Chapter One (The Whole Story)
One day in X-City, there were three Friendly Monsters, and one was a baby. The baby’s name was Goo Goo, and Goo Goo wanted to have a flower on her head. It’s hard to get one on your head. You need to get a bubble from the Bubble Store, and then you can get a flower on your head. You pick the flower and push it into your bubble, but the bubble doesn’t pop.
It sounds easy, but not for Goo Goo, because when she goes to the Bubble Store, she’s too small, and the person at the counter can’t see her, so she never gets a bubble. She’s staring at a bubble that can change colors and has a star on it. One side of the star can be blue or pink, and the outside can be pink or blue. She says, “I want a bubble!” But it sounds like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!” They clap because they like the song, but they don’t even know who’s singing, so they don’t know who they’re clapping to. Then Goo Goo shouts at them, and then they hear her. Then they ask, “Who are you?!” and then Goo Goo jumps up so they can see her, and then she says, “I want the Star Bubble!” In this world, you have to say “I want.” If you say, “Please, may I have it,” people will ignore you.
They gave her the wrong bubble. They gave her a pink and black bubble that had a star heart. Instead of a point at the top, there’s a heart shape at the top. It kind of looks like a bug. The bugs have lassos, and if you get caught in a lasso, then you will get banished to the bug’s lair, and somebody who so, so much cares about you has to get rid of the bug, since there’s only one bug to a cage. Three-thousand, 6,000 100 people can be in one lair, so there’s only two or three bugs, since they can fit a lot of people in the lair. People pop their bubbles, and the bubble traps the bug when they see one. People who don’t have bubbles share one with another person. If you’re brother and sister you can share, but dad and daughter can’t share and son and mother can’t share. Goo Goo shares with her mom. They have a Book Bubble. You can get any book out of the bubble. She likes to get baby books. But Goo Goo wants her own bubble so she can have a flower on her head.
Goo Goo’s mom doesn’t always use the bubble. It’s only helpful for bugs, cooking, and books, and it helps her take care of Goo Goo. Her dad always is in the bubble because the bubble has every power and he needs it for work. They don’t have cars so they float in bubbles everywhere. Everyone has their own level. Her dad has the highest level. He’s a lawyer. When Goo Goo gets her bubble, she will be on the same level as her dad. Her dad has something on his head. It’s a piece of work. Her mom doesn’t have one because she only needs a couple of powers, not all the powers. Goo Goo wants all the powers because she wants to be able to do everything everybody else can do.
Then, Goo Goo shouts at the man in the Bubble Store again. “I want the other Star Bubble! The pink and blue Star Bubble!” she shouts. When she starts getting angry, mad or frustrated, she starts sprouting two other arms. When she stops being angry, mad or frustrated, they go back in, but if they’ve grown all the way to the length of her other arms, they won’t go back in. They’ll keep on growing until she stops. When she sees the arms and sees if they’re growing too long, she thinks of things that she liked when she was littler and in her mom’s tummy to calm down. She thinks of going upside down, some colors of mashed up foods, spinning around in a spinny chair, and her mom’s heartbeat, and the arms go back in.
“I want the Star Bubble because you gave me the wrong bubble, and that’s not really a star. I want the Star Bubble because I’m sick of being a baby,” she shouts because she got mad again, and everybody turns and looks at her. Then, her mother comes running up to her and shouting at her in her face. Now they both had six arms, because they started with four.
Goo Goo does not feel good. “Sorry,” she says. Her mom says, “Thank you.” She got the bubble, but the flowers are still rare, even if you have a bubble. The flowers look like how you would draw flowers, with a center and petals around it. They smelled like white chocolate.
Goo Goo went to sleep. She dreamt that she got the flower. Her mother gave it to her. Goo Goo said, “Thank you.”
In the morning, Goo Goo sets off to find the flower. Goo Goo found many things, but not any flowers. She walked 30 miles. After 65 more miles, she found a flower. Then she put it on the bubble, but then the bubble popped. But then the bubble reappeared when she took the flower off of it. Then she even more lightly put it back on the bubble, but then the bubble popped. Then she dropped the flower onto the bubble, and the bubble did not pop. Soil went on the top where the flower was, and the flower grew bigger and bigger.
Then suddenly it started to grow smaller so then they needed to water it. Even if they watered it, it would still go smaller. So they took it out of the soil and put it somewhere sunny. Then it grew so small that they could barely see it. Then it grew as tall as outer space. Then it was too heavy for her to pick up. Then it was still that size, but so light that she could hold it with her fingernail. They shortened the flower and then it became so light that she could hold it with her toenail. Then it became so small and so heavy that you had to lift it with a 35,000-pound pickup truck. Then it became so heavy that a pickup truck that was a billion pounds had to pick it up. Then the flower grew so heavy that a million pickup trucks that made a thousand pounds had to pick it up and Goo Goo had to walk around all of them. Then the flower grew so heavy that a million-thousand pickup trucks that weighed a million-thousand pounds picked it up.
But then Goo Good could hold it up with just air. Then the flower went back to its regular size.