text: [Themes: Slice of life, female, strong profanity, female protagonist, children]
  
  > Look around
  You're standing in a small clearing, surrounded by trees of petrified wood and malachite.
  
  The wolf you injured is lying on the ground, whimpering softly.
  
  > take all
  (the wolf)
  The wolf is too heavy for you to carry.
  
  > Empty chest
  The treasure chest is closed.
  
  > Open chest
  You open the treasure chest, revealing some dirt.
  
  > Empty chest
  dirt: Dropped.
  
  > Plant seed
  You plant the seed pod, step back, and wait for it to grow.
  
  Nothing happens.
  
  You hear a soft chuckling behind you. "Well, well," says a voice. "If it ain't pirate-turned-astronaut Wendy Mackaye. What're YOU doing in the Queen's realms?"
  
  You turn around to find a diminutive man with a bushy white beard, pushing along a white cart almost as big as he is. ("Diminutive" is another word for "small".) "Who are you?" you ask.
  
  "I'm the local weather salesman," he says. "And I'd say that you're not going to have much success growing things without some rain handy." He rummages through his cart. "You're in luck," he says. "I just happen t'have some in stock."
  
  > buy rain
  "That'll be one gold piece," the salesman says. "The one you're carrying will do nicely."
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying a coin and a treasure chest (which is open but empty).
  
  > give the coin to the man
  The weather salesman pockets the gold piece and snaps his fingers; a moment later, a tiny cloud appears at knee level, raining a trickle of water onto the planted pod. You start to complain, but suddenly there's no one to complain to -- the salesman is gone without a trace.
  
  And in the end, it doesn't matter: even this tiny rainstorm does its job. Shortly after the cloud dissipates, the pod shudders, and a full-grown shrubbery erupts from inside, loaded with deep red berries and bright green leaves. The wolf starts nibbling at the berries, first tentatively, then with relish.
  
  Now all that remains is to heal its wounds. The leaves on the shrub look promising.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You are carrying a treasure chest (which is open but empty).
  
  > take leaf
  You pick some of the leaves.
  
  > look at the wolf
  The wolf looks rather emaciated. Eating the berries should take care of that; now all you have to do is heal its wounds. Maybe those leaves will do the trick.
  
  > examine the leaf
  They're an almost unnatural shade of green.
  
  > give leaves to the wolf
  The wolf nibbles at the leaves, but then draws back and whimpers. Maybe if you were to rub them on its wounds it might be more effective.
  
  > Rub leaves on wound
  You rub the leaves on the wolf's wounds, and it immediately starts to look more sprightly and alert. ("Sprightly" means energetic and spirited.) So while it looks as though you won't have anything from the red planet to hand over to headquarters once you get home, you have saved a life.
  [ -> ]
  "And that's the end of our story for tonight," Alley says.
  
  What? But that can't be the END -- there's still so much you don't know! Like, how do you get home? Are you even on the right planet? Do you get in trouble for not having the pod anymore? Who's this queen the weather salesman talked about? "But wait," you begin, "what about--"
  
  "Come on, Wendy," Alley says. "You know the rules. It's way past your bedtime. Your parents'll be home soon and if you're still up it won't look too good for either of us. I'll be right here if you need anything." She pulls a book out of her backpack and starts in on her homework.
  
  > About you
  You are Wendy Mackaye. By day, you are a student at Queensport Elementary School; by night, or at least on those nights that Alley comes over to babysit, you are a pirate, or an astronaut, or the democratically elected leader of the planet, or whatever it is that the two of you make up. (Though, you have to admit, even though she SAYS you're making up the stories together, Alley does most of the work.)
  
  > examine Alley
  Alley is your regular babysitter, but she doesn't just throw a TV dinner at you and make you go to bed at six: she tells you stories, and helps you with your homework, and lets you help cook, and tells you which boys she likes, and all in all acts like a friend: a friend who's older and smarter and more beautiful than you could ever be, but still, a friend.
  
  > talk to ALLEY
  Please select one:
  
  (1) >ASK ALLEY ABOUT HER HOMEWORK
  (2) >ASK ALLEY FOR A GLASS OF WATER
  (3) >ASK ALLEY WHERE SHE GETS HER IDEAS
  (4) >ASK ALLEY ABOUT HOW I GET HOME
  (5) >ASK ALLEY ABOUT THE QUEEN
  
  > About you
  You are Linda Mackaye, freshly returned from the most excruciatingly boring party you've ever attended. The slides were out of focus, the small talk necessitated the use of a magnifying glass, and if you had to hear your hosts share another tidbit of conversational Japanese, you were ready to disembowel yourself with your shrimp fork.
  
  Alley finishes stuffing her books in her backpack and puts it on. "Okay, see you soon," she says. You follow her out to the garage door; Jim's car is waiting in the driveway, and as she walks toward it, she is swallowed up in the glare of the headlights.
  [ -> ]
  Pure white light blazes down on Alley's crib as Sam plugs in the huge screen he ordered through the mail and mounted on the ceiling. Alley rubs her eyes.
  
  "What is that thing, anyway?" you ask. "Just a fluorescent light?"
  
  "Not at all," Sam says. "The Photopia is a low-energy, high-intensity LCD screen with a bunch of different settings." He tosses you the remote. "Just push the white button to cycle through them."
  
  > examine Alley
  Alley is your daughter -- still just a baby, really, though luckily she's well out of the reptilian newborn stage and instead looks like a perfectly adorable little girl.
  
  > About yourself
  You are Mary Dawson, mother of a beautiful baby girl named Alison who you're sure is going to have the world at her feet when she grows up. "C'mon, hon, we've had our fun," Sam says. "Time to turn off the lights."
  
  > Examine sam
  Sam is your husband, who has lately taken to ordering all kinds of strange things through the mail: today it was the Photopia; the day before that it was some kind of "baby-safe" blender; tomorrow it'll be a bag of llama feed or something.
  
  > turn off the light
  You glance into the crib as you reach the light switch. "Good night, Alley," you say. "Sleep well."
  
  You turn out the light.
  [ -> ]
  [ -> ]
  debugcheapnitfol quit with exit status: 0