“Houston, we have landed.”
Peter went over to Jack and told him to stop pretending to land on Earth and come with him to headquarters. When they arrived Peter told his son to stay quiet and do not touch anything. Jack stepped inside; he stopped, unable to move staring at the hugeness of the building. There were so many other dogs walking around talking and doing paper work. Jack heard some weird things, snippets of conversations that confused him. “No more air on Mars, dome going to disintegrate.” He kept walking. “Leave and become pets on Earth.”
Jack didn’t know what was going on and why they were saying those weird things. His dad came over and told him they had to go. That night Jack went to sleep wondering what was going on.
Peter woke Jack up two hours early the next day, and told him what was happening. The dog’s dome that they lived in was going to collapse in 36 hours and they had to fly to Earth and become pets. Jack was in disbelief about the dome but his snout was wide open because the fact that they had to become pets on Earth. His dad told him that all of the dogs would train on how to become pets. The real issue was leaving the dome on time.
Peter started training Jack that day. The headquarters had sent out manuals to every dog house telling them what they had to prepare for and become. Peter taught Jack all of the commands; Jack had the hardest times with heel, shake, and keeping a treat on his nose. After all of the commands Jack had to learn how to become a good dog and know his manners. Peter told Jack that Earth had not seen talking dogs before, so the humans will be shocked at first, but would adapt. By the time they were done training Jack’s Golden Retriever hair was dirty and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. Peter and Jack were Earth ready, they thought.
When Peter woke up he realized they had until noon that day to get off Mars. He wondered if they could succeed. Jack told Peter they needed to go to headquarters as soon as possible to get on a ship to Earth. Peter was getting scared, he hadn’t thought about leaving Mars. It was his home, it was all he knew. He was scared, what if the humans didn’t let them become pets or worse even live on Earth, then what would they do.
When they got to headquarters there were dozens of ships outside with the pilots checking the engines. 11:00 o’clock, they had 1 hour to get off Mars. They stepped through the doors into the huge building. Again, Jack stared in disbelief. There were so many dogs walking around asking questions, all with scared faces. The ships would take off at 11:50, ten minutes to get out of Mars’ atmosphere. 11:25, they had 25 minutes. Now every dog stood outside waiting to board a ship. Jack and Peter were put on the first spacecraft with all the other dogs that worked at headquarters. They had ten minutes to leave. Jack looked out a window in the ship. Half of the population stood waiting in line to board. Were they going to make it in time? Seven minutes left. They had two more spacecraft to load. Jack thought he could see his dog house from the ship. He was wondering if he would ever see his dog house or even Mars ever again. Two minutes left, Jack heard all of the spacecraft’s engines start to turn on. One minute left, Jack was trying to control his heart beat, but it pounded in his chest. The ship started to lift off the ground. Pieces of the dome rained down around the ships like dust. Now they could leave and head to Earth. The ships took off, and everyone started barking happily. One week, that was how long they had to travel to get to Earth. Soon Earth would have talking dogs.