Alien dreams of leaving his regular life on planet Watercolors to become an explorer
There was once an alien who lived on a planet called Watercolors and wanted to be an explorer. But there was a little problem. The problem was that to be an explorer, you had to explore. But everyone on his planet already knew so much about the planet, it would be almost impossible to find something that hadn’t been explored on Watercolors. He knew he had to do something about it, so he started exploring day and night but couldn’t find anything that someone on his planet hadn’t explored yet. That’s about the time the poor little alien decided to give up.
After all of that thinking, he felt a bit of hunger in his tummy. It was that type of hunger that made it feel as if your tummy is saying, “I want FOOD!” He felt like he’d caught the flu—his tummy was killing him—so he went to eat lunch. When he arrived, he saw the menu of his dreams! There was pizza, spaghetti, tomato soup, hamburgers, steak, fries, chicken, asparagus, artichokes, meatloaf, and even his very favorite meal—omelets! So, he got himself a spot in line. He waited for his turn, because that’s what a polite alien does. He waited in line for about ten minutes, but it felt like a hundred million years to him.
When it was finally his turn, the alien who was writing down the orders asked, “What would you like to order?” Alien knew this was an honest man because of the polite way he’d asked Alien. So Alien said, “The omelet, please.”
The alien who was placing the orders answered, “That will be thirteen dollars, please.”
So Alien handed over thirteen dollars and said, “Thank you for the food.” Alien said thank you because, again, he was a polite alien and also because he really needed the food, so to him that omelet was really important.
When he got his omelet, he found himself a table. He ate his omelet as slowly as possible because it tasted so good, and he wanted to enjoy it as much as he could. When he was finished, a waiter handed him the dessert menu. There was ice cream, chocolate fondue, cinnamon rolls, Italian smoothies, cotton candy, lollipops, and ice cones. He ordered cotton candy. After that he was pretty much full, so he headed home.
When he got home, he didn’t really know what to do, so he started reading a book called Life Full of Baloney. It was about someone who had so many questions about life, like why don’t aliens get pimples and humans do, or why do living things snore, or why do living things get addicted to things so quickly, or why do living things have to eat to live, or why do you have to cut down a tree to make paper. It was Alien’s favorite book because, in case you didn’t know, Alien loved mysteries.
He read the book for about twenty minutes, and then he decided to have a TV break. He was watching something called Serious Black’s Mission. It was about someone named Serious Black who had a mission of wizardry he had to accomplish. Alien liked it because it had wizardry, and wizardry is like magic. And Alien was very interested in every little detail of what life would be like if everyone were just walking around with magic wands in their hands, casting spells on each other like “Abracadabra!” or “Expeliarmus!” like in Harry Potter. He watched about twenty minutes of the show while eating a bagel and a tangerine, and drinking a cup of juice.
After a while, he heard a noise coming from outside. It sounded like a crash from out his window, but when he looked outside, it was just boring old raccoons. Alien treated it like no big whoop, but soon the raccoons were throwing all sorts of trash at Alien’s apartment window—banana peels, dead apple cores, and even chicken bones, which caused the glass of Alien’s apartment window to break with one big glass shatter. It frightened Alien a bit, but he knew they were just some silly raccoons. Still, Alien asked himself the question, “Why are these raccoons so strong?” That’s when Alien realized that these weren’t raccoons, but specifically and biologically possums!
Alien decided to call the exterminator because he knew he couldn’t get rid of all those possums all alone. When Alien got on the phone, an alien on the other side of the telephone answered right away. The alien from the exterminator company answered in a deep and questioning voice: “Hello? Is there an animal emergency at your house?”
Alien answered, “Well, there appears to be a group of possums throwing trash at my window, which is now shattered. And no, it is not at my house but at my apartment.”
The exterminator answered in a cheerier voice, “Okay. Be there as soon as possible.”
Alien thought that as soon as the exterminator came to his apartment, the possums would go away, but right at the moment Alien was thinking about that, he heard DING-DONG. Alien got up and opened the door. It was the exterminator!
The exterminator was wearing navy-blue overalls with a patch at the top that read “The best exterminators in town!” Alien thought this was the logo.
When the exterminator came in, Alien said, “Hello.”
“Now, now. Where is this group of possums you told me about?”
“They’re over there,” said Alien, pointing proudly to the trash can.
The exterminator went to his truck and came back with a bunch of cages in his hands.
The exterminator said, “We’re gonna have to trap them in these cages. Then, when we can get them far enough from the neighborhood, we’ll let them free in the wild.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Alien said like he was taking it more seriously.
As they finished their discussion, the exterminator got outside the lobby, went to the trash place, and got the possums in the cages in no time. Alien was so impressed by the exterminator’s skills that he was actually more worried about how much money it would cost, but he didn’t fear the possums anymore.
When the exterminator came back, Alien asked, “How much will it cost?”
The exterminator said, “Fifty dollars.”
Alien knew that fifty dollars was a lot of money, but he also knew that he had no other choice but to hand over fifty dollars. Alien paid the exterminator.
After that, the exterminator took off, leaving Alien with zero “thank yous,” zero handshakes, and not even a simple “bye-bye”! Alien was pretty sad that the exterminator was not very polite, but Alien also knew that not every living thing on Watercolors was noble. Although he was also wondering if the aliens on Watercolors were the only living beings in the galaxy. Was it possible that there were other ones on other planets?
That’s when Alien had the best idea in the universe! There was a legend about people living on a planet called Earth. So, Alien decided that he was going to explore there. Alien was so happy that he would still be able to be an explorer, though he didn’t even know how he’d be able to start exploring. He didn’t have a spaceship to get to Earth. He didn’t have a disguise to look like a human. He didn’t even have a plan of what he was going to explore! Was he going to explore human biology? Was he going to explore states, continents, and countries?
But Alien did not lose hope. He decided to make a plan. He started to think. He decided he was just going to explore everything because it would be his first time there. Alien also decided that he was going to have to get a job if he wanted to get a spaceship, and he needed a spaceship to get to Earth. So Alien searched online all night long for a job. He found jobs like cooking, engineering, and making art, but none of these jobs would get Alien enough money in time. So Alien decided that he’d just have to build his own spaceship.
He started to build and build, and it actually was a really nice spaceship, but it still needed some essential items. So Alien started to think. He started to make a list of what he would need for a billion light-year trip in a spaceship to planet Earth. He needed oxygen, food, water, TV, books, a bed, an emergency phone, and an explorer notebook. So, he got a few oxygen tanks, bought some food, filled his spaceship with water, got his TV, put some of his favorite books in the spaceship, put his sleeping bag in the spaceship, put an emergency phone in the spaceship, and got a notebook and wrote “Explorer Notebook” on the cover.
He double-checked that he had packed absolutely everything he needed for a billion light-year trip to Earth. He packed one more oxygen tank just in case. It wasn’t long after that that Alien realized that he had forgotten to pack one of the most important elements for the trip! He’d forgotten to pack a space suit!
Alien rushed into his apartment in no time. When he came out of his apartment, he was holding a perfectly new space suit in his hands. He also realized that he’d forgotten to pack a human disguise, so he got that too. It took a little bit of time for Alien to get himself upside down into the spaceship, but Alien never gave up. When he got himself into the spaceship, Alien was expecting the sound of a motor, but then Alien remembered that he’d forgotten to put fuel into the spaceship, so he had to get out of the spaceship and fill it up with fuel. Once Alien finished that up, he got himself upside down again, and then he took off for planet Earth.
When Alien was in the galaxy, he saw millions of stars. Some were big, and others were small. But there was one star that was humongous. It was the sun! The sun was so bright that when Alien looked at it, he felt like his eyes were burning! The sun looked so red that Alien thought it was angry.
Alien was getting pretty bored, so he started reading a book. He was reading and reading; he didn’t realize it was nighttime. When people say that time flies by, they actually mean it. Alien went to bed. If you were to stand right next to Alien when he was sleeping, you’d only be hearing the loudest snoring in the universe.
When Alien woke up, he started to knit a scarf. Alien loved to knit. He finally started to see something round and blue and green. Then, he started to eat some kumquats.
Finally, Alien arrived on planet Earth. So, Alien put his space suit on and landed head-first on planet Earth. That’s when Alien realized something terrible! He didn’t know how to speak English! But then a solution rushed into his mind. Alien decided that he was just going to have to copy what everyone said.
So when he got to Earth, he copied everyone. Most people found Alien annoying; others found him funny. But Alien still copied everyone. And that’s what Alien kept doing, no matter what. He didn’t care what people thought of him.
One day he was out for a walk. He was calmly walking when someone bumped into him. This person didn’t realize he had bumped into Alien. He had an interesting round object in his hands that had red smoke running around it. It seemed very familiar to Alien. It was something they used on Watercolors to signal a warning. The man said it was a delivery from the planet Watercolors. Alien never knew why he got it. He never found out the answer to this question in his whole life.
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