of her idea. When time came, Plum set all her bags and luggage getting ready to launch off. Before she let her say her goodbyes, her village had many things to say to Plum, both positive and negative, such as "Bye, Plum,” "Have a safe ride!” “You’re awesome!” and others are negative, such as “It’s just a silly dream, and she’s not going to make it!” “No monster has ever made it out of this planet and back alive." "Ha, this is a joke!” Although some of these things may sound harsh Plum always had a positive attitude and clear mindset. “These people may not believe in me but I know I can do it!” Plum said to herself. She said her last goodbyes to her parents and packed up her last things and got ready to launch. The flames of the rocket ship blew on the fellow alien villagers of Pluto. As she started her rocket there was a noise that frightened Plum and got her hopes down. She tried starting the engine again and it worked! She launched off, and felt her heart racing faster than a shooting star. She has been waiting for this moment since the day she was born or at least since she could read. 

Plum was off into space for a while now and she couldn’t get over the fact that she had finally accomplished her dream. 

Plum’s head was a throbbing mess as she opened her eyes. There was dust, debris and broken rocketship parts everywhere. Her rocketship was clouded in darkness with only a small sliver of sunlight that seeped through the cracks. Oh, sunlight. Plum smiled a bit to herself, she had never really seen it before. She had finally left her home planet and was finally on her way to Earth when… something went wrong. Plum struggled to remember what happened. Her brain had apparently fogged over the important details. Plum looked over at her own purple body, “Oh good, nothing’s broken.” Plum could smell the burning rot of the remains of her beloved rocketship. She fumbled around in the dark, looking for the emergency exit that she knew had to be there since she knew this rocketship like the back of her hand. When she finally found the handle and opened the door, she was blinded by the sudden burst of light. The warmth from the rising sun wrapped Plum in a cozy blanket. The blue and pink sky was sprinkled with light clouds and orange beams like strokes of a paint brush. It seemed like it was plucked right out of Plum’s childhood books.

There were groups of strange looking creatures gathered around, the sounds of their speech overwhelming Plum. Some seemed to be in awe, some seemed angry, some were clearly confused. They didn’t look like anything Plum had ever seen. With a start, she realized that they were humans. She had read books about them before. Fascinating things, they were kind of weird looking in her opinion.

She took in her surroundings. From the destruction behind her to the little box structures that seemed humongous to Plum, she was amazed. Then, she realized what actually happened before she crashed into Earth. She was sailing through the vast space in her little rocketship when she saw light from another rocketship that was coming right towards her. Plum was surprised and tried to move the controls to change the direction but nothing worked. Soon she felt the force of impact and her rocketship started to fall. That free falling sensation in her chest felt like a hammer. Her body was detached from the world. Apparently at some point, she had passed out. Plum was livid as the red hot sun she now looked up upon. She had so carefully planned out her arrival to Earth for years. So of course some idiot had to crash into her beautifully crafted rocketship and ruin everything.

As Plum was reminded of this, she discovered that the other rocketship was actually buried underneath hers. She wanted to see who she had crashed into, so she could chew them out for being so irresponsible. From underneath the debris, a small furry neon green monster crawled out. He had a similarly furry body as Plum and tiny brown horns jutting out at the top. A small belt bag was at his waist, loosely hanging on his slender frame. A few sparkles and glitter pieces flew as he brushed himself off, glittering in the rich Earthly sunlight.

He looked up and smiled at Plum with wide excited eyes, “Well, that certainly was exciting, wasn’t it? I’m Bobby, Venus’s resident sparkle-master. What’s your name?” Bobby extended his tiny blue hand to Plum.

She glared daggers at him and gritted her teeth. “Plum. Nice to meet you. Do you have any idea what you just did, you idiot,” slowly sounding out each syllable. “You ruined years of planning with your ignorance, sparklepants. This was my masterpiece! I have dreamed of arriving to Earth since-”

“Ah ah. Let’s take a deep breath. There’s no need to get so riled up,” Bobby reached into his belt bag and slowly dusted Plum with a shower of bright gem-like sparkles. “Do you feel the sparkles magic working on you? I engineered these sparkles to be specially calming and peaceful.”

Despite her fury and frustration at Bobby, she marveled at the small sparkles around her. It reminded Plum of the dreams she had as a little monster about Earth and its glowing landscapes. She wanted to keep yelling at Bobby, but instead what came out was, “Where did you get your sparkles? What is that little bag on your waist?”

“Oh! These sparkles are a specialty on Venus. They’re everywhere, but nobody else notices the magic it brings. And this bag was given to me from my aunt who went to Earth and brought back treasures. This is what humans call a fanny pack. It's awesome, right?”

“It sure is…” Plum’s fist was still clenched and her breathing became deep.

“I’m sorry for crashing into your rocketship. Oh my gosh! I totally forgot about my…” Bobby’s words trailed off as he rushed back into the ruins of their rocket ships. He dug around for a while then emerged holding a shiny disco ball. The sunlight reflected against the mirror-like surface of the ball. “Behold, my amazing disco ball!!! On the way to Earth, you know, before we had that whole boom boom crash thing, I was having the biggest dance party EVER! It’s an Earth thing that my aunt told me about. There were shiny lights, food and lots of music, just like the humans have! Now that we’re actually on Earth, we should totally have one ourselves.”

A human angrily stomped up to where Plum and Bobby were at the top of the smoking rocketships piled on top of each other. The human did not look happy. Her We Love Donuts apron covered in soot and dust fluttered slightly in the wind. As the human approached, Plum could see that the human was much taller than she had expected, reaching about 3 times Plum’s height. Her face was a mask of fury and outrage. The color of her hair was a fiery hot red, much like her expression showed. “Are you kidding me!? Who do you think you are?! My donut shop is ruined! All of my customers won’t have any more donuts to eat. This is the only donut shop for miles. I’m done for! What even are you?!”

“Well, I’m Bobby from the planet Venus and this is Plum from…”

“Pluto.” Plum turned her attention to the red haired human as she grumpily glowered at Bobby, “I’m sorry. This dolt was apparently having a dance party in his rocket ship and crashed into mine.”

The red haired girl sniffed once, “Huh, you better find a way to fix this. I cannot have this destroying my reputation.” She gazed down at the crowd of humans gathered around the base of the destruction.

The crowd was hollering at Plum and Bobby. “You aliens are the WORST!!” “WE WANT DONUTS!!!” Plum’s heart sunk into her chest, a wave of sadness washed over her.

Plum glared at Bobby while he gaped at the crowds of people. “You see what you did? I’ll never get to experience Earth like I wanted to. Ugh, never mind. We have to fix this problem.” She climbed back into her destroyed rocket ship and soon, Bobby followed. 

He looked around, “Well, how are we going to do that? Please tell me it involves sparkles.” Bobby poked at one of the springs that dangled from the ceiling like a bat. Plum stepped over metal pipes and debris from her rocket ship. She couldn’t help but sigh in disappointment. This was pretty much her life’s work after all. All of it was gone in less than a minute. Plum shook herself out of the daydream as she approached the panel embedded in the wall. It was dusty and covered in dents. Plum slowly pried open the panel, revealing a musty faded brown toolkit. 

Plum yanked it out and informed Bobby, “No, not with sparkles, with my toolkit. We’re obviously going to have to make a donut making machine. I was quite the engineer back on my home planet Pluto.” She gestured to the rocketship surrounding them. “This was my creation. I built her with my own two hands.”

Bobby looked disinterested. “Well then. Let’s go make a donut machine! Hopefully with sparkles!” Plum snorted, then led them out to the open air. A few humans were still gathered at the destruction site, although quite less of them. The road was lined with tall shops selling everything from hats to fresh soaps. Plum sat next to the wreckage and got to work building the donut maker.

The next few days were filled with the hammer clanking against metal and Bobby’s non-stop chatter. Bobby bought many items from the stores, from shiny sequins to bouncy balls. Plum thought they were childish things to buy, she rolled her eyes whenever Bobby showed her his newest addition to his collection. Bobby brought food from local restaurants to share with Plum. She was grateful, of course, but still blamed Bobby for everything that happened. Plum was slowly starting to forgive and forget, thinking about how happy Bobby always seemed and his carefree nature. Plum still dreamed of her village back on Pluto: How her village never believed in her, never thought she could make it to Earth. They believed that she would never make it to Earth.

“Ha! Jokes on them,” Plum thought gleefully. Or at least she thought she kept the thought inside her head.

Bobby looked up from his human toys, “Huh? Ah nevermind, I was just thinking about how all the humans are glaring at us now. It makes me sad. All I wanted was to finally make some friends. Back on Venus, the other monsters never liked me. They said it was weird to like sparkles. My sparkles have magic inside of them though. They can fix, heal, calm and everything in between. But I’m glad we’re friends now, Plum!”

Now Plum felt bad for blaming Bobby for the crash. She was just as much to blame as he was. “Me too.” She smiled warmly. Bobby returned the gesture. 

“Are you donee yet? It’s been ages.” Bobby said. Plum was back to being exasperated at him.

“Actually, yes.” Plum stepped back to admire her work. It was not the prettiest thing ever, considering it was made from the remains of her and Bobby’s rocket ships. When Plum had picked through the rubble to find suitable metal pieces to use, she noticed that Bobby’s glittered in the rays of sunlight and had an almost mystical aura. She assumed this was a result of Bobby’s magic sparkles he was always going on about. The machine was just a box. The slightly dented metal surface was cold to the touch. The buttons clicked and clacked when you pressed them. Which was what Bobby did. He pressed the button ON and stepped back as the machine whirred to life.

The donut maker machine hummed to life, filling the air with a chorus of whirs and buzzes. Plum and Bobby shared an excited look at each other. That’s when the donut maker machine promptly started to sputter and stutter. It coughed a few times, then started spitting out cupcakes: vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, you name it, was coming out. Plum groaned with disappointment. Bobby still had a hopeful look on his face. Plum said, “Arghh! I must’ve messed up somewhere. Maybe the internal baker is malfunctioning or something.” She quickly slammed the off button to stop the machine from making cupcakes. The donut maker machine screeched to a stop, spewing 1 last cupcake before finally slowing to a stop.

Bobby said, “I’m sure it’s not a big problem. What if I use my magic sparkles to fix the machine?” He looked at Plum expectantly.

“No, Bobby. We’re not going to-” She glanced over at Bobby and stopped her words in their tracks. “You know what? Go for it. It can’t hurt, right?”

“Definitely not!” He proceeded to sprinkle his sparkles all around the donut maker machine. 

A few seconds pass. Plum threw her hands up, “See, Bobby? This is something that can’t be fixed…” The donut maker machine started glowing iridescently like ripples on a lake. It grew brighter, almost blinding Plum with the shining rainbow flash. It shook violently, as if it was shivering in an icy cold Antarctic desert. Then, just as quickly as it came, the lights and shaking were gone.

Plum gawked at it, unsure of what to do next. Bobby, on the other hand, was whooping and cheering loudly. Plum, who was still in a daze, said, “It’s not like you won the National Plutopia Hopscotch Games. Now that would’ve been a big accomplishment. Never mind that though. What the HECK just happened to my donut maker?!” It shimmered radiantly, not a scratch or dent to be seen. It looked brand new in fact, like it had just come out of the packaging AND somebody had scrubbed it squeaky clean. 

Bobby beamed excitedly. “That, my friend, is the magic of Venus sparkles. I told you, sparkles truly are amazing.” Plum raised a skeptical eyebrow at Bobby.

“Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that.” She pushed the ON button and the donut maker machine hummed back to life. It started to spit out donuts by the ton, one after another.

Plum was ecstatic; the donut maker machine she had worked so hard on was finally working. Although, not without the assistance of Bobby. He gleefully exclaimed, “Ha! It worked! It must be because of my sparkles.” He smirked at Plum, as she narrowed her eyes to a suspicious line, “You know… Since it was my sparkles that allowed this machine to finally work.. I should get to name it!” Plum smacked her hand against her forehead.

“Please no, Bo-”

“I’ll call it SparkleNut Magic Maker 4000! Or Donut Magic by Sparkles! Oh, I have so many ideas.” Bobby grinned with excitement. Plum rolled her eyes but stopped herself. It was Bobby’s sparkles that helped fix the machine. It made him so happy to be able to name the machine.

She grinned back, “Sure! Those names sound so fun and interesting. Albeit a bit ridiculous but I’ll allow it. Just this once.” 

Of course, the next day they showed the red haired donut shop owner their SparkleNut Magic Maker 4000. She graciously thanked Plum and Bobby, the three of them sharing a smile together. All the townspeople came over that day for free donuts. Plum and Bobby played with all the children. Plum was finally where she wanted to be, surrounded by new friends and sharing delicious food. she never thought that it would be on this strange planet with these strange people.