Magic School Bus Lost in Space

A magic school bus lost in the solar system. By Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Deegan. To Virginia and bob McBride, the Chris queen of the biscotti Dorian mothership. It was trip day again in miss frizzle's class, everyone was excited. We were going to the planetarium to see a scar show about the solar system. Class, and all that is the path of a planet or other object around the sun. Arnold's cousin Janet was visiting our class of the day. I know all of you will be nice to our guests, said the frieze. I knew that I get all ace in school. I have 5 computers. My class went to the planetary last year. what a show. Thanks for inviting your cousin Arnold. She's actually nice when you get to know her. We try to be nice to Janet. We really did, as we got on the school bus, we told her that miss frizzle is the weirdest teacher in school. But Janet wasn't interested, she wanted to tell us about herself. Our school is taller than your school, our swings are better than your swings, my teacher is weirder than your teacher. Who wants a tall school? As usual, it took a while to get the old bus started, but finally, we were on our way. As we were driving, miss frizzle taught us all about how the earth spins like a top as it moves in its orbit. It was just a short drive to the planetarium, but miss frizzle talked fast. This boss is a wreck. At least it started this time. We have new school buses at our school. When the earth spins or rotates, the earth makes one complete rotation turn every 24 hours. When we go to the planetarium, it was closed for repairs, class this means we'll have to return to school, said ms. frizzle, we were so disappointed, back to school. I'm so depressed. My planetarium is always open. On the way back, as we was waiting at a red light, something amazing happened. The bus started tilting back, and we heard the roar of rockets. Oh dear said miss frizzle, we seem to be blasting off, here we go again. Not another crazy trip. Children, we are going through the atmosphere. The layers of air around the earth. I guess we'll be seeing the solar system after all. My bus has bigger rockets than your bus. Yeah, right, Janet. When the roar of the rocket stopped, we looked around, everything had changed. The bus had turned into a spaceship. We were all dressed in spacesuits, and we were larger than feathers, we floated above our seats. I am flying. I'm flying higher than you are. Look, it's a UFB a what? And identified flying banana. Far behind in the black sky, we saw the Planet Earth getting smaller and smaller. We were traveling in space. We'd become astronauts. Look how small the Earth seems from here. Class, notice earth's blue oceans, white clouds, and brown land it's beautiful. I think I have to go to the bathroom. The Frits said our first stop would be the moon. We got off the bus and looked around. There was no air, no water, and no sign of life. All we saw were dust and rock and lots and lots of craters. Miss frizzle said the craters were formed billions of years ago when the moon was hit by meteorites. We are so light on the moon. That's because the moon has less gravity than the earth. It was fun on the moon, we wanted to play, but miss frizzle said it was time to go. So we got back on the bus, we'll start with the sun, the center of the solar system, said the frizz, and we blasted off. Look at how high we can jump. I was in a national jump rope contest. I won, of course. Is there a national bragging contest? We zoom toward the sun, the biggest brightest and hottest object in the solar system. Jets of super hot gases shot out at us from a surface. Thank goodness, miss frizzle didn't get too close. Which star do we see only in the daytime? That's easy. The sun. You should never look directly at the sun children. It can damage your eyes. You should never drive a bus directly in the sun either. Solar flares a giant storms on the sun's surface. She steered around to the other side and pulled away. We will be seeing all the planets in order class, explain frizzy, mercury is the first one, the closest to the sun. My school is heated with solar energy. I have a sun deck. I have ten pairs of sunglasses. Give us a break Janet. Mercury was a dead, sung by planet. This planet is a lot like our moon. There is no water and hardly any air, said the frieze, notice the craters on its surface as we pass by. The sun looks twice as big here as it does from earth. That's because mercury is so close, too close, let's go. Before long we felt ourselves being pulled in by the gravity of Venus, the second planet from the sun. Venus was completely covered by a thick, yet layer of yellow-ish clouds. We will now explore the surface of Venus, said miss frizzle. We're gaining weight, and we haven't even had lunch. We will be heavier here than on the moon or mercury because Venus has more gravity. Below the clouds, Venus was as dry as a desert. The ground was covered with rocks, and it was hot. It was about 400° centigrade. That's much harder than an oven baking cookies. There's no life on Venus class, is too hot. It's too dry. It's too much acid. Let's leave. The air was so heavy we could feel it pressing down on us. Miss frizzle said there might be volcanos around too. We said let's get out of here. Our next stop is Mars, the red planet, fall from the sun, announced the frieze, on our way, will be passing through the orbit of earth, the third planet. The bus lifted up off with a roll. Up the Mars lots of times. Just ignore her. As we came close to Mars, we passed its two moons, which are called Phobos and Detmos, compared to our moon, they were tiny, and they weren't even round. Those are moons? They look like potatoes with craters. Long ago, they may have been watering those channels. Yes, but today all Mars water is frozen in the polar ice caps. Looking down, we saw a huge canyon. Miss frizzle said it was as long as the United States. There was a volcano three times taller than the tallest volcano on earth. And all round the channels that look like dried up river beds. Earth is the best planet for life. That's why I live there. Janet likes to be the best. We noticed. We landed and started walking around, suddenly a huge dust storm blew up. Ms. Frizzle said dust storms on Mars can last for months. They might cover the whole planet with scrambled back on the bus and headed out. Are there any aliens here? I don't see any. Don't be too sure. Mars is the mars of what we call the inner planets, miss frizzle shouted above the roar of the rockets, we will now be going through the asteroid belt to the outer planets. Isn't space travel exciting Arnold? I really prefer film strips. Thousands of asteroids were spinning all around us, all at once we heard the tinkling of broken glass. One of our tailors had been hit by an asteroid, ms. frizz put the bus on autopilot and went out to take a look. She kept on talking about asteroids over the bus radio. The largest asteroid is one third the size of our moon. Most asteroids are the size of the houses or smaller. I wish you come inside. Suddenly there was a snap. Miss frizzle's tether lawn had broken, without warning the rockets fired up and the boss zoomed away. The autopilot was malfunctioning. On the radio miss frizzle's voice grew fainter and fainter, then she was gone. We were on our own, we all lost in the solar system. Kids I'll meet you later, later. Come in miss frizzle, do you read me? Most of us were too scared to move, but Janet started searching the bus, and the globe apartment she found miss frizz was less a book, and she began writing from it a huge plan that came into view. Class, this is Jupiter. Janet read. It's the first of the air to planets, and the largest part of the solar system. She shouldn't touch miss frizzle's things, but this is an emergency. As we approach Jupiter, we can see some of its 16 moons. Arnold, are you listening? Boy, miss frizzle plants everything. We thought the school bus was going to land, but there was no solid ground to land on. Jupiter is a gas giant and planet made almost entirely of gas. As we left Jupiter we wandered and worried, would we ever get home? Jupiter is so big that more than 1000 Earths could fit inside it. Miss frizzle, where are you? The next saw made us forget our troubles. It was Saturn, a gas planet like Jupiter. It had swirling clouds and lots of moons, but the most incredible thing about Saturn was its rings. It was the most beautiful planet in the solar system. There are thousands of rings around saturn class, they look like grooves in the phonographic record. Saturn is the grooviest planet man. Could saturn take a bath. Yes, but it might leave a ring. Next was Uranus, a blue green gas planet with faint grave rings and moons. Some scientists think they might be made of chunks of graphite, a material used in pencils on oak. Methane gas in its atmosphere makes Uranus look blue. You look kind of blue yourself. I'm freezing. That's because we're so far away from the sun. The bus was going faster and faster, and we couldn't control the autopilot. We swept past storming Neptune, another blue green planet, 8th from the sun, all we could think about was finding miss frizzle. Neptune is the last of the giant gas planets. We're almost out of gas ourselves. And the nearest service station is 4000 million kilometers away. We were going so fast, we almost missed seeing the 9th planet. Tiny Pluto, and its moon charon. We were so far away from the sun that it didn't look big anymore. It just looked like a very bright star. We were leaving the solar system. There's nothing out there but stars. Oh, there's a tenth pilot waiting to be discovered. It will have to wait. I hope miss frizzle is waiting too. Janet flip rapidly through miss frizzle's book, suddenly she found something new. The instructions for the autopilot. We punched in the asteroid bout on the control panel, slowly the bus turned around, it was working, we were going back. Janet really saved the day. I told you she's a good kid. One we reached the asteroid bout that was miss frizzle. Hi, that's a asteroid's dress funny. That's not an asteroid. It's miss frizzle. Boy, am I glad to see her? Me too. With frizzy back at the whoo, the bus headed stripe for the earth, we reentered the atmosphere, landing with a thump and looked around. Boys and girls we arriving on earth the third planet from the sun. We were in the school parking lot again. The rockets were gone, the spacesuits were gone. The bus was a wreck, everything was back to normal. Hello again, old friend, thank goodness. Our planet chart. In the classroom, we made a terrific chart of the planets and a mobile of the solar system. At last it was time to go home, it had been a typical day in miss frizzle's class. Now we had only one problem. When anyone ever believe us when we told about our trip, we went to outer space today, of course you did, dear. My favorite planet was Jupiter. No, maybe Mars. Of course, Saturn was gorgeous too. Mom, make him stop. And there was miss frizzle floating among the asteroids. What an imagination. We could have been lost in space forever. Eat your salad, honey. Attention readers, do not attempt this trip on your own school bus. The end.