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Sonny Joon sat in his college class, bored. Completely and utterly bored. He’d already read the books for this unit twice. He knew what the lecturer would say next. He began to mouth along with the words.
“Mr Joon, is there something you’d like to add?” Mr Smith inquired, upon noticing Sonny’s behaviour.
“Um, no sir.” The other students rolled their eyes. They were used to Sonny being odd. Sonny sank into his seat, wishing the class was over already.
Later that day, Sonny sat in his dorm room. His roommate was out, on a date. Sonny wondered what that would be like. He’d never met anyone who liked him. Lying back on his bed, he wondered if he could leave college. He knew his parents would hit the roof if he did that, but maybe he could do it without them knowing? He began racking his brain trying to come up with a plan of some kind. Then he frowned. He heard a sound outside. Sonny sat up, listening. Nothing. Sighing, he got up and grabbed a piece of paper. Then he heard it again. It was a strange noise. Nothing he’d ever heard before.
He peered out the window. There stood a blue phone box. Odd. Sonny had lived here for two years and had never noticed that before. A tall, thin, redheaded woman stepped out of the box, looking around. She wore a long, black trench coat and black boots.
Sonny made a split second decision. One that would change his life forever. He ran outside.
“Who are you?” Sonny questioned curiously. The woman shook her head.
“No. I’m not meant to be here. I was meant to go back and have another chat with that Henry. You know the one, Henry the eighth.”
Sonny’s jaw dropped. What was the woman talking about?
“Oh, dear me. I haven’t introduced myself. How rude. I’m the Doctor. Who are you?”
“I’m, um, Sonny. Sonny Joon.”
“Hello there, Sonny. So where am I?”
“Um, you’re in Illinios.”
“I see. What year is it?”
Sonny’s eyes nearly bulged out at the question. “It’s 2008.”
“Ah, 2008. A good year!”
Before Sonny could ask any more questions, there was a sound. A very loud crashing noise. Sonny and “The Doctor” (What kind of name was that? Sonny wondered.
He’d have to ask her later what her real name was) turned quickly to the direction of the sound. Then Sonny saw a creature. Something he’d never seen before. It was larger than any animal he’d ever seen.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Sonny, come along!” The Doctor ran towards the creature. Sonny began to run after her.
As they got closer to the creature, Sonny felt scared. What was happening? He shouted inside his head.
“Now, there, let’s calm down, shall we? What’s going on?”
Sonny looked. The Doctor appeared to be talking in a soothing tone of voice to the creature. What was more amazing, the creature began to calm down, and stayed still long enough for the Doctor to rub it soothingly. “There, there.”
Then she turned to Sonny. “It seems there’s a rip in time. The creature came through the rip, and now she’s stuck here. Poor thing. Well, I’m going to take her back home. But I won’t be gone long. I’ll come back and sort out the rip.”
Sonny nodded, not understanding a word of it. How would she take this enormous creature back in that little box? Also, back where?
“Say, why don’t you join me? After we drop her back, I could take you anywhere you like in the whole universe.”
“What? Really?” Disbelief washed over Sonny.
“Sure. Why not? I have a time machine. We can go anywhere. And it was getting rather boring travelling by myself.”
After they wrangled the creature onto the phone box, Sonny looked around. It was bigger on the inside. The Doctor had seemed strangely pleased when Sonny had said that out loud.
“This is amazing!” Sonny said, while spinning in a circle. There were lights and gadgets and all sorts of things he’d never seen before.
“Thank you.” The Doctor did a little bow. Then turning serious, she spoke in a pretty English accent, “Now, I made a promise. After we take this one back” she jerked her thumb towards the creature sleeping peacefully in one of the many rooms, “where would you like to go?”
Sonny’s mind was whirling. “I don’t know. Where can we go?”
“Anywhere you like, dear!”
“Well, this might seem silly, but I’ve always believed in aliens. Are there aliens out there?”
“Oh yes! It’s so nice to meet a human who believes in them. It’s so silly of you lot to think you’re all alone in this world. You’re most certainly not!”
She paused, clearly thinking. “Let’s introduce you to the Ood. They’re lovely, and I own them a visit.” With that, she pushed a button, and moved a control stick. Then she shouted over the noise, “Hold onto something!”
Sonny groped around and grabbed a metal bar that was attached to the wall. It felt as though they were flying through the air. But it wasn’t just through the air, but through all of time and space.
The time passed by quickly for Sonny. After they’d dropped the creature back to her home, and visited the Ood, it felt as though weeks had passed.
“What will my family think?” Sonny asked the Doctor. She merely smiled, and then explained “No time passes, with this baby”, she patted the machine. “I’ll drop you back the night I picked you up.”
Sonny still couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept. While all his life, he’d dreamed of aliens and space, and time travel, he’d always thought he would never see it in his lifetime. And now, here he was on a machine that allows time and space travel.
“Or you could come with me. You know, hang out on here.”
“Really?”
The Doctor nodded. “There’s plenty of room.”
“Do you have others who come and travel with you?”
“Yes. In fact, only a couple of weeks, I dropped back Bess and George – Two girls who travelled with me for a couple of years. I’ve lived a long time; I’ve met lots of different people.”
“So what do you say?”
Sonny nodded. “Yes. Of course! I mean, how could I turn this down?”
“You’d be surprised at how many people do turn this down.”
Sonny wondered what she meant by that comment, but he was far too excited to reflect upon it for long.