Brenda Bongos was a happy, artistic girl, a girl with one big ambition - to play the drums in a band. But one big obstacle lay in her way. To be good enough to play in a band Brenda had to practice a lot, but she lived next-door to a lot of old people - many of them sick - in a care home. She knew that the sound of beating drums and crashing cymbals would really get on their nerves.

Brenda was a very good, respectful, girl. She always tried to find a way of practicing her drums without bothering other people. So, she had tried playing in the strangest places; a basement, a kitchen, an attic, and even in a shower. But it was no good; there was always someone it would annoy. However, determined to practice as much as she could, Brenda spent most of her time playing on books and boxes, and looking for new places to practice.

One day, while watching a science documentary on TV, she heard that sound cannot travel in space, because there’s no air. At that moment, Brenda Bongos decided to become a sort of musical astronaut.

With the help of a lot of time, a lot of books, and a lot of work, Brenda built a space bubble. This was a big glass ball connected to a machine which sucked out all the air inside. All that would be left inside was a drum kit and a chair. Brenda got into the space suit she had made, entered the bubble, turned on the machine, and...
She played those drums like a wild child!

It wasn't long before Brenda Bongos - 'The Musical Astronaut' - had become very famous. So many people came to see her play in her space bubble that she had to mount a pair of speakers so that everyone could listen to her play. Shortly afterwards she came out of the bubble and started giving concerts. Her fame spread so much that the government proposed that she form part of a unique space journey. Finally, Brenda was a real musical astronaut, and had gone far beyond her first ambition of playing drums in a band.

Years later, when they asked her how she had achieved all this, she thought for a moment, and said,
"If those old people next-door hadn't mattered so much to me, I wouldn't have gone to such lengths to find a solution, and none of this would have ever happened."