Once again, the Farmer's son's machine swept down the road at full speed—or at least it seemed "full speed" to Elsa. After their quick stop at the machine restaurant, she was sure they were headed to NASA for real this time.

After all, they had traveled a long distance already, hadn't they?

Elsa didn't think it would take much longer.

She had come to the realization that the outside world became less and less exciting the more time she spent in it. The landscape was pretty much the same: the same lifeless, dull grass plains with small mountains in the distance and the same black road with a white line down the middle. Besides being surprisingly repetitive, the outside world was also way too vast; reaching places took several hours of travel.

Walking those insane distances was entirely out of the question.

On and on the road went, along with the hours and minutes. As tired as Elsa had become, she couldn't give in to her exhaustion.

What if they reached their long-awaited destination while she was fast asleep?

What if the Farmer's son caught her during her slumber?

At least if she was awake, she could try running away or something. She had come a long way only to be taken back to the farm; she wouldn't go back without answers. Everyone back at the Farm would tell stories of her adventures and how she once met the Moon face to face. Who knows? Maybe the Moon would hear her if she was close enough, and it would finally break its cold silence. Shivers ran down her legs just by imagining all the fascinating things it had to say.

At last, when Elsa could barely hold her eyelids open anymore, and the Moon was nowhere to be seen, a large group of blocks of all sizes, tall, short, and everything in between, appeared on the horizon. The Sun slowly crept out from behind them, its bright orange light reducing them to silhouettes. Whatever those blocks were, they seemed to grow taller and broader as the Farmer's son's machine continued its unstoppable march.

Elsa's eyes filled with uncontainable excitement, fixed on the zooming blocks in the distance. That sight quickly renewed her energy, and the feeling in her legs.

Were they finally there?

By the time the Farmer's son's machine was close enough, the blocks had become impressively tall. Some of them were several times taller than the silo back at the farm, which was the tallest thing Elsa had seen in her entire life. They seemed to be made out of glass, and the light of the Sun reflected on their surface.

As the road continued through the giant glass blocks, Elsa realized they weren't solid structures.

They were hollow, and stuff moved inside them!

Elsa squinted her eyes, trying hard to see past the tinted glass.

After careful observation, she had no doubt. It was humans... humans walked inside the hollow blocks.

Did they live there?

Or the blocks had eaten them, maybe...?

No, they seemed too calm to have just been eaten by a giant glass block. Elsa would be quite terrified should something that awful ever happen to her.

Ever since they had arrived at the Land of the Glass Blocks, Elsa's attention had remained fixed upward, gazing at them as they loomed indefinitely above her head. However, when her eyes finally went back down, she realized everything she was missing. The grass had become grey. Smaller blocks with doors and windows rose from the ground, and humans dressed like penguins—like the one Tee-bee had shown to Elsa—walked all over the place without giving each other the slightest glance. They had places to go and important things to do, and they all had similar patterns of movement. Maybe they were machines as well—who knows? Humans could create all sorts of things, why not something that looked like themselves?

Elsa would build one of herself if she knew how.

After a while, the Farmer's son's machine finally stopped in front of a nice-looking house. This one wasn't like one back at the farm; its walls were white with shades of grey, and it wasn't made of old wood but as smooth and slick as the blocks.

Once again, a metallic slam came from one side of the machine. Before Elsa could realize what was happening, the Farmer's son was out and heading into the house. He crossed the door and closed it behind him.

Elsa waited and waited, but he didn't come back out again.

Was that it?

The end of the trip?

Wait ... but this wasn't NASA, Elsa reckoned.

Anxiety wrenched her gut as she spiraled downwards into a well of desperation, contemplating the possibility of failure. She was sure the Farmer's son lived at NASA, not a house in the middle of glass blocks! If not, why did his machine have that symbol?

Something was terribly wrong with all of this.

What was she missing?

Now Elsa was mad—mad and really, really frustrated. And confused. She had come a long way. This couldn't end like this. She had spent the whole night in the back of the Farmer's son's machine, suffering the freezing dawn, hunger—one of her most dreadful enemies—and, of course, that annoying leg numbness that now had her walking all wobbly.

All that couldn't have been for nothing!

No, she wanted answers, and she was going to get them one way or another. Besides, the idea of having to walk all the way back to the farm displeased her very much.

Elsa spent quite some time trying to figure out what to do next, only to conclude that first, she had to get out of The Farmer's son's machine. And so she did. It was harder than getting in, but again, she figured it out.

Now there she was, all alone in front of the Farmer's son's house, in the middle of the Land of the Glass Blocks.

For some reason, there were no humans around.

Maybe they were hiding somewhere, laughing at her misfortune.

Now what?

Well, now nothing. Elsa's brain was going through a sudden and persistent lockup, and at quite an inconvenient time like usual. She had no idea what to do or where to go. But while she walked in circles, staring at the floor and begging her brain for a plan, a steady, high-pitched noise startled her.

"Meeeeoww," the noise went.

Elsa glanced around, searching. Nobody was there. No humans, no machines, no animals, no one.

What was making that noise then?

"Meeeeoww," the noise continued, piercing through her ears and lodging deep inside her brain.

For a moment, she thought that maybe the lack of sleep was starting to play games with her. But then she turned and saw it: there, sitting atop the low wall that surrounded the Farmer's son's house, was a creature like none she had seen before—she would easily have remembered a creature that made such a weird noise. It had crept out of nowhere without her noticing its presence until the very last moment. "Meeeeoww," it continued, its green eyes staring at her coldly. It seemed to analyze each one of her movements, which made her feel very uneasy.

After a reasonably awkward while, the creature spoke. Its voice was a mixed tone of condescendence, pride, and arrogance, all stir up in the same bowl. "Richard," it said its name was, and then it proceeded to greet her very politely but still with traces of sarcasm.

Without a doubt, Richard was a very confusing fellow. But as it would be expected from her, Elsa couldn't help but ask him what kind of animal he was.

A "cat," Richard answered, sticking his chest out and giving a wide grin. Elsa didn't know why he seemed so proud of himself; he was like some sort of really, really small tiger. She felt sorry for him. Maybe the poor thing had fallen victim to a terrible disease that prevented him from growing. She was about to advise him to double up on his food rations, which had always worked like a charm for her, but Richard didn't stop speaking. For someone looking as sick as him, he was quite energetic, she gave him that.

Richard spoke and spoke, revealing lots of unusual things to Elsa. For a start, The Land of the Glass Blocks was actually a kind of place, like the farm, but this one was called a "city."

Elsa dared to compare the city to the farm, only getting her a vexed look from Richard. According to him, the city was a far more sophisticated place than the farm.

Regardless of what he had to say about his glorious city, Elsa still thought its "sophisticated" humans were pretty dull. But she would rather keep that to herself; she knew tigers had a temper, and Richard—as small as he was—might likely have one, too.

After a long conversation with the cat—who seemed to talk even more than Tee-bee, which was quite impressive—he finally asked her what she was doing so far from home. That question immediately brought back the frustration she had left behind a while ago.

NASA. That was everything she had come for, and now she had nothing.

Elsa told him of the Moon, her friends back at the farm which, despite their interest in the Moon and its mysteries, hadn't dared to join her, and The Rocket. She also spoke about the Farmer's son and his machine and the countless hours she had spent sitting in it to come to the city.

When she was done, Richard remained silent, looking her right in the eye. Elsa didn't like that; it made her very uneasy.

Like the last time, he spoke when the silence was about to get past awkward. Unfortunately, he hadn't heard anything about NASA or The Rocket, he admitted, but he had heard about this place she called "The Moon." And who would've guessed? It was very close to the Farmer's son's house, right there in the city!

Once again, Elsa's eyes filled with hope. By the looks of it, luck had never left her side; she just needed to keep calm. So she hadn't been wrong after all! Just when she thought all was lost, she had stumbled across someone who knew how to get to the Moon!

Yet another coincidence—so many of them already!

Even so, Elsa didn't know why Richard occasionally gave that odd, wide grin as he revealed to her the path to the Moon. Well, in all honesty, she didn't care much what he looked like. She would be walking on the Moon soon enough!

❖

Author's Note

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