A serialized novel
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Eleanor Cameron, 1954.
Part One: Mr. Bass
Chapter One: A Little Planet Just My Size
One night after dinner when David was reading Dr. Dolittle in the Moon, and his father was reading the newspaper, and his mother was darning socks, his father suddenly exclaimed:
"Well now, that's very odd!"
"What's odd?" David and his mother both asked at once.
"Why," said his father, "this notice in the paper."
David went over to look, and there, down at the very bottom corner of the next to the last page of the newspaper, were a few lines of print. But though the rest of the newspaper was printed in black, this little notice was in green. Here is what it said:
Wanted: A small spaceship about eight feet long, built by a boy, or by two boys, between the ages of eight and eleven. The ship should be sturdy and well made, and should be of materials found at hand. Nothing need be bought. No adult should be consulted as to its plan or method of construction. An adventure and a chance to do a good deed await the boys who build the best spaceship. Please bring your ship as soon as possible to Mr. Tyco M. Bass, 5 Thallo Street, Pacific Grove, California.
Well, a notice like that sprung suddenly on any boy, just because of its general air of mystery and urgency, would be enough to start him simmering. But for David it was stupendous!
Regularly, every night after he got into bed and the light was turned out, he took off in his own imaginary spaceship. Making peculiar, jagged noises like "rht-ttttttt-chsssssssss" or "r-r-r-r-r-r-ram-am-ama-am-BOOM!" he'd poise for a second on the window sill. And then, with a horrible roar and a blinding burst of light, he'd streak off smooth and powerful and free as a bullet into the far, far reaches of the sky. He'd flash past Mars and Jupiter, turn, take a couple of whirls around the dead and glowing moon (right around the frozen, dark side nobody else has ever seen), and be back again in a wink.
But it was all imagination. He could stare as much as he liked at his big map of the solar system tacked up on the wall, but he was still exactly where he had been in the first place.
So you can understand what the sight of that little green notice in the paper did to him, how it set him vibrating like a harp in the wind. Build a real spaceship all his own. Why, he'd never thought of that! And yet, why not? And then, after that --
"But it's a joke," said Dr. Topman firmly, after a moment or two in which he must have been cogitating. "I'll bet you anything it's just some sort of joke -- and a pretty poor one at that."
"Oh, but Father, it can't be! Why would it be a joke?"
"The notice is in green," said his mother, smiling to herself. "I wonder what Mr. Bass is like." Then she bit off her thread and held a sock up to the lamp, to be sure she'd done a good job.