The Giver Journal Topics

Sarah McGonagill 8A #21 9/23/10

Morphing on Muliphein

“Ouch!It burns! Help! What do I do?” Alfirkstammered frantically as he solidified into his human form again, violently shaking his hand.

“I told you to be careful!” Nuniki said in response to his anguished cry. “You’re still new at this, so you’re really susceptible to the heat.” She thought about her past and remembered how she was the same way. Ever since Nuniki was four, she had trained to morph. The idea of being able to morph, change into a liquid or gas, and then solidify into any shape again, fascinated her. After twenty years in training, she was now an expert, and was certified to teach others to morph as well.

“I know, I know. Just please help me!” he let out, defeated. “I promise I’ll be more careful next time,” he said as Nuniki handed him a frozen nitrogen pack. “Ah, thank you, Nuniki,” Alfirk said gratefully. “Could you please tell me how humans were first able to morph? Apparently, around one thousand years ago, we weren’t like this!” he said with excitement.

“I’m glad to see you’ve taken an interest in this! While I tell you, let’s go back to the city,” Nuniki said, unlocking the airtight training capsule. She and Alfirk playfully bounced their way to the jetpack station, where they strapped in and waited for the jets to blast them up and off into the sky. “Here is what I know. In around the year 3099, an amazing scientist, that’s an old name for an alphekkist, came here to our star, Muliphein from Mars, a planet far away in the Milky Way Galaxy. His name was Steve Barker. What a strange name, huh? Anyway, the gases in our atmosphere here were supposedly too poisonous and harmful to our bodies for us to breathe in. Steve figured out a way to blast an enormous bubble of nitrogen and oxygen around Muliphein. Once people back on other planets in the Milky Way Galaxy heard about this new technology, they flew here on shuttles immediately! Over time, once the star had been populated for a while, people started changing. The increased nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere got into our lungs and started genetically altering our chromosomes. A few years later, some alphekkists figured out what happened. The gases caused our bodies to be able to morph into other substances!” she exclaimed, still waiting for the jets to warm up.

“Wow, really? That’s out of this world!” Alfirk laughed at his joke. Finally, the jets blasted off into space, but something didn’t seem right. “Is everything ok, Nuniki? Why are the navigational systems blinking like that?” he asked, concerned.

“I don’t know, Alfirk. I’ve never seen anything like this before… hmm… let’s see… I guess we could try calling the jetpack hotline,” Nuniki tried, starting to get worried. She turned the tiny blue dial and they waited, until the dial tone went dead. The two of them started pressing all the buttons and turning all the dials in a panic. Nothing seemed to go right!

Suddenly, Alfirk choked out, “Nuniki! I can’t breathe!”

“Hang on, Alfirk! Stay with me!” Nuniki gasped, desperate for air.

Then, Alfirk came up with a brilliant idea. “Nuniki, I know what we have to do. We have to morph out of these defective jetpacks and try to land as safely as we can while in our liquid state,” he said, proud that the idea was his.

Nuniki thought about it for less then a second, and then nodded. “Good work Alfirk! I’m so proud of you!” she said. “On the count of three, we will liquefy. Just remember to be careful when solidifying again; or you’ll get burned. Okay?” Alfirk nodded rapidly then started gasping for air again. “Get ready. One, two, THREE!”

Nuniki sucked in as much air as the atmosphere allowed, and squeezed her eyes shut. She sent a jolt through her whole body and imagined herself melting at a high temperature. Slowly, she felt energy tingling across her body, then she saw a flash of bright light. The next thing she knew, she had no definite shape and was falling all scattered out in large drops through the atmosphere. When she neared the uneven surface of Muliphein, she braced herself for a sudden, scorching impact. Then, all the movement stopped.

“That was totally wicked!!” Alfirk screamed a couple of seconds after he solidified. “Can we do that again?”

Nuniki, flustered but happy to be alive, thought for a second, then realized what an accomplishment Alfirk had made. “Alfirk! Congratulations! You solidified without burning yourself!” she rejoiced, scrambling to her feet to give him a big hug.

“Thanks, Nuniki. You really helped me a lot,” Alfirk said. “But seriously. Can we do that again sometime? ”

“Not today mister, but maybe some other time,” Nuniki said, thankful that she was the one in charge. “But we made it to the city! Look at that! So… are you up for some cyber cream?”

Word Count: 833 words