James The Turtle Travels To Space

• Alison Winstanley, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2017

This is James the turtle, who can talk, drive and dance. Lately, James has been studying space. He really wanted to see space for real. He was going to buy a rocket ship and travel to the Moon. James tried everything to save money but he couldn’t find something that gave him a lot of money. He needed a job!
At the shopping centre, he saw a cat in need of help, so he brought it.
He got home and put the cat on the floor. It went and sat on the couch, stretched and fell asleep. “Think I’ll call you Pineapples,” said James.
Everyone said that Pineapples was a weird name for a cat, but James didn’t care. James and his cat were the best of friends. They ate together, slept together, played together and travelled together, except when James went on airplanes. The cat was a British Tabby Short Hair. It was grey and very fluffy, it slept on the couch most on the time but, sometimes it slept on James bed.
One day James had an idea for a job. He jumped up leaving Pineapples startled and rushed out the door. He ran to the local pet clinic and read the, ‘Help Wanted’ sign as he rushed in. “Can I sign up for the job?” he asked, “Sure!” said the vet behind the counter. The next day James woke up early, got ready and rushed out the door. When he arrived at the vet, he looked around and knew he would like it there.
His first patient was a cat. Well it didn’t look like one. It looked bald. The owner said that the cat sheds too much and asked how to fix it. James told the owner to come back in after he had finished. He sighed because he didn’t know what to do, so he grabbed a Panadol tablet and stuffed it in the cat’s mouth. Magically, the cat’s hair started to grow. He took the cat out to the waiting room. The nurse behind the counter looked up, “It’s a miracle!” she cried.
As soon as the word was out, loads of people headed into the vet to get their cats fixed. He became rich and soon enough he had reached his goal of $1,000,000. James was so excited that he had reached his goal and he was double lucky because it was his birthday the next day.
James woke up and yawned then he remembered it was his birthday. He jumped up, scoffed his breakfast and headed to NASA’s space station. He arrived and got dressed into the heavy space suit for training. His trainer, Marcus taught James how to control the space ship and fix any problems related to the ship.
Today was the day that James would go to the moon! He picked up his bag and snatched Pineapples as he walked on to the space ship. He had set off for space. The end