Mars Magic

I look up from my book to see Typhani absentmindedly painting her nails. Average human teenage girl, you say? Not by a long shot. We are not usual teenagers. And not exactly human.1

First off, we were in a car accident when we were maybe ten. Our parents are dead. The only way they could save us is by implanting other animals DNA into us. Hence my wings, Typhani’s tail, and the fact that Pippis could change color. Anyway, at first it was really cool and stuff, but when they started to keep us in cages and do tests on us – that was what made us mad.2

Perfected and honed like a tool, we became almost perfect, at least in their eyes. Now we were here to save the city on Mars.3

Worriedly looking at Pippis, who was rapidly changing colors as he tends to do when he’s nervous I wondered how on Earth – nay, on Mars – were we supposed to save Mars? We didn’t even know what was wrong with it! Oho, you say, it only has 100 people! Hey, have you tried saving even one person’s life recently? Didn’t think so.
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Most people would die to live on Mars. But we were considered “martians” when we were on earth. What are we going to be on Mars? Jupiterians? Finally we’ve landed, and the earth-turned-mars inhabitants stared at us as if we were – well- martians. And we stared at them as if them as they were - well – martians. Which, of course they were. Rumor here seems to spread pretty fast. Me? Have wings? Nah.
Ok, I do. But they didn’t need to know that. They didn’t need to know that I’d been in a car crash when I was ten, and now, four years later, I had wings, my friend Pippis could change color, and Typhani could bark and wag her tail. They didn’t need to know that I was an orphan. But everything here is up to the Head Scientist. HS, we called her.
Shoot. Speaking of the devil. I’d forgotten to call her. Oh well, I thought tiredly. It’ll have to wait ‘til morning.
* * *
Waking up on a metal bed, I grimaced. I was behind huge bars, treated like an animal. Here to save the world, treated like a villain. 'That’s gratitude for ya,' I thought. I didn’t know where the others were, but I sure hoped that they weren’t being treated like me. I mean, it had always been me who’d tried to get them to escape the labs, so they would naturally lock me up. Pushed through what looked like a dog flap was burnt bacon and undercooked eggs. 'Mmm,' I thought sarcastically. 'Breakfast.'
Soon I was let out by a pale looking young boy, maybe 8? 7?
“Come on,” he whispered. Feeling elated, I sprinted through the hallways, away from the boy. Looking for Pippis and Typhani, I suddenly realized that we had nowhere to go. I mean, this was Mars, people! But before I could turn around, I heard a huge zapping sound and felt like my leg had been turned into crispy well-done chicken and my wings into buffalo chicken wings. Not a pleasant feeling, I tell you. Looking dazedly up, I saw the kid staring at me with a remote in his hand, looking at me in horror. That’s when I realized that I had something strapped around my ankle, like those chips they put in dogs so the dog fences shock them. Apparently that remote could control that.
Shoot. Again.
“They just told me to do that if you ran!” said the kid in a shaky voice.
“Who?” I demanded. But the kid was quiet again.
Approaching a large, white room, I saw Typhani and Pippis. They were standing next to something that looking like a TV, aka a communicator. A woman’s face was on the screen.
“Hello, bird,” she said.
“Hello, HS,” I said.
“Touché,” smiled HS. “Anyways, you know why you’re here. Oh, you don’t?” she added looking at our unknowing faces. “You are here to save Mars. Bird –”
“Starling,” I muttered.
“Bird, you are the architect. You will build new buildings. Typhani,” she continued, “will design more advanced spacesuits. And Pippis, you will collect lost animals and any animals escaping our borders and give them to Typhani.
“Use your talents, too. Your last jobs are to save the world,” said HS.
“What?” cried Typhani. No answer. The screen had blinked black.
“OK,” I said, “Let’s get to work.”
I was led to a room with huge scrolls and lots of research materials. Typhani’s side of the room had lots of fabric and rulers. Pippis’ side had some humane traps and first aid.
“So how are we going to escape?” asked Pippis.
“Escape?” I muttered. “We can’t.” And I explained about the “zappers.”
After a day of hard work, I was too tired to think of a way out of this. Whenever we had tried to talk, one of the kids seemed to always hear us and come in. Nearly crawling back to my room, I saw that my metal bed had been replaced with a cot. Hey, maybe they did value us. Not.
Why did the others have to treat me like the leader?
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Mars was in enough of a mess as it was – but what happened today made everything else seem small. Literally.
Pippis and I were scouting for stray animals in a section that I was about to use to create an evactuation center. Suddenly a huge flash of brilliant red clouded my vision and I was thrown on to a pile of wood like a sack of potatoes. And since the story wouldn’t be complete without it, I blacked out.
Waking up feeling like I had been hit by a truck (had I? I was having a hard time thinking), I felt more uncomfortable than I usually did. Oh, and for an update – no more streaks of gratitude. I was still on a cot. I mean, what do these people need? I’d rebuilt h$alf of the city’s houses, a fairly wowing accomplishment if you ask me! Looking over, I saw Pippis beside me, but he was not yet awake. For Pippis, this was not unusual, but it made me worry once I realized that my head and one wing were tightly bound in bandages.
One of the pale faced kids came in and pulled me out of my cot.
“Oh, thank you,” I muttered.
Led again to the white room, I saw HS on the screen.
“Hey, bird.”
“Yo, HS.”
“A meteor has landed on Mars, and all of the power has gone out – this computer is run by the only generator. I need you three to help us.”
“Why should we?”
Zzzap. No need to describe.
“That’s why.”
So I was stuck building machines to help mine ice from the unexplored polar regions to help make energy. All people with “unimportant” jobs (basically everyone except Typhani, Pippis and I) had to mine ice. Typhani made suits for the miners and Pippis rescued animals hurt or lost in the wreckage from the meteorites.
Finally able to fly, because we heal pretty fast, I spread out my wings while the workers looked on in awe. I beat my wings powerfully three times and I soared into the air. My job was to make sure the other workers were doing their job, but when did I ever listen to HS?
Soaring around in wide circles, feeling the wind rush through my hair, I thought that maybe this would work out.
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Fettuccine's paintings were awesome, but he was the generator's technician. By now we were receiving enough ice from the polar regions, so, though under strict limitations, we still had power. For us, that was very little, less than the meager supply we used to have. Anyways. Fettuccine Alfredo was a very good artist. Recently, he was changing his interest from generators to painting landscapes. Connection? Don't ask me-I see none!
Shoot. I had fallen a few feet in my confusion. Today, in about an hour, the Fettuccine person to be judged: let him stay and paint, let him stay and make him work, or shoot him off into space? I person ally thought he should do both, but when does a birdkid’s opinion count? Um, never?
Anyways, now I was heading over to the leader’s headquarters. Obviously the most luxurious, I wasn’t expecting to see huge room covered in gold! It curled magnificently over sharp corners, creating a sense that a cat’s paw was enlarged, set in gold, and glued to the corners. Magnificent pictures of a near volcano exploding into the sunset covered the pale yellow wallpaper, obviously painted by Fettuccine Alfredo. It was then that I realized that I hoped Fettuccine would continue painting.
Sitting in a throne-like chair at the end of a long table was the leader himself, clothed in a cloak like billowing smoke. Slowly drawing back his hood, I saw the leader was a- KID?? Aw, come on. Talk about anticlimax. Anyways, I sat down with the rest of the 100 people that populated the city. Pretty small population, but it seemed to be too much for this room – half of the shivering ice-pickers stood outside.
After much debate and a considerable amount of weeping, they figured that they would blast Fettuccine into space with a week’s rations and hope he crashed, starved, or found a planet. Yeah, it was sad. But I really didn’t want to get zzapped again, this time for good.
Watching them strap him in (yeah, safety is a big issue when you’re trying to kill someone, Typhani screeched into my ear, “Starling! We gotta do something!”
Not that I’m the type to worry about karma or anything, but this did seem unethical, even though I’d been hardened by years of “torture” in the science lab.
“Fine,” I muttered.
Glancing left and right, I dashed with Typhani and Pippis to the spacecraft. It was white and shiny, but didn’t have much room.
“Okay, I said, “I’m gonna hold onto this glitch in the walls. You, Typhani, distract the guards, and Pippis, you strap your belt to my feet and catch Fettuccine.”
“Great. This’ll be sooo easy,” said Typhani. She flounced over to the guards as the countdown ensued.
“Pippis, hurry!” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“…3, 2, 1, 0!”
I launched my self at the spacecraft and hung on, feeling Pippis sway beneath me. Why did I ever agree to this? I thought as my face felt like it was being run over by the pressure the of the wind. Digging my nails into the spaceship, I groped at the handle.
“Come on, come on!” I screeched, my words being pushed back into my throat. Note to self: Don’t open mouth when hanging perilously off a spacecraft. We were rapidly approaching Mars’s atmosphere, where the terraforming could no longer hold oxygen. Finally the handle open, and Fettuccine flung himself out onto Pippis, sobbing. I let go and snapped out my red, blue, and gold wings and beat them powerfully, but there was too much weight. Falling screaming, I closed my eyes and prepared to die… Until I was traveling back up again – and then down and up again and then down. Opening my eyes, I saw that we had landed on a trampoline.
“Like it?” said Typhani, smirking. “I found it in my fabric closet.”
“Fettuccine,” I said, “you need to change your name.”
“Ravioli Spaghetti?” he asked.
“Oh, geez,” I said.4

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Luckily, ever since the asteroids had hit Mars, I’d had very little contact with HS. Unluckily, that also means we were missing a lot of news.
Like, for example, that earth had also been hit by asteroids and now they were under attack. Who’s the attacker? That’s right. Aliens.
Now we were receiving messages, more and more desperate each time, ones like “Mars Colony…(bbbzzzt)…Earth…(bbbzzzt)…unsafe…(bbbzzzt)…asteroids brought……….” and “When you power up…(bbbzzzt)…leave the solar system…(bbbzzzt)…total control of Earth, Mars, everything……(bbbzzzt)……”
I jumped (if that’s possible while flying) as my walkie talkie crackled and said, “Don’t…(bbbzzzt)…home…(bbbzzzt)…save…(bbbzzzt)…… …(bbbzzzt)……”
I fell. And fell and fell and fell. I only brought out my wings when I almost toppled on top of Pippis, who was taking out one of the dogs for a walk.
“Geez, what on Mars are you up to, Starling?” asked Pippis, chuckling at his own joke.
“They don’t want us to come home! It said, ‘don’t…home…save’! Don’t you realize what this means, Pippis? They want us to save them! Remember? ‘Save the world’?”
“Calm down!” said Typhani walking out of the door.
Just then, there was a huge roaring sound and a rocket crashed into Pippis’s yard, sending dirt everywhere.
“Give me a back rub!” screamed HS.
“No. We’re saving the world.” I glared daggers into HS. “Feel free to come.”
HS, apparently lost for words, followed me as I stomped off, along with a bewildered Typhani and a bemused Pippis. But I knew what I was doing. I’d put it together.
Bursting into the leader’s room, I said, “I know who you are.”
“Oh, you do?” It was the first time I’d heard the leader speak. His guards (also kids) took us by the arms with an amazing strength for their limp arms.
The leader cracked his knuckles menacingly and said in a heavily accented voice, “You are finished.” As he drew back his knuckles to punch me in the head, I saw a blur and then Fettuccine on the floor.
“Go!” He gasped.
We ran as we felt the alien’s arms slacken in confusion. Outside, all was in a ruckus. Seemingly childlike aliens threw the people into sides of buildings. Now I knew who had wiped out the old Martians – these extra terrestrials.
I grabbed Typhani and threw her into HS’s rocket. Pippis and HS clambered in as I hollered for Fettuccine and grabbed the joystick that controlled the spaceship. Fettuccine clambered in as I realized that Typhani was lying on the floor.
“Ray gun,” she gasped.
“No!” screamed Pippis.
Then I looked out the window and saw that the leader had thrown a match and I braced myself for the explosion.
BOOM!
I saw Pippis next to me, falling, falling, falling, and his hair blowing upward.
“My life!” he gasped comically. “It’s flashing before my eyes!”
I laughed. That’s me, laughing in the face of death.
Then I hit the ground.5

Opening my eyes, I saw fluffy clouds all around me. I’d thought we were dead. Approaching a golden gate, I saw Pippis and Typhani.
“Where are we?” we asked simultaneously.