Pedro the Sombrero Snake was a snake from Sombrero, the capital planet of the Sombrero Galaxy Union. At first, he would seem to be your average Sombrero citizen. He was a snake, the native species of the planet, ate cheese, the food of choice, and he always, always wore his sombrero.
Back when he was little, Pedro the Sombrerito Snakito was very close to his grandfather, José the Sombreroto Snakoto. Every night, José would tell Pedro stories, before tucking him into his little blanket burrito for bed.
It didn’t happen suddenly, but, for most of the time that Pedro the Sombrerito Snakito was growing up, there was less and less cheese to go around. Pedro, having heard so many stories of Sombrero valor, decided that he would be the one to solve the problem. The moment he turned two, and became Pedro the Sombrero Snake, he was ready to go, and find a big supply of cheese. The day after his birthday, he got his Sombrero Space Helmet, and was off.
He had heard rumors of a huge stash of cheese in the Milky Way, so he decided to take a trip there. The first few planets that he ran into had no cheese, so he was considering searching elsewhere when he saw this little blue planet. The planet itself was uninteresting, but he saw what appeared to be a huge ball of cheese peeking around it. Suddenly reinspired, he quickly slithered over towards it.
When he got close enough to see it clearly, he was overjoyed. It was a miracle! Suddenly, he was approached by a small spacecraft. A window opened up, and somebody pulled him in. One of his assailants held him in place while the other closed up the window, and steered back down. One of the creatures turned around, and Pedro finally got a good look at it. They both had disproportionately big, green onion shaped heads with gigantic eyes, and wore bright yellow uniforms with a cheese emblem on them. The one holding him had a gigantic grin, and the other had a very small, wispy mustache.
The one with the mustache spoke. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
Pedro responded, “I’m Pedro the Sombrero Snake. Why did you stop me?”
The one holding him said, “You are trespassing on Cheese Fiend lands. We are Clidney and Goyd, the moon men currently in charge of patrolling this quadrant. You’re under arrest, so we’re going to take you down to our highest security prison.”
Pedro felt all hope leave him. How could he possibly escape a high security prison? His doom was upon him, and he could feel it closing in. Apparently, the moon men could too. They were quickly arriving on the surface, where there was a whole crowd of moon men standing on either side of an empty street, as if they were waiting for a parade to pass by. At the top of the street, there was a huge, imposing building, helpfully labeled as “Jail.”
Clidney and Goyd landed the ship in the middle of the street, and pulled Pedro off. Slowly, they pulled him up the silent street, towards the jail. With every step they took, Clidney and Goyd said, “Doom.”
With every “Doom,” the mob took one step closer to Pedro.
Sixty-seven “Doom”s later, Pedro, Clidney, and Goyd were at the front door of the jail. The mob was so close that, if he had arms, Pedro could have reached out to either side and touched them. Clidney opened up the door, and Goyd ushered him in. Through the window, Pedro could see the mob going back to where they had been before he’d arrived.
They escorted him down thirteen flights of stairs, to a common jail cell. After daring him to escape, Clidney and Goyd walked away, leaving Pedro to his fate.
Once left in the cell, Pedro collapsed onto the floor, miserable. He would close his eyes and pretend he was home, if snakes could blink. He sat there, bemoaning his fate for another forty-two minutes, before suddenly stopping. His hour of dramatics was over. He was ready to escape.
He slithered up to the bars, and examined them. They were four inches thick, made of cold-rolled steel. He stuck his head around to see the other side before realizing: he was a thin snake. He could just slither through the bars and leave, so he did. He just slithered through the halls, up the thirteen flights of stairs, and out the door.
None of the moon men were looking at him, so he looked around. A lot of moon men were wearing the yellow Cheese Fiend uniforms. He made sure to avoid them as he snuck out of the square. He already knew what his next mission was—steal a huge mound of cheese, and slither away.
Pedro had no idea where he was going, so he just wandered around, until he came across another building, labeled as “Cheese Mine Headquarters.” Seeing as it had the word “cheese” in its name, Pedro decided that he should go in.
One window was open, so he snuck in through it. There seemed to be a Cheese Fiend meeting in progress, so he decided to stay put, and listen in. There was a panel of Cheese Fiend leaders, facing a currently empty stage. As Pedro watched, a white unicorn climbed up, and stood in the middle of the stage, facing the panel. Ten spotlights suddenly swiveled to shine on her, and the light bouncing off her bright turquoise horn nearly blinded him, so he looked away.
Once he deemed it safe to look back, the lights were controlled, and the unicorn was just starting her speech. “Hello, Cheese Fiend Leaders. Welcome to the Cheese Mine Headquarters. I’m Cynthia, the new director. The new cheese mining initiative has been incredibly successful, and we have had to expand the Cheese Warehouses to fit it all in. With the amount of cheese to process, we have decided to eliminate our current shipping process, in favor of a newer, better one. We will build small ships, which we will then cover with enormous balls of cheese, to be flown out to our buyers. In fact, we already have one built, ready to send out. The rest will be finished shortly.”
The Cheese Fiend Leaders all clapped. Pedro would have done the same, if he could have. Cynthia the unicorn had just given him a really good idea. When she left the building, Pedro sneakily followed her.
She led him right to the Cheese Warehouse, where he finally got to see what he’d been looking for all along: a huge ball of cheese. There were fifteen Cheese Fiends guarding the front of it, where the pilot would get in.
Pedro knew he had to get that cheese, but also had enough self-preservation to not launch a one-snake assault on fifteen enemies. He decided that, instead of hijacking the cheese on the ground, he’d do it out in space.
As the entire ship was covered in a huge ball of cheese, Pedro ate himself in, and settled in to wait. A few hours later, the Cheese Ship started to move. He looked out through his entrance hole, and saw that they were just leaving the surface. He waited until they had passed all of the perimeter guards before eating his way into the cockpit. There was a pilot in there, but Pedro managed to open the hatch, and throw him out, where he would soon be found and rescued by Clidney and Goyd.
With the pilot gone, Pedro had complete control of the Cheese Shop. He immediately changed course, heading for the Sombrero Galaxy. It took him a while, but he brought the cheese safely back to Sombrero, where he was hailed as a hero, and ate his fill of delicious moon cheese.
With his new taste for adventure, Pedro soon set off on many great adventures through space. Soon, any Cheeser would tremble with fear at the sight of a long, snaky shadow, or even the mention of Pedro the Sombrero Snake.