One day, four kid's biology teacher, Mrs. Fisher, had set up a lab to examine plant cells. She had no idea of the events to come...

The children were using chemicals to examine the cell structure, when Caleb accidentally spilled Chemical "X." In his haste to clean the mess before Mrs. Fisher saw, he spilled chemical "Y" too. When he touched the mixture of the two, he yelled and vanished!

When his group mates came to see what had happened, they noticed the mess and began cleaning it. As the chemicals soaked through the paper towel, they all disappeared!!!

The bell rang and the rest of the students went home. Mrs. Fisher turned around to clean up when she noticed four book bags next to a table. Meanwhile, the children found themselves inside the central vacuole of a plant cell.

"What is this place?" Paul asked.

"I think this is the vacuole. Look over there at all the water. This is like the cafeteria or the refrigerator of a cell," Lynnsi said.

"Oh man, how did we get here?" said Caleb.

"I don't know, but we will need to figure it out. I have a feeling that's the only way we can get out of here!" said Sara.

"Wait! What if we explore the cell more and try and understand it better, and get extra credit from Mrs. Fisher?" said Paul.

"PAUL! We could die in here and you're worried about extra credit!?" exclaims Lynnsi.

"I like extra credit," says Paul.

"I think he is on to something, though. If we can get something out of this catastrophe, shouldn't we try?" Caleb incquires.

"I guess it doesn't hurt to look around and maybe learn while we try to find a way out of this mess," said Sara.

"Fine," Lynnsi replied. "But if we all get killed, I'm blaming you, Paul."

The four children looked around themselves. They were floating around in cytoplasm, a substance within the cell that is almost like jelly. It surrounds the organelles like air surrounds everything on Earth.

"I have an idea!" Caleb exclaimed. "You see those small round things. I remember Mrs. Fisher mentioning them, and I'm pretty sure they're ribosomes. They make the proteins in cells, so they're kind of like carpenters. See how they float around the cytoplasm? If we hold on tight I think we can use them to travel around."

I'm

Paul

"What if they hurt us?" Sara asked, with a concerned look on her face.

"I'm sure we'll be fine." Lynnsi says. She turns around and heads towards a nearby ribosome.

The others are amused to see Paul work his way to a floating ribosome and say, as if in greeting, "I'm Paul."

After a few moments of struggle, the four explorers successfully use the ribosomes for transportation. They find themselves looking at ribosome studded Endoplasmic Reticulum (rough ER).

Sara remembers that these transport material through the cell, and points this out to the rest of the shrunken children. "The Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum can easily be compared to an assembly line. The ribosomes are manufactured, then sent around the cell."

"Smooth ER is similar to Rough ER, but it is called 'smooth' because it isn't dotted with ribosomes. It actually deals with the production of hormones and lipids," Caleb adds. "Smooth ER kind of reminds me of a supervisor, someone who keeps things under control. In this case, the Smooth ER balances things out by producing hormones."

Paul nods and says that to their right is the nucleus, which controls the cells activities, and holds the nucleolus, the organelle responsible for the proteins used in the making of ribosomes, that also contains RNA.

"The nucleus is like a teacher. It has instructions for what every else needs to do, while the nucleolus is similar to an architect. It constructs the ribosomes which make the proteins." Paul explains.