The Chocolate River Planet - New Project

It was two nights after the Moink.

Bitty and Dassah couldn’t sleep. Not really. Every time they closed their eyes they saw the wormhole — that standing-up swimming pool of light — and they heard mooo-oinnk in the lavender hills.

Go-Diddy found them at the kitchen table at 6 a.m., drawing planets on paper napkins.

“You two have that look,” he said, pouring coffee. “The ‘we need to dial’ look.”

Bitty slid her napkin over. She’d copied the old list from the fort.

Dassah pointed with a syrupy finger. “This one.”

At the bottom, in wobbly purple crayon, it said:

Go-Diddy laughed. “Ah. Ber’s planet. Your sister Ber was 9 when she found that one. Came home with chocolate on her shoes for a week. Mom thought she’d raided the pantry.”

“Can we go?” Bitty whispered. “Just us three? No one else knows yet.”

Go-Diddy looked out the window. Mom was still asleep. Harbor was already growing on the couch. Nation was on dishes. Ocean was mapping ants.

“Operation Secret, Part Two,” he said. “Meet at the fort after dinner. Pack jackets. And spoons.”

After dinner — spaghetti, which Harbor ate while still horizontal — Bitty and Dassah put on their pink jackets, stuffed two plastic spoons in their pockets “for science,” and followed Go-Diddy down the secret trail with flashlights off.

The Stargate was right where they’d left it, under the branches behind Ervin’s old fort. Go-Diddy uncovered it slowly. He hooked up the naquadah generator again. He clipped the special lights around the ring.

The whole meadow hummed. Fireflies came out like they thought it was music.

Go-Diddy knelt by the DHD. “Same rules as last time. Thirty minutes. I stay here, I keep the gate open. You stay together. Lovely Law #1, always.”

Bitty nodded. Dassah nodded harder.

He dialed. Seven chevrons. Each one clunked louder in the quiet woods.

CHEVRON ONE…
CHEVRON TWO…
CHEVRON THREE…
CHEVRON FOUR…
CHEVRON FIVE…
CHEVRON SIX…
CHEVRON SEVEN… LOCKED.

The wormhole bloomed. It didn’t look like water this time. It looked like melted milk chocolate, swirling slow.

“It smells sweet,” Dassah said.

“That’s new,” Go-Diddy said, surprised. “Ber never mentioned smell.”

They kissed him — left cheek, right cheek — like always.

“Be brave, my lovely ladies,” he whispered. “And bring me back proof.”

Hand in hand, Bitty and Dassah stepped through.

P4X-CHO

It was warm. Not Alaska warm. Blanket warm.

The sky was the color of caramel. Not sunset — just that color all the time. The ground was soft, like brownie dirt that didn’t stick to your shoes.

And in front of them, wide as the Little Su River, was a river of chocolate.

It moved slow and thick and shiny. It gurgled. Little bubbles popped and smelled like cocoa.

“No way,” Bitty breathed.

Dassah was already on her knees with her spoon. She dipped it in. The chocolate was warm, not hot. She tasted it.

Her eyes got huge. “It’s REAL.”

They sat on the bank and had two spoonfuls each — Go-Diddy’s rule from Ber’s notes: “do not drink too fast.” It tasted like hot chocolate and honey mixed together.

That’s when they heard the splashing.

Downstream, something was building a dam. Not with sticks — with marshmallows.

It was an animal about the size of Rowdy, with the flat tail and teeth of a beaver, and the sleek whiskers and playful eyes of an otter. Its fur was chocolate-brown and sticky at the tips.

It saw them, chirped, and slapped its tail. Thwap!

Bitty laughed. “What are you?”

Dassah clapped. “It’s a… a…”

“Chotter,” Bitty decided. “Half beaver, half otter. A chotter.”

The chotter — they later learned his name was just Chotter, because all chotters are named Chotter — waddled over and dropped a warm marshmallow at their feet. A gift.

Dassah picked it up. “Thank you. Lovely Law #1.”

The chotter chirped again and pointed with his nose upstream, where the chocolate river was getting wider. Too wide.

Bitty stood up. The river was rising. A big marshmallow dam downstream had broken, and chocolate was spilling over the banks toward a nest of tiny, peeping chotter babies tucked in the roots of a candy-cane tree.

“Oh no,” Bitty said. “They’ll get stuck!”

Dassah didn’t think. She ran. Bitty ran with her, their boots going squish squish in brownie mud.

They reached the nest. Three baby chotters, eyes barely open, squeaking.

The chocolate was an inch away.

“What do we do?” Dassah yelled over the gurgle.

Bitty remembered what Go-Diddy always said about Lovely Law #1 — love others as yourself means you do the hard thing first.

“Build!” she yelled.

They grabbed sticks, marshmallows from the bank, big flat leaves that smelled like mint. The mama chotter and papa chotter came splashing and helped, slapping mud and marshmallow together with their tails.

Bitty and Dassah worked fast, hands sticky, jackets covered in chocolate. They built a little wall around the nest, just high enough.

The river lapped at it… and held.

The baby chotters were safe. They peeped and snuggled into Dassah’s sleeve.

The mama chotter licked Bitty’s cheek — it was warm and chocolatey — and then pushed something toward them with her nose. A flat stone, smooth and amber, with the Stargate symbol for Earth carved on it.

“A gift,” Bitty whispered. “For helping.”

Dassah tucked it in her pocket next to her spoon.

Go-Diddy’s watch beeped. Ten minutes left.

They said goodbye to the chotters. The whole family — mama, papa, three babies, and about six cousins — lined up on the bank and slapped their tails in unison. Thwap thwap thwap. A chotter applause.

Bitty and Dassah ran back, bouncing a little because the ground was still soft, back to the gate standing among the candy-cane trees.

Bitty hit the remote. On the other side of the universe, in the woods behind a motorhome in Wasilla, the Stargate roared to life.

The wormhole opened — chocolate-silver this time.

They looked back once. The caramel sky. The river. The chotters waving.

“Next time we bring spoons for everyone,” Dassah said seriously.

Bitty took her hand. “One, two, three.”

They jumped.

They came out tumbling into pine needles, covered head to toe in chocolate, holding a glowing amber stone.

Go-Diddy caught them both. He didn’t even care about his shirt.

“You’re sticky,” he laughed.

“We saved babies!” Bitty said, talking fast. “There was a river and it was rising and we built a wall and the chotters—”

“—chotters are half beaver half otter!” Dassah finished. “We named them!”

Go-Diddy looked at the stone in Bitty’s hand. The Earth symbol glowed faintly.

“Ber never brought this back,” he said quietly. “You two just made first contact. Proper.”

He powered down the generator. The gate went dark. He covered it again with branches, but this time he put the amber stone on top, like a marker.

Walking back up the trail, sticky and tired and buzzing, Dassah yawned against his side.

“Dad?” Bitty asked. “Do you think Ervin and Memory and Mosheh and Mani and Ber and Yoseph would be proud?”

Go-Diddy stopped under the spruce fort their oldest brother built. He looked at his two youngest girls, chocolate in their hair, spoons in their pockets, universe in their eyes.

“I think,” he said, “they’ve been waiting for you to find it. The Stargate wasn’t just for them. It was for all my kids. For the Lovely Laws to travel.”

Back at the house, Mom was waiting on the porch with towels and a look.

“What,” she said, hands on hips, “did you three do?”

Go-Diddy grinned. “Science experiment.”

Bitty held up the amber stone. “We met chotters.”

Dassah held up her spoon. “We saved babies.”

Mom sighed, then laughed, then wrapped them both in a towel. “Bath. Now. Both of you. And you,” she pointed at Go-Diddy, “you’re explaining the chocolate on the ceiling later.”

Later, in their bunk beds, clean and warm, Bitty whispered, “Dassah? Do you think the Moink and the Chotter would be friends?”

Dassah was already half asleep. “Mmmm. They both like belly rubs.”

Down the hall, Go-Diddy was cleaning chocolate off his naquadah generator, humming to himself, already thinking about which planet on Ber’s list came next.

And under the fort, behind the motorhome, the Stargate waited — patient, humming just a little, ready for the next secret adventure.