The Story of the Blue Planet Read Online Free

glided and laughed themselves silly, but when the sun set they all became very moody and silent, each sitting alone, waiting for the sun to rise again. No one could be bothered to sleep because the reality of the day had become so much more fun than the dreams of the night.
    At last the children decided to go down to Black Beach and ask Jolly-Goodday if he could make the butterfly powder work at night as well. It was very early in the morning and the sun had hardly risen. Jolly-Goodday slept under a woollen blanket on a deck chair on the beach. He had sleep in his eyes and hair on his toes. He yawned when the children woke him.
    “YAWN,” he yawned. “What do you all want?”
    “The nights are so dull,” the children complained.
    Jolly-Goodday was very understanding.
    “Do you find your dreams unexciting?”
    “Yeah, sleeping is so dull and boring, we want to fly at night too. You have to find a way.”
    Jolly-Goodday thought deeply, mulled things over, and racked his brains so much he almost split his mind in two.
    “I’m sure I can fix it, and it won’t cost much at all.”
    “Hooray, hooray!” shouted the children. “Jolly-Goodday knows everything! How much will it cost?”
    “Really nothing at all and less than that.”
    “How little?”
    “Maybe just a tiny bit of youth.”
    “Youth?”
    “In your hearts there’s a very deep well that waters your soul and it’s full to the brim of youth.”
    “Are you going to take our youth?”
    “No, no, no. Not all of it, just a tiny little bit. Less than 1% of all your youth, less than one sip from a glass.”
    “And we won’t change at all?”
    “Not at all really. You won’t grow any smaller and you won’t grow any bigger.”
    “Ha, ha,” laughed the children, “who minds giving up a tiny bit of youth in exchange for much more fun?”
    “How is it done?”
    Jolly-Goodday put on a very wise expression and showed them drawings and data sheets.

    “At noon, when the sun is at its highest, I’ll take a big nail and nail the sun to the heavens above your island. Then it’ll always be day and always be bright and you can fly and fly endlessly as much as you want without sleeping ever again.”
    “Wow! Fantastic!” said the children.
    Everyone waited impatiently for noon. Then Jolly-Goodday got up out of his deck chair, went into his spaceship, and fetched a gigantic ladder, an enormous hammer, and a stupendous nail. He rested the ladder on the end of a white cloud.
    Jolly-Goodday put on pitch-black sunglasses to avoid being blinded and slipped polka-dot oven mitts over with the hammer and nail high up into the blue sky and nailed the nail into the middle of the sun with a noise that echoed throughout the whole world.
    BANG! BANG! BANG!

    Golden sunbeams flew everywhere and landed in the sea hissing and bubbling. Jolly-Goodday then jumped off the ladder and glided down to earth in a flower-patterned parachute.
    “The sun won’t leave now, kids. You need never again say good morning or goodnight. Eternal day reigns on your island.”
    “Hooray, hooray,” shouted the children, “now there’s eternal day. Jolly-Goodday’s got the answer to everything.”
    It’s safe to say there had never been as much fun for the children on the island as right at that moment. The sun was always high in the sky and never moved, but shone and shone so that no one needed to sleep. The flowers blossomed with loud bangs and the island became a sea of flowers in the ocean. The lemons turned yellow. The apples reddened. The trees turned green and grew with cracks and groans, and the growing of the grass could be heard far out to sea.
    The kids could fly and fly and no one noticed the passing of time. They saw no stars in the sky, just continuous noontime sunshine and endless fun and games, and no one was bored for a single minute. Everyone was ecstatically happy, with suntans, broad smiles, and tummies full of butterflies.

Wolf! Wolf!
     
    But then the clouds covered the