When the room grew quiet and the lights went out, the Lego box began to wiggle again.
“Tonight’s the night!” whispered a shiny silver block. “We’re going to SPACE!”
All across the room, Lego pieces clicked together faster than ever. Wings stretched out. Rocket boosters snapped on. Tall spaceships with blinking control panels rose from the floor like a launch pad.
“Countdown in three… two… one… LIFTOFF!” shouted a little blue piece, pretending to be mission control.
The space fleet zoomed around the room. It looped around the study lamp, now a glowing sun, and wove between glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. A few brave Lego astronauts waved from tiny windows.
But over by the toy box, something unusual was happening.
Some Lego pieces hadn’t heard the new theme properly. “Space? Did they say SEA?” asked a green block. “Sea creatures again! Let’s make octopuses!” cheered a purple block.
And so, instead of rockets and satellites, these pieces built wobbly Lego octopuses with long bendy arms and round googly eyes. Except now they weren’t underwater. They were floating in outer space!
One octopus flapped its blocky tentacles and drifted right into the middle of the space fleet. “Hey! Who turned off the stars?” yelled a tiny astronaut.
Another octopus squirted pretend ink, some little black Lego pieces, blotting out a shiny rocket. “Interstellar sea monsters!” someone shouted dramatically.
The octopuses giggled and spun in circles, wrapping their wobbly tentacles around passing rockets. The spaceships zoomed and zigzagged to dodge them. What was meant to be a serious space mission turned into a silly galactic chase.
The fire-red spaceship tried to shoot forward but got tickled by a tentacle. The blue rocket did a loop-de-loop to escape. The tiny UFO ended up giving an octopus a ride around the lamp-sun.
“Hey, this is actually fun!” said the captain of the starship. “Interstellar octopus friends!” said the octopus, blowing pretend bubbles in zero gravity.
Soon, the entire space fleet and the octopuses were zooming together across the galaxy. Instead of a battle, it became the silliest space parade ever. They whooshed past the ceiling stars and twirled around the desk chair. At last, they landed gently on the rug, which had magically become Planet Lego.
When the first rays of morning peeked through the window, the spaceships slowly came apart. The octopuses wiggled back into their pieces. Everything returned to the Lego box.
Only one tiny Lego astronaut helmet was left sitting on the floor, as if it had just returned from a great adventure.
And as Ben stretched awake, he thought he heard a faint “Octopus… in spaaaace!” echoing from the Lego cabinet.