Prasad Raicar
Long long ago, the sun decided he was bored enough with being lonely, and it was time to have some company. So he removed molten pieces from within himself and created new planets. Jupiter was the biggest of them all, so he decided to stay in the middle, with Mercury and Pluto were made to stay at the ends, as they were the smallest. And so began the Solar System.
Poor Pluto was the farthest of all the planets from the sun. He had to live in darkness most of the time. And to make matters worst, he had no electricity almost throughout his day. Poor Pluto, how was he to charge his gravity motor without any electricity!
And one day, the electric line from Uranus to him was cut by an errant comet! What was he going to do now? Without his gravity engine running, he would fall into the sun, and that would be the end of him. He frantically called up Jupiter, but there was very little the elder brother could do. The repair work could take days!!! And all that poor Pluto could do was hope and pray!
But luck just wasn’t on his side. The gravity engine coughed and puffed without any charge, and just gave up. Oh dear, dear! Pluto fell down through the sky without any gravity of his own, and zoomed towards the sun. He passed Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, and all his brothers could do nothing. Pluto closed his eyes expecting the worst, waiting to get burned. But what just happened? Instead of fire, he fell into a big bowl of water!!! Goodness me, he had fallen into the Pacific Ocean of his sister Earth!
Earth was sleeping, and got up jerkily with the impact. She looked around and saw poor Pluto looking at her in wonder. ‘What are you doing here? Have you come to visit me?,’ she asked. ‘Er’, stammered Pluto, ‘My gravity motor stopped as there was no charge. My electric line was cut by that stupid Halley. So I fell down. Luckily you saved me from sun’s fire’.
‘Oh wow’, said Earth. ‘Let me help you brother Pluto. Take this.’ and she pummelled a solar panel stick into Pluto’s body. ‘Ouch, what is this? What are you injecting into me?’, Pluto was surprised.
‘Relax, it’s just a solar stick. It will help you charge your engine. Just wait and watch.’ And sure enough, Pluto’s engines whirred and soon his strength returned. ‘Wow’, he remarked. ‘This is remarkable. How can I possibly thank you?’ ‘By not falling into me ever again’, retorted Earth while Pluto smiled sheepishly. ‘Thank you sister’, he said as he flew away, but Earth was already snoring to glory.
And so Pluto flew past all the planets who stared at him with all amazement and returned to his orbit. Pluto never ever had to depend on anyone else for his power. He had learnt his lesson the hard way.
All thanks to sleepy sister Earth!
