Leen and the Little Robot on the Moon

In the future, when people visited the moon the way they visit a faraway city, there was an eight-year-old girl named Leen. Her mother was a scientist who studied rocks and worked at a small base on the surface of the moon, with a big glass dome and a little garden where vegetables grew under special lights. In the summer holidays Leen travelled with her father in a small white rocket to spend a week with her mother. When the rocket landed gently on the grey ground of the moon, Leen pressed her face to the window and said, "I can't believe it! I'm really on the moon!"

Her mother welcomed her with a long hug, then said, "I have a surprise for you." She pointed to a small round robot the size of a beach ball, with little wheels, two short arms and two blue eyes that glowed like lamps. "This is Zarqoon," said her mother, "a new helper robot we built to help collect samples. But he's still learning. Will you help him?" Zarqoon zoomed over, circled Leen three times, and said in a cheerful metallic voice, "Hello, Leen! I'm Zarqoon! My top speed is ten kilometres an hour! I can count to a million in a minute! Let's go, let's go!"

Leen laughed and said, "Hello, Zarqoon! You're very fast." The next morning Leen put on her white spacesuit with orange stripes on the arms and knees, put on her clear helmet, and her mother checked the air tube and the radio. "Your mission today is easy," said her mother. "Collect five small rocks of different colors from the nearby field, and come back before the light on your watch turns yellow. And remember: on the moon we walk slowly, because the ground is covered in fine dust, and jumping around too fast can make us fall." "Understood!" said Zarqoon. But his wheels were already spinning on the spot with impatience.

The airlock door opened and Leen stepped out onto the surface of the moon. The sky was completely black even though the sun was shining, and the ground around her was grey and wide, dotted with round craters big and small. Above her in the sky, the Earth shone like a beautiful blue ball with white clouds and green and brown patches. Leen stood in amazement and said, "Zarqoon, look! That's our home, planet Earth!" But Zarqoon didn't look. He shot off toward the field shouting, "The first rock! I'll find it before you!" leaving a cloud of grey dust behind him.

Leen walked step by step, and every step on the moon felt like a gentle hop, because gravity there is much weaker than on Earth. She laughed as she floated up a little and then drifted slowly down like a feather. Then she heard Zarqoon's voice on the radio: "Leen! Leen! I'm stuck!" Leen hurried over carefully and found that Zarqoon had sped straight into a small crater full of fine dust. His wheels were spinning and spinning in the dust without moving him, and the faster he went, the deeper he sank. "My calculations say speed solves everything," he said sadly. "Why isn't it working?"

Leen knelt at the edge of the crater and said calmly, "Zarqoon, stop spinning your wheels for a moment." "But stopping wastes time!" he said. "Sometimes stopping saves time," said Leen. "Trust me." Zarqoon's wheels stopped, and the dust settled around him. Leen reached out with her thick glove and slowly brushed the dust away from in front of his wheels. Then she said, "Now move very slowly, little by little." Zarqoon moved slowly and rolled out of the crater easily. His blue eyes glowed brightly. "Amazing! Slowness got me out, and speed got me in!"

They carried on searching together. Leen found a dark grey rock and said, "Here's the first." Zarqoon wanted to grab it quickly, but it slipped from his little arm and rolled away. "Easy," said Leen. "Hold it gently, as if you were carrying an egg." Zarqoon tried again slowly, held it firmly and put it in the box. Then they found a shiny rock with white speckles, a light brown one, and a fourth with thin black stripes. Each time, Zarqoon slowed down a little more and looked a little longer, until he said, "Leen, the slower I go, the more things I see!"

One rock was left. Zarqoon searched left and right with his glowing eyes, then said, "I can't find anything. The mission has failed." "It hasn't failed," said Leen. "We just haven't finished yet. Come, let's sit for a bit and look." They sat on a big rock and looked together at the blue Earth in the sky. Leen said, "My mum says it took planet Earth millions of years to have seas, trees and animals. Beautiful things take time." Zarqoon was silent, then said in a calm voice she had never heard from him before, "It's beautiful, Leen. Why didn't I look at it this morning?"

As they sat quietly, sunlight glinted off something small near Leen's foot. She bent down and found a little see-through stone with a greenish tint, shining like glass. "Zarqoon!" she cried. "The fifth rock! If we'd kept rushing around, we would never have seen it!" Zarqoon picked it up very gently, put it in the box and said, "I will save this in my permanent memory: patience helps us see what hurry cannot." Leen looked at her watch, and its light was still green. "And look," she said, "we're not late!"

On the way back, Leen noticed that the air light on her suit was blinking a little; one of the tubes had shifted when she sat down. It wasn't dangerous, but she felt worried. Zarqoon said at once, "Don't worry, Leen. I'll call your mother, and I'll walk beside you at your speed." He reached out his little arm and carefully pushed the tube back into place, just as he had seen her mother do, and the light turned steady green again. Then he walked beside her step by step, never once going ahead, and kept saying, "We're nearly there. I'm with you."

They reached the base, where her mother and father were waiting. Her mother checked Leen's suit, then opened the box and saw the five rocks. When she saw the clear green stone she said in surprise, "This is very rare! How did you find it?" Before Leen could speak, Zarqoon said, "We found it because we sat quietly and looked. Leen taught me that speed isn't everything." Then he added softly, "She also taught me that a friend walks at his friend's speed, not his own." Her father laughed and said, "It looks like Zarqoon learned the most important lesson in the universe today!"

In the days that followed, Zarqoon became a little slower, but much wiser. He would wait for Leen at the door and ask, "Where are we going today, my friend?" Every evening they sat in front of the glass dome looking at the blue Earth and counting the stars together slowly, one by one, instead of Zarqoon counting a million numbers in a minute. When the week was over and it was time for Leen to go home, Zarqoon's eyes glowed softly and he said, "I'll wait for you next holiday, and I'll keep the most beautiful stone I find for you, and I won't rush while looking for it."

And so Zarqoon learned, and Leen learned with him, that patience is a strength, and that rushing can get us into trouble, while calmness helps us think and see the beautiful things around us. They also learned that true friendship means walking beside our friends, helping them when they stumble, and never leaving them behind just to arrive first. So be patient and kind, and walk with your friends step by step, because the road with a friend is more beautiful than arriving alone.