The Unexpected Blast (prompt 2 of 7)

As I noted on Thursday, we are in the midst of Children’s Book Week! However, we only have a few days to celebrate, because it ends tomorrow. One of the main ways for celebrating this event, based on my perusal of the website, is to write stories based on prompts that are provided by famous authors as well as people just connected with the event.

So today I sat down and worked my way through all the prompts. I only gave myself 15 minutes to complete each prompt (because I don’t want to shame the kids who might be participating). So what you will find in bold, below, is the prompt given on the website, and then in non-bold, you will see where I decided to take the story. Happy Children’s Book Week!

Prompt Two: “The Unexpected Blast” begun by Elaine Landau and completed by Molly

It all started the summer we visited our uncle in South America. The volcano near the village where we were staying was supposed to be inactive, yet lately steam had been leaking from it. My little brother and I were near the foot of the volcano the morning it began to shake. Suddenly, its north side collapsed. Clouds of rock and ash shot into the air. Lava and mudflows now blocked our path back to our uncle’s cabin. My little brother was crying, and I knew I had to think fast. So I……

…immediately started searching for someone we could sacrifice to the volcano. Clearly, the volcano gods were angry, and I had to appease them with live flesh. My crybaby little brother seemed like a good option, but I had a feeling that my family wouldn’t forgive me and since I was only nine I really couldn’t stand to lose their financial support at this point in my life.

So if I couldn’t sacrifice my brother, who could I sacrifice? Tom Hanks was nowhere to be seen, though I allowed myself a few seconds to chuckle at such a clever joke, even though at the age of 9 I really shouldn’t have been seeing a movie such as “Joe Versus the Volcano,” and may I note that the person writing this story really shouldn’t have wasted valuable writing time looking up the rating of “Joe Versus the Volcano” on Netflix? As it turns out the movie was only rated PG, so maybe there was a chance that a 9-year-old could have seen it. But I digress.

“Who can we sacrifice?” I asked my little brother. “I must get out of this adventure so I can see the new Tom Hanks movie! Because it takes place at the Vatican and you know how I love popes!” At this moment in my life, with lava and mudflows running toward me, I was starting to wonder why Tom Hanks was completely consuming my life. After all, I was only 9, and here I was having numerous thoughts about the work of Tom Hanks. If I died in this horrific volcano accident, there was a good chance I’d miss the inevitable “Forrest Gump” sequel I’m convinced he’ll make if he gets desperate enough!

Shit, time was running out and now all I can think about is Tom Hanks’ moving performance in “Philadelphia!” And how great he was in “A League of their Own!” I try to channel Tom Hanks circa 1995, which was when “Apollo 13” came out, because in that movie TH was confronted with a life-threatening situation just like this one! Except the difference between me and Tom Hanks is that in that film, Tom Hanks was working with a script based on a book by astronaut Jim Lovell, and I am working with a writer who seems more interested in updating her Netflix queue than in getting me out of this mess in her allotted 15 minutes of writing time.

In the end, I sacrificed my brother to the volcano gods, mainly because time was up and I didn’t want to die without seeing “The Great Buck Howard,” featuring both Tom Hanks and his son Colin Hanks, which is coming to DVD in the near future.