The aliens walked into the middle
of the clearing and jammed a flag pole into the ground. The flag
had strange colors on it that hurt the boy's eyes, and odd
lettering that looked like "We got here first.
Nyah-nyah."
The boy whispered to his dog, "I'm
not scared. You go first."
The dog said, "Rowf!
Rowf!"
The boy thought the dog meant,
"Yes, you are, you can't fool me." So the boy said, "Am not," and
he walked toward the aliens. (What the dog really meant was, "If
you'd throw a stick, I'd chew on it until it was soft and slimy,
and then I'd bring it back so you could throw it
again.")
The blue alien said, "Hello, native
person. I am Miglick and this is my partner, Splortch. We have
discovered your planet."
"Yep," said the green alien. "We
did. It's ours."
"And we name it Miglick Planet,"
said Miglick.
"Yep," said Splortch. "We do. No,
wait! We name it Splortch Planet."
The boy said, "It has a name. It's
Earth."
Miglick told Splortch, "Perhaps we
should name it for our home. We could call it New
Veebilzania."
"Boring!" said Splortch.
"Everybody calls it Earth," said
the boy.
"Rowf! Rowf!" said the
dog.
Splortch said, "Are these
Splortchians trying to tell us something?"
Miglick said, "The little
Miglickian said 'Rowf!' I believe that means they'd like to give us
all their gold." (What the dog really meant was, "Are these aliens
friendly? Do they want to roll in some mud?")
"Um, we don't have any gold to give
you," said the boy.
"That's too bad." All of Miglick's
eyes squinted. "Then what were you saying, Miglickian?"
"My name's Brian. And I'm a human
on Earth. This is Lucky. He's a dog."
"His name's Pry-on," Splortch told
Miglick. "He's of the tribe of Splortchians called hummings. This
clearing where we landed is called Urp. The littler Splortchian is
extremely fortunate. Its tribe are called ducks."
"I know that," said Miglick. "I
heard everything the Miglickian said."
"No, you didn't," said Brian. "The
entire planet is called Earth. The people who live on it are called
humans. My name's Brian, his name's Lucky, and he's a dog.
Okay?"
Most of Splortch's eyes squinted in
a frown. "Excuse me. If you want to name things, discover your own
planet."
"But humans were here first," said
Brian.
"Okay," said Miglick. "Whenever we
can't think of a better name for something, we'll use the old
humming name. Isn't that fair?"
"That's fair," said Splortch,
squatting on its tentacles to look at Lucky. "You don't have much
to say, do you, fortunate duck?"
Brian said, "Ducks fly. They have
wings. Lucky's a dog."
All of Splortch's eyes squinted in
a frown. "I understand, Pry-on. I'm not stupid." The alien leaned
close to Lucky. "So, where are your wings, fortunate
duck?"
Lucky licked Splortch's
face.
Miglick said, "I think that means
the duck would rather not fly just now, but it is grateful that we
discovered Miglick Planet."
Splortch looked at Brian. "You may
lick my face, too, Pry-on."
Brian said, "No way!"
Miglick said, "The humming does not
think it is worthy to lick your face."
Splortch said, "Ah, modest humming,
you are indeed worthy to lick my face."
Brian shook his head. "Excuse me,
but I don't want to lick anybody's face."
All of Splortch's eyes opened wide
to stare at Brian. "Does that mean you aren't grateful that we
discovered your planet?"
"Well," said Brian, "I always knew
where it was."
Miglick sighed. "These Miglickians
are so unreasonable. And to think I was sorry that they would all
have to die."
"Have to what?" said
Brian.
"Die," said Splortch. "You breathe
oxygen, right?"
"Right," said Brian.
"Okay, then," said
Miglick.
"Okay, then, what?" said
Brian.
"Okay, then, you'll all die when we
replace Earth's oxygen with methane," said Miglick. "Isn't that
obvious?"
"Oh, dang," Brian said.
Splortch said, "Veebilzanians
breathe methane. We took oxygen-breathing pills when we landed, but
they don't last very long. And they taste terrible."
Brian said, "I don't want to seem
rude or anything, but why do you have to replace our oxygen with
methane?"
Splortch looked at Brian, then
shrugged several tentacles and said, "What kind of rest stop would
Splortch Planet be if Veebilzanians had to breathe oxygen? Can you
imagine being cooped up in a space ship for hours and hours and
hours, and finally you come to a planet where you can get out and
walk around, and there's no methane to breathe?"
Miglick looked at Splortch.
"Inconceivable."
"But Earth isn't a rest stop," said
Brian.
"Of course not," said Miglick.
"Until we replace the oxygen."
"These Splortchians aren't very
smart," said Splortch.
"No," said Miglick. "Well, let's
start the methane-making machine."
"Wait!" shouted Brian. "You can't
just kill everything on Earth."
"Sure we can." Splortch pointed at
a control panel on the side of the space ship. "We just press the
red button. That starts the methane-making machine. Presto, Earth's
a rest stop, and everyone's happy."
"But what about humans and dogs and
everything that's already here?" asked Brian.
Miglick nodded. "The humming's
right."
Splortch nodded, too. "Well, they
won't be happy. They'll be dead." Splortch extended a tentacle
toward the red button.
"Don't do that!" shouted Brian.
"It's wrong!"
"It is?" Splortch drew its tentacle
back to scratch its head. "It's not the green button, because that
starts—"
"No," said Brian. "It's wrong to
kill people."
"Hey, we know that." Miglick
reached to press the red button.
"Don't!" shouted Brian. "Humans are
people, too!"
"You are?" All of Splortch's eyes
opened wide.
Brian nodded.
Splortch said, "Do you speak
Veebilzanian?"
"Well, um, no," said
Brian.
"Do you worship the great
Hoozilgobbler?" said Miglick.
"Um, I don't think so," said
Brian.
"You don't have tentacles," said
Splortch.
"Well, no," Brian agreed. "But
we're still people."
"Hmm," said Miglick. "Do you have
space ships that can travel between the stars?"
"We have space shuttles that can go
around the Earth. And humans went to the moon once."
"Only to your moon?" Miglick
laughed. "That's not a space ship. That's a space raft."
"We're really people," said Brian.
"If you got to know us, you'd see."
Splortch and Miglick glanced at
each other. Miglick said, "This planet would make such a nice rest
stop."
"True," said Splortch. "But
hummings and ducks might be people."
"Quite right," said Miglick. "We'll
have to find out."
"Whew!" said Brian, thinking the
aliens would become someone else's problem now.
"Rowf!" Lucky said. (What Lucky
meant was, "Does anyone want to go home and see if there's any
brown glop in my food bowl? If there is, we can all get down on the
floor and eat together.")
Splortch said, "You two
Splortchians stand over there. We'd like to take your
image."
"Our picture?" said
Brian.
"I guess so," said
Splortch.
Brian shrugged and led Lucky under
a tree, where he stood looking at Splortch and Miglick, who were
standing in front of the space ship. Miglick said, "Perfect," and
Brian smiled as the alien pressed a green button on the control
panel.
In the next instant, Brian was
looking at a boy who looked exactly like himself and a dog who
looked exactly like Lucky. The blue alien was standing beside
Brian, and the green alien was missing. The tree was behind the boy
and the dog, and the space ship was behind Brian and the blue
alien.
Brian said, "Hey! What
happened?"
The blue alien said, "Rowf!
Rowf!"
Brian raised a green tentacle to
scratch his head, and then he stared at the tentacle.
The dog said, "Ret's go, Sprortch.
And you two hummings, be carefur in our bodies."
"Don't press any buttons while
we're gone," said the boy. "You don't want to start the methane
machine until we're back."
Brian stared, then shook his
tentacles in frustration.
"Rowf!" The blue alien rubbed its
head against Brian's tentacles until Brian patted it.
"Rowf!"
"Rots o' things smell grr-reat!"
said the dog.
"Come on, Miglick," said the boy.
"The sooner we prove hummings aren't really people, the sooner we
can start the methane-making machine."
"Rokay! See you rater!" The dog ran
ahead of the boy to get a good whiff of a dead skunk. "Yo! That's
grr-reat!"
"Dang!" Brian stomped his tentacles
twice, and then he squatted and told the blue alien beside him,
"It's okay, Lucky. We'll fix this. Um, somehow."
Just then, a woman behind him said,
"All right, who's making a monster movie?"
Brian turned around. A tall police
officer stood at the edge of the clearing with her hand on her
holstered pistol.
Brian said, "I'm not a monster, I'm
a space traveler. I mean, I'm a kid, and this is my dog. No one's
making a movie. Can you help?"
The police officer cocked her head
to one side, then called, "Jack, what do you think?"
A fat police officer came out of
the woods and walked toward the space ship. He stared at it and
said, "I think I don't know what I think, Sarge."
"It's simple," said Brian. "Only I
can't explain it. And there's not time to try, 'cause we have to
save Earth right away!"
"You're a kid?" The policewoman
moved her hand away from her pistol and scratched her
head.
"Sure," said Brian. "The aliens
switched bodies with us by pushing that green button." He pointed
at it with a tentacle.
"This one?" the policeman asked.
And he pressed the green button.
•
Meanwhile, the alien who looked
like Lucky and the alien who looked like Brian walked out of the
woods. A girl called, "Brian!"
"Herro," said the dog.
"No, I think I'm Pry-on," said the
boy. He called to the girl, "Who are you, humming from
Urp?"
"What's the game?" said the
girl.
"There's no game," said the boy.
"I'm Splortch. This is Miglick. We're from Veebilzania. We must
decide whether we should kill everyone on your planet by turning it
into a rest stop for space travelers."
The dog nodded in
agreement.
"Okay," said the girl. "I'm Captain
Brandi of the Starship Enterprise."
"Glad to meet you, Captain
Pran-dee."
The girl said, "I've got your space
ship locked in a tractor beam. You have to leave Earth alone, or
I'll blow up your ship with my photon torpedoes."
"Oh, oh!" said the dog.
The girl said, "Is Lucky
okay?"
The boy said, "Um, we have to go
now."
"No way," said the girl. "Or I'll
blow up your ship. Besides, Mom said you have to come in for
lunch."
The boy said, "These Urp creatures
are more clever than we suspected. Maybe they really are
people."
"I don' know," said the
dog.
The girl patted the dog's head.
"Poor Lucky. Did you eat something you shouldn't have?"
A woman stepped out of a house and
called, "Brian! Brandi! Lunch is ready!"
"Coming, Mom!" The girl grabbed the
boy's hand and tugged him toward the woman's house. The dog stared
at them, then back at the woods, and then followed the girl and the
boy inside.
At the kitchen table, the girl sat
in one chair, so the boy sat in another. The dog jumped into a
third. The Mom looked at the dog and said, "Down,
Lucky!"
"But he's hungry," said the
boy.
"He has food." The Mom pointed at
Lucky's dish, which was full of brown mush.
"Good!" said the dog as it jumped
down.
"Lucky sure sounds strange," said
the Mom.
"He can't speak as well as I can,"
said the boy. "And he can't pick up things in his hands." The boy
pointed at his thumb. "I think it's because hummings have this
special finger, and ducks don't. Tentacles are far more practical.
And far more attractive."