“Panda!” Foster exclaimed. “How did you get down there?”

“Well, I’m not positive,” I replied, trying not to sound irritated. “But I think it’s safe to say somebody pushed me off the chair.”

“Aww, I’m sorry buddy,” Foster replied sheepishly. “I didn’t realize I was taking up the whole chair. Are you okay?”

“Umm…” I said, as Foster moved over to make more room on the chair. “If falling off a chair onto a hardwood floor could hurt me, I doubt if I would even be here right now.”

Foster jumped down off the chair and gazed at me intently. “Yeah,” he said, “you have a point there. So what’s on your mind? You look like you’re thinking about something.” I sat up as straight as I could next to our blue play tunnel. “As a matter of fact, I am,” I replied. “I’ve been wondering why we haven’t gone on any adventures lately.”

“I think it has to do with Mom’s new photoshop program,” Foster offered after we had gone into the back living room to look at the computer. I was doubtful. “How could a photoshop program have anything to do with our adventures?” I asked. “Besides, Mom never seems to know we’ve been gone until we get back.”

“Well, it could have been because of Social Distancing,” Foster offered. “Remember when nobody could go anywhere and you couldn’t go into most businesses?” I nodded. “Oh yeah, that’s right!” I exclaimed. “And those nice ladies at Fig Garden – “

“Don’t go there,” Foster responded quickly. “But it’s not like we haven’t been anywhere. Remember when you clicked on Amazon Prime and we ended up in the Amazon rain forest?” I sniffed. “That was not entirely my fault,” I said indignantly. Foster chose not to respond to my comment. “Well, what about when we went to Hawaii?”

“That was a virtual trip.” I reminded him. “We were imagining what we would do if we could go there. But we couldn’t, because of Social Distancing.” Foster looked thoughtful. “Oh yeah, I had forgotten that,” he replied. “Well let’s go think about this. We can probably pull off another adventure now that people are traveling again.”

We decided to go into the bedroom so we could think better. It was then that Foster noticed a piece of paper on the bed. “Hey, what’s that?” I asked.

“It looks like some kind of a story,” Foster replied, sniffing the edge of the paper. “I think it’s been in Mom’s Bible. Maybe she got it from one of the kids at church.”

“I think it’s about us,” I said when I looked at it up close. “Look, there’s us in our travel tunnel. And it looks like we are spiraling through outer space!”

“You’re right!” Foster exclaimed. “It looks like we were going to see if Jupiter had rings!” “Does it?” I asked. Foster looked thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he replied. “We probably should go and find out.”

We’d been in space before, so we knew it wasn’t that scary. Immediately we began to plan our next trip. Our first task was to find a method of travel. Our travel tunnel needed work, and had been in the shop for quite awhile.”

“Hey,” Foster suggested. “I wonder if this trampoline would work for a flying saucer?” I was hesitant. “I think there’s an element of risk here,” I replied. “Too much chance of one of us falling off.”

• 

• 

“Umm, no,” I said when Foster suggested the wastepaper basket in the sewing room. “By the time we got to outer space we would both be squished!”

“Don’t let the cat out of the bag!” Foster quipped from the CVS bag he found in the back living room. “We have to do this without Mom knowing, or she will be a nervous wreck the whole time.” I shook my head. “That bag is too small,” I protested. “And besides, how are you going to steer that thing?”

Not to be deterred, my companion jumped into an Eddie Bauer bag. “I think you’re supposed to be able to steer these with the handles,” he suggested. I frowned. “Well, maybe, but – “

“There’s always the cat carrier,” was his next suggestion.

“I vote for the box,” was my reply. “And you know how much you hate the cat carrier.”

“Well, I have made it into the garage before,” Foster informed me. “But I guess we won’t be able to take the car.” I looked at him for a minute, deciding how to respond. “Not to outer space,” I said finally.

“Well, we could take these papers out of this box and – “

“Nope,” I replied. “Maybe we should go online and look up good travel methods for going to outer space.”

• 

• 

“Good idea!” Foster responded. “Let’s go!”

To be continued…