That Night... (Revised Addition)

Looking back at it now, I suppose that was the night that everything began to change for the world. All of these modern day marvels that we have come to enjoy and maybe even take for granted stem from the events of that night. We owe everything from our ability to travel beyond the solar system, to the holographic network stations being powered by the large MPT Crystal at the heart of the city, to that night. Even the ambrosia candy that I’m sucking on right now has spices and ingredients in it that wouldn’t be available if trade routes to the Sirius system hadn’t been opened up. All of these wonders wouldn’t exist if that girl from the stars hadn’t arrived on earth that fateful night, so many years ago. 1

I can still remember that evening like it was yesterday. I was only thirteen at the time and my family was living pretty well off in a white two story house. It was on a Friday night and school had been out for several hours. Hours that I had spent up in my room playing with the radio that had taken me several long afternoons to put together. Well, playing with the radio and doing my best to avoid that bully of a sixteen year old called my sister. My father had gotten me into using radio at an early age so I had grown into quite the expert ham. Of course the equipment that I was using still wasn’t as impressive as what a lot of the older amateur radio operators were able to get their hands on but I was pretty proud of what I had. 2

Since it was almost summer at the time and thus warm outside, I had the window open while I sat at my desk, playing with the radio. With the desk against the wall, right underneath the window it was easy to look outside into the clear blue sky. For some reason the people in other countries that I communicated with using old Morse code always seemed so much nearer that way. Right in the middle of sending out a joke to someone in South America this bright white ball seemed to streak across. It was so beautiful and so unexpected that I stopped right in the middle of my message and just watched as it seemed to come down fairly close, having just disappeared beyond the peak of the trees at the edge of town. If that wasn’t enough to convince me of close it had crashed, the loud boom from the impact did.3

Well, I wasn’t much into astronomy and things like that but to me it was still pretty cool since that was the first time that I’d ever seen something like that. Since things like this didn’t happen every day I immediately sat back down and began to send out a new message with the hopes that my new found friend wouldn’t get to confused with the entirely different message being sent over the radio to him. Just as my stunned report made was finished, another ball of light seemed to descend from out of the sky. Only this one was far closer, in fact it was to close for it seemed as if it would soon turn the house into a crater. 4

So, what did I do, well I did what any other young teenager that fears his life isn’t as immortal as he thought it was would do. I turned around in my chair, closed my eyes as tight as possible, used my arms to shield my body and prayed like there was no tomorrow. Yet instead of the loud crash and fiery doom that should have come next there was only this slight pressure on my shoulder. It took me several moments to realize that the constant on and off touching sensation on my shoulder was someone tapping it lightly. Slowly my body uncurled so that I could turn and look at the one who was trying to get my attention. 5

What I saw was enough to send me into another fit. What had been tapping me on the shoulder was a white claw, you know the kind that you would find on a praying mantis. Well this claw was attached to a very hairy yet equally white arm. The arm was attached to a very large body that looked more like it belonged to an insect than a person. In fact I’m almost sure that there were several pointy legs holding it upright towards the underside of its body and there wasn’t any doubt that the oval like head must have had at least four or five eyes on either side of the antenna sticking out of its head. A sharp and admittedly very girly like scream escaped from my wide open mouth but it was drowned out by this buzzing like sound that sounded a lot like a swarm of locusts. All that I know for sure is that one moment I was sitting there staring at the most startling sight of my young life and the next everything had faded to black.6

It took me a few moments to get my bearings after regaining consciousness; I knew that I was lying on my back because I could feel something touching my back. Besides my feet and legs didn’t seem to have any real weight on it, and it felt like my head was upraised and resting on something softer than the ground so for a moment I was sure that I had to be on my bed. However much the mattress of my bed may have been lumpy, it was never that uncomfortable so it couldn’t have been my bed. In addition to all of that, was this strange sweet scent that teased my nostrils and made me think of the summer like weather outdoors. There was only one way to find out what was going on and where I was for sure and that was to open my eyes.7

The sight that greeted me was so familiar that it caused me to speak out loud the word that first came to my mind, “Sister?”8

Staring back down at me was the face of a girl that resembled that of my older sister. In fact if not for the fact that my sister’s eyes were blue where her own were green and that she had blonde hair where this girl’s flowing hair was a deep shade of purple I might have thought it was my sister. The girl’s face had been scrunched up in an expression of concern and her hand had been on top of my forehead as if checking for a fever of some sort. Though after I had finally looked around and realized that I was in fact on the floor, her body seemed to lose some of the tension that had been there. The strange girl’s head tilted slightly to the side as if she was trying to figure something out.9

“Sister, that’s a word implying familial ties,” she remarked to herself as if forgetting that I was even there before she focused upon me again, “Ah! I see, so that’s where this image comes from. Interesting…”10

Slowly the realization that this was not my sister but a complete total stranger in my house was more than enough to cause me to desire some distance between us. Lifting my head up off of her lap I sat up and began to scoot myself forwards. To bring myself to my feet I had to get my legs underneath myself and place my arms on the ground to push up off the ground. Needless to say my mind thought it was going to be a rather easy action to perform. Yet, as I started to rise up quickly the room seemed to spin all around me and darkness crept into the edge of my vision.

I felt her hands on my arm and back stop me from having another feinting spell, “Careful, you hit your head on the floor pretty hard earlier. I don’t think that you should move to quickly.” 11

“Uh yeah thanks,” I replied still a bit unsure as to what had happened and what was going on, “mind if I ask you who you are and why you’re in my house. I guess you’re a friend of Sarah’s?”12

A smile spread across her face as she helped me to my bed. Sitting down on the edge, with plenty of room behind me if I should have another dizzy spell; I took notice of her strange attire for the first time. She was wearing this strange white material that seemed to have one circular gold ring around each of the places where her arms and appendages typically sprouted from the human body. Actually there were several more rings like that scattered around the lower half of the suit as if she was supposed to have more limbs than the ones she had. The nails on her fingers had that same purple tint to them that her hair had and sometimes it looked as if they were shifting around like subtle movement of ocean waves. Kind of like her hair, which seemed to always be shifting about even when her head had stopped turning.

Just as I was about to speak up about my latest observation she cut me off while pointing out towards the window, “I come from out there.”13

My eyes followed the direction that her finger was pointing in and glanced out the window before turning to look back at her with hopes of clarify my question, “No I don’t think you understand me. I know you come from out there somewhere. After all, you don’t live in this house, I live in this house. I mean what street do you live on, are you one of my Sister’s friends from school or something?”14

She just smiled at this and shook her head as if I were some child struggling to recite his ABCs, “I think you’d better come outside with me so you’ll understand better.” 15

With that she just turned back towards the window and walked over to it. My curiosity as to what she meant by going outside with her and how that was going to help make her meaning any clearer got the better of me. Otherwise I would have been faster in my attempt to stop what she did next. With both hands on the window she simply crawled into the open window and toppled forwards. Being on the second floor there was little danger that she would die but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t become seriously hurt. I was up and rushing to the window in a heartbeat, fear of her being injured running through my veins. 16

By the time that my head was out of the window to look down at her she was already staring up at me with her hand waving at me, “Well, I‘m waiting.”17

I didn’t know what to think at this point, I mean it was only the second floor; it wasn’t unheard of for people to be alright after falling from that height. Yet, how was I to explain away the way she had so willingly tumbled out of the window without a care in the world. I rushed out of my room; I only stopped at the door to slip my shoes on. Then I was out the door and around the corner and in a matter of moments standing next to the strange girl. In all honesty I didn’t realize just how much I had rushed until I finally had the chance to stop and found that I had to catch my breath. 18

“It would have been faster had you just followed my example and exited through that, that, view port….no that’s not the word for it,” once again she seemed to be lost in her own private world as she struggled for the right word, “…window. Yes, that’s the name that you people have given it I believe. It would simply have been faster for you to use the window.”

“You’re insane if you think I’d risk my life and limb just to show off like you just did. Listen I don’t know who you are but I don’t want my parents coming home and blaming me for anything accidents or…” my words were instantly forgotten when I started to look beyond her at the object that was resting on top of the spot where the family pool would be normally.”19

Taking up a large chunk of the backyard was a large, large well whatever it was it was large. It was very narrow at the back and got larger as it moved towards the front but then it once more lost its size as one’s eyes followed its form towards the front. The rounded curves sort of made it look like an oval and there was a big razor edge like seam in the middle where both the top and lower halves came together. With this thing being so white and reflective I didn’t know why I hadn’t noticed it from the window accept to say that the branches of the tree overhead must have blocked my view. Well, that and the fact that I was astounded by the actions of this crazed girl that had mysteriously shown up in my house while my family was away.20

I’m not sure what made me decide to approach the object but for whatever reasons I did. Hesitantly I reached out with my hand but stopped just a few inches from it. It felt like heat was radiating from its surface and warming the palm of my hand. If it was that hot then I knew that it would certainly burn my skin so I lowered my hand and simply marveled at the smooth simplicity of it all. All in all it was like something that you see in a movie or read about in one of those science fiction novels that my father always seemed to have around the house. 21

“Now, maybe you understand me when I say I come from out there,” hearing someone speak once more startled me and caused me to jump around to look at her once more, “Races at your current level of development are prone to disbelief unless given proof. So I thought it would best for you to see some before we get down to the business at hand.”22

As the full realization of where she had come from dawned on me all the magic of the moment seemed to fade from my mind. This girl wasn’t really a girl at all, she was some sort of alien and probably didn’t even look like she did at that moment. At least not really like that, heck I didn‘t even really know if this girl really was a girl. In fact she was probably the really terrifying creature that had caused me to pass out back in my room earlier. That thing with the multiple eyes and sharp claws and…and…legs or whatever they were. That thing in my room or whatever it’s called had to have been her. The shear memory of how she had looked when we first met in my room sent a very strong impulse to flee through my nervous system. It was an impulse that my body was all to willing to carry out. 23

The emotions and revelations must have been as plain on my face as the words on a newspaper because by the time that I had spun on my heels to run towards my door she was already moving to stop me. Before I could even get close to the door her long legs had carried her across the distance to the my destination. I stopped in my tracks and just stared at her in fright as my mind raced for any more options that would allow me to get away from who knows what terrors aliens from another planet had in mind for me. The fence that surrounded the backyard was tall but there were some rocks in the back that could be used to climb over the fence if she didn’t beat me to it first. 24

“Wait! Those cords hanging from your feet are…” the alien’s warning was to late for I had already tripped on my shoe laces and once again found myself sprawled on the ground, “…in the way. Um sorry but you must admit that I warned you.”25

With all of the will to run suddenly knocked out of my system by myself I simply did my best to pick myself up off the ground and turned to face her. She had raised one of her hands up to her mouth and was doing her best to suppress a giggle though it seemed as if her hair moved about more freely while laughing. Finally she walked closer towards me as her hand dropped to her side and looked me over one last time to make sure I hadn’t seriously injured myself. She gestured towards a few of the lawn chairs that were nearby and walked over towards one of them to sit down. With no other options left but to hear what she had to say my ache body dropped down in a chair opposite her own. Though I assure you that it was anything but comfortable to be so sitting so close to something so unknown to me. 26

“You’re not going to eat me are you? Or turn me into some mindless zombie in some grand plot for world domination, because I’ll warn you right now, I taste worse than broccoli,” looking back at it, those were some of the silliest words that I’ve ever said in my life but at the time it was the desperate attempt of a young boy to escape doom.27

A smile returned to the girl’s lips as she replied to my plea, “I don’t know what this broccoli is but I assure you that I have no intentions of harming you or your planet in any way. Even if I did I certainly wouldn’t eat you seeing as your body would offer me very little nourishment if any at all.”28

My curiosity returned after being assured that I was in fact in no danger, “well if you don’t mind my asking then, um…well what is it that you want from me and what‘s this business you mentioned earlier? I guess what I really mean is why are you here?” 29

“Ah yes, getting down to business. You see I am a scientist of sorts and one of the instruments that I use on a regular basis malfunctioned. Upon further inspection of the data transmitted at the time of this malfunction, it seems that one of the signals from your planet ordered the probe to crash land somewhere within the area. Given the sophistication of the encoding system we use to give commands to our probes I can only assume that some intelligent scientist from your world broke our code and deliberately caused it to crash in this are. Most likely with the hope of retrieving our technology and reverse engineering it,” she paused her explanation to make sure that I had gotten everything thus far before continuing, “I tracked the source of the transmission to this exact location and seeing as how you were in the middle of using one of your devices to transmit the code I can only assume that you’re one of the most brilliant minds on the planet.”30

Off in the distance could be heard the sounds of several fire trucks that were racing down the streets parallel to my own. However, with all of the things she had just said the wail of the sirens were the last thing on my mind. From the way she sounded one would think I was some sort of Einstein or Steven Hawking. I wasn’t really all that bright and in fact math and by extension biology really weren’t really my best subjects. All those mathematical formulas just seemed to be gibberish to me. So how she thought I was able to bring down a space probe, built by a highly advanced civilization like her own no less was beyond me. After all, the only codes that I could crack were the ones from my dad’s old decoder ring and then probably not even that.31

“Um, I think there has been a mistake. See, I was trying to send a joke using old Morse code to a fellow in South America. I wouldn’t know the first thing about trying to crack some type of code much less anything as advanced as I’m sure your probe must be using,” that was that I thought, after all I had explained the situation truthfully and this whole nightmare would be over soon right?32

Wrong, this was just the beginning of my troubles. Something that became all to evident once she stood up, walked towards me and pulled me out of the chair by the arm. For a girl her grip was surprisingly strong and she easily dragged me towards the round like object sitting on top of the family pool. I could only assume that it was a spacecraft of some kind, probably what had brought her here in the first place and now she was trying to take me up in it to who knows where. I tried my best to resist her at first but realized the only way to avoid my fate was to reason with her.33

“Don’t worry I’m just bringing you with me to find that probe that you ‘accidentally’ brought down by telling a ‘joke’,” the sarcasm that her tone of voice was drowning in was not lost on me.34

“Alright, alright I’ll help you get back that precious probe of yours but we can’t take your spaceship. Someone might see that thing flying overhead and then who knows what might happen.”35

She stopped in her tracks and let go of my arm before using her hand to pat my head softly, “Are you sure you aren’t a scientist because I’m one and I didn’t think of that first,” she eyed me once more suspiciously before continuing to speak, “well what do you suggest we do then?”36

Her question caused me to pause for a moment in reflection. My hand rubbed the side of my short, dirty blonde hair while I tried to figure out this mess. As my eyes searched around for some options it occurred to me that if I thought she was strangely dressed, then someone who wasn’t to busy just dealing with all the weird things that had been happening tonight would really stop and wonder about her. Well that was settled then, there was an order to go about everything and this situation was no different, at least that was the sort of thing my father said whenever he tried to coach me on math related topics. I figured for once I’d try to take his advice. 37

“First thing’s first, we need to get you changed because that clothes will definitely make you stand out in public. Oh and that hair, it just has to go, I mean who walks around with purple hair like that these days, come on inside and we’ll get you changed and that hair dyed something more natural.”38

“What’s wrong with my hair?” was the only thing she was able to utter before I dragged her back inside and up to the bathroom sink. 39

It had only taken me a few moments to find all the things that would be needed to make her fit in. Moments that were spent raiding both my mother’s and sister’s rooms for various things. Due to how young the visitor looked it seemed best to get the clothing from my sister’s room. As for her hair, well my mother happened to have some black hair dye that she used to look a few years younger than she was. She wouldn’t really notice a little of it being taken and this was an emergency so that was just another item procured for this special occasion. These items were quickly handed over to the girl before heading downstairs and into the living room. There were sounds coming from the kitchen and for a moment fear of my parents or my sister returning early sent a shiver right up my spine. A few seconds later it became obvious that the sounds were only almost as bad as that.40

“…we’ll be coming home early honey. After all with all the talk on the radio about a fire at the outskirts of town I think its best that your father and I are there in case there are any emergencies,” said my mother’s voice over the answer machine. 41

They couldn‘t come home this early. Not with a strange girl that looked almost exactly like my older sister hanging about the house and certainly not with that spaceship standing out in the backward. I dashed into the kitchen with my arm outstretched for the handle of the phone. Just as the phone touched my ear a clicking sound rang out. That sound was followed by the constant dull hum of the dial tone, informing me in its own way that I had not been fast enough to catch my mother before she hung up. 42

Of course there wasn’t really anything I could do about that. Even if I did call her back and try to convince her that everything was alright she would just think that I was trying to hide something. Mothers had a nose for such things as that, especially my mom. Still that didn’t stop me from trying to figure out a way putting a stop to what I was sure was fast becoming a train wreck. I paced back and forth in front of the stairs while checking my watch several times only to see that it was a barely a minute or two past the previous time again and again.43

Finally, unable to wait any longer I marched myself up the steps of the stairs and turned around the corner. It occurred to me on my way up that we would need some form of transportation and that the only one that I had a chance of gaining any access to happened to be the family van parked below. Following this line of thought it only seemed prudent to quickly make a detour into my parent’s room at the end of the hallway. The room only had one window and that was at the far end of the room. A feature that made it rather dark in there which wasn’t that great of a help with the light switch being on the opposite side of the room. However I knew where the key was, having gotten it for my mom on several occasions so I knew that they kept the key in one of the drawers. It only took me a few moments of searching the top drawers of the dresser before I finally found the key to the van and then I was off again, out of the room.44

Purposefully, I headed down the long hallway until finally reaching the door to the bathroom. Without hesitation my hand reached out and knocked several times on the door before waiting for a reply from her. As it turns out it would be a long wait for after a few moments went by I was repeating that very same knocking pattern only this time there was a bit more force behind it. Again the long wait, and again my patience was rewarded only with silence. 45

I was getting a bit worried now and spoke up as loud as possible so that she could hear me through the door, “Is everything ok in there?”46

A moment later the door opened up and there she stood with her new makeover. She had on a pair of my Sister’s old brown boots, of which the laces were tied in the most unusual knot. The only pants that I had been able to find for her that wouldn’t be missed were deep blue jeans with a whole on the right knee. Her black short sleeved shirt had small purple flowers dotted about the front and was just plain on the back. In fact at this point, the only thing about her that really stood out was her hair. Where before her hair had been a deep shade of purple it was now mostly black with streaks of purple scattered about throughout her hair. 47

She stared at me with a disappointed frown, “This hair dye stuff doesn’t seem to work. It came out all wrong maybe I should try a different formula or something because it only blotted out part of my hair color.”48

“We really don’t have time for that right now, my parents are coming home and if they see you and that spacecraft of yours outside then I’ll be in real trouble,” she seemed to be a bit disappointed at the current state of her hair so I added, “besides, a lot of teenagers that dress like that have far weirder hair than you do. I‘m sure you‘ll blend right in.”49

“Oh, well in that case let’s get going. I’ve got to get that probe back as soon as possible and it will only be more difficult if you primitives pardon my use of terms, finds it and starts doing whatever it is that primitives do to things they don’t understand,” she said on her way downstairs. 50

Normally I’d have mentioned something to her about how rude it was to refer to humans as primitive, especially when one, namely I was in the room. However, with my parents coming home sooner than I originally thought there was no telling how much time we had to go out to the edge of town and back. I followed her down the stairs as quickly as possible and then lead the way back towards the backdoor. In a few moments we were opening the car doors and getting into the front seats. It was at that point that the question of whether or not she could drive this car popped up in my mind but I figured that a highly evolved being like her would have no problems driving. 51

In a few moment’s we were both strapped into our seats and ready to go. At least we should have been ready to go. She stared at the various levers and buttons all around her. She even stared at the steering wheel for a few moments before she finally turned and looked at me. My hand slapped the key down into the palm of her hand and waited a few moments. Finally it became clear that she had absolutely no clue what so ever about how to drive a car. Well with a van being a bit larger than a car I figured that I’d have to use hat little I knew about driving from watching people to get us where we needed to go. 52

She defended herself as I gave her a disappointed look of my own, “What, I mean how am I suppose to know how to operate something that runs on the remains of long dead animals. My people switched to other, cleaner fuels a long time ago.”53

Without a word we switched places and buckled up for safety of course. After fooling around for a moment with how things worked I was able to pull out of the driveway without knocking into anything just fine. Going forwards on the other hand was a bit different. I had never actually driven a car or anything else so when I pressed back down on the gas I sort of took off faster than I had intended too. Like most things, this upset my young mind and for a moment I was pressing down on the breaks and the gas at the same time and had to look down before I got the right foot positions again. 54

That too was a pretty big mistake, for when one quick glance upwards showed the neighbor’s lawn right on front us. I spun the wheel back towards the road so hard that we seemed doomed to spin out f control but somehow I managed to get us back onto the road in on peace. Through the rearview mirror it was all too clear that the van had left big tire marks all over the poor neighbor’s front yard. Of course I wasn’t about to stop and apologize to them only to get in more trouble. So instead, we continued onwards until the end of the street where there was a stop sign.55

Our heads turned to face each other and she blurted out, “Apparently I’m not the only one that doesn’t know how to operate this contraption.”56

Well, somehow we managed to continue along without to many more mishaps. Though once or twice I was sure that one of the other drivers noticed how young I was while driving and if it wasn’t for the fire I’m sure that we would have been pulled over by the police. As it was, the fire had caused most of the local police force to be at the edge of town, keeping curious onlookers from getting to close to the flames while the firefighters worked on controlling the flames. I pulled us to a stop next to a few other cars that had stopped to watch the flames. Then did my best to try to make sure that no one noticed that a thirteen year old kid was the driver and not the passenger while we slipped out of the van. 57

By this point in time, the fire had already managed to make it to the edge of the forest. Even being kept back several yards from the fire I could feel feint traces of heat on my face. From the opposite direction came the cool night breeze. The combination of vastly opposing temperatures made me feel like my body was roasting over a fire and had to be turned over periodically to cook just right. The soft glow from the burning forest lit the place up far better than even the stars did on such a clear night. 58

We tried to stay at the edge of the crowed so that we might have a chance to make our way around the police and firefighters into the woods. Though to be honest I wasn’t all that happy with the idea of entering woods that was set ablaze. Still in my mind it was better than trying to face my parents and explain to them how an alien craft had taken up residence in our backyard. I mean, what parents would have understood something that bizarre? 59

“Hey, stop right there! Where do you think you kids are going?” boomed the voice of someone from behind us, most likely a cop or concerned citizen.60

The alien was halfway towards turning around to answer him when I suddenly rushed forwards and grabbed her hand. I wasn’t about to get caught by the police, if they got involved then I’d be in some serious trouble. It seemed like she wanted to stop and ask me why we were running from the older man but she had the common sense to at least follow me on this one thing. The course that I had taken while running seemed to parallel the fire itself but that changed the deeper we got into the woods. It seemed as if some of the trees and brush there had been singed by some sort of heat but whatever it was couldn’t have lasted long since the greenery was still more or less in tact. 61

As we passed some more brush we finally slowed down our pace until we came to a complete stop. I needed to catch my breath and wanted a closer look at the leaves of a nearby plant. Bent down on one knew, my hand took a leaf from the plant into my palm. It felt like it was far colder than what it should have been. Shocked by this sensation my hand let go of the leaf, then lifted up in front of my face fur further inspection. As my fingers rubbed together I could feel that there was some sort of sweet smelling liquid coating my skin. 62

Immediately I looked up to question her but she beat me to the punch, “The probe was designed to emit a sort of cooling liquid upon faster than normal reentry as well as after impact. Don‘t worry it‘s harmless to both you and the plant life in the area.”63

Now I understood this coolant obviously must have caused the fire that broke out to die out quickly. That was why the only part of the forest that was on fire at the moment was some of the trees towards the outer ring of the forest. They had caught on fire due to the crash and where out of the range of the coolant system. I was a bit relieved, because my family often times took camping trips out in that forest. I had some pretty memorable times there and had even been had a family camping trip planned for the first week after school let out. So it was nice to know that I didn’t have to worry about woods being gone. 64

“Come on, lets hurry, besides ground zero has to be pretty close,” she said, breaking me out of my own wonderment.65

I stood up and continued to walk in the direction we had been traveling in before. The further in we got, the more visible the amount of coolant on the vegetation became. After several more minutes it seemed that we had to struggle to lift our feet up to even walk. Well let me rephrase that, I had to struggle to lift my feet up. She on the other hand, seemed to do it with the greatest of ease. Just another one of the many marvelous things about her. She seemed to be much stronger than an ordinary human, at least ten or maybe even twenty times more. I was hardly a scientist so perhaps it was an exaggeration or perhaps it was an accurate guess at her strength. All I knew for sure was that she was strong and I was pretty frail.66

“Ah there it is!” she exclaimed before rushing off ahead while I continued to struggle to catch up with her.67

I didn’t see anything at all. Well that wasn’t exactly true. I did see something, only what I saw didn’t look like a spaceship or probe of any kind. Instead what my naked eyes detected was what appeared to be a creator of a rather large radius. Most of the trees in this area had been totally destroyed to the point where I couldn’t even see evidence that there was ever anything else here but a big whole in the ground. In any event as stunning as the site was there didn’t seem to be anything resembling a probe what so ever.68

It took me a moment to realize that I didn’t see my companion anywhere as well. As I tried to peer down into the whole in hopes of finding her down there, something large came bounding up and out of the creator. Startled as I was by this I fell backwards onto my behind and followed the dark shape with my eyes and head… A moment later the object landed next to me and revealed itself to indeed be my acquaintance, proving her to be even more unusual than I had thought just a few moments ago.69

“Whoa…” remembering why we came here in the first place I managed to put aside any unnecessary questions in my mind and ask what really mattered, “…um where is the probe?”70

She held out her palm to me and replied as if it was the stupidest question in the world, “Right here, I swear you humans ask the strangest questions.”71

At first I didn’t’ see anything at all but the palm of her hand. Sure she had some lines running along her hand and everything but everybody had those. However as I looked a bit closer I noticed a speck of something, kind of like a crumb in the middle of her palm. It took me several moments to realize that she did indeed mean what I thought she meant. I looked up at her and stared while she simply nodded her head and then my eyes descended once more towards the speck. 72

“No way, that couldn’t have made a crater this large and there is no way in the world that you’re going to convince me that something that small could be a space probe. I mean probes have sophisticated equipment and sensors and software and stuff,” I voiced my disbelief.73

“Actually this is one of our larger models, my superiors are too stingy to give me that new model that I’ve been requesting for months now,” came her response, “come on let’s get out of here.. Or would you prefer that we get back to late to beat your parents’ home?”74

As soon as she said that, all the questions in my mind were replaced by the years of fear of my parental figures. Visions of being grounded for life flooded my mind and a shiver traveled right up my spine. So without further delay we started to head back towards the edge of the forest. By now the fire was under control and the firefighters were just starting to really put it out. Various people were dispersing with only a few sticking around to try to watch the end of the fire.75

Deciding this was the perfect time to get away we tried to merge with the crowd and follow them towards the line of cars that were parked. However I could see a familiar face moving towards us, an old ex boyfriend of Sarah’s that must have thought the girl I was with was her. The tall dark haired lad finally stopped us just as we had reached the van and were about to go towards the doors. He leaned against the side of the van and didn’t even bother to look at me, just at the girl.76

“So what brings you and the twerp out here tonight,” remarked the would-be suitor as I remembered why I never liked him.77

“You’re mistaken Brad, this isn’t Sarah, this is…” I tried to come up with a name off the top of my head and then suddenly said, “…this is Jasmine my cousin from a few states up north.”78

Jasmine was quick to back me up, “Yeah, I’m only down here because my school let out a bit earlier than his and I thought it would be nice to visit my cousins that I haven’t seen in so long. Well I’d like to stay and chat but I’ve got to get him home before my Aunt and Uncle freak out. Ta at.”79

Not wanting to give him any time to protest as to the absurdity of it all she slipped into the driver’s seat and I did like wise into the passenger’s seat. Seeing as how she would have to drive us out of there with so many people watching, especially Brad, I had to hand her the keys and pray. Luckily she must have learned how to drive while watching me do it once because she turned it on ok and pulled out. A few minutes later, to my astonishment, we were on the road and headed back home as fast as the speed limit would permit us to go. Which was really only about forty-five miles per hour but it was better than nothing.80

Once we made it to the first light she finally asked me, “What made you decide to call me Jasmine?”81

Well I was a bit to embarrassed to admit the real reason why so I just pointed out that the light had turned green again. She seemed to forget her question and continued on down the road towards home. I was sure that we were going to get there to late but as it turns out the only person to get home was my Sister and she most likely hadn’t even gone into the backward. Her room was towards the front of the house on the second floor so there was no worry about her freaking out about the spacecraft that was in the backyard still. Besides, on top of that she had parked Dad’s 2005 Saturn on the side of the street, so she hadn’t been in the back yet. I wouldn’t find out until later on the next day that my parents were stuck in traffic due to more and more fire engines head towards the woods to help contain the fire. 82

When she pulled the van into the back and parked it in front of the garage we both unbuckled our seatbelts and got out of van. With the doors closed as gently as possible we walked towards the pool area in the back yard. There was little fear of anyone seeing us since the same branches that kept the ship from being seen from the second floor would conceal us as well. The only real concern at that moment was getting her and the ship out of there before my parents got home and parked in the back. Something that would be taken care of momentarily.83

As part of the underside of the craft started to come down, sort of like a mixture of unfolding hatch and ramp the girl turned to face me, “Well I guess this is farewell. I’m….” she paused as if it wasn’t easy for her to say this, “…I’m sorry if I caused you any inconvenience. It’s just that well this probe is more significant than you’ll ever know.“84

“It’s alright, after all I mean this is probably the most exciting night that I’ll ever have in my life/ Besides it’s not like I got in any trouble so no hard feelings,” I said while taking her hand into my own and giving it a firm shake much to her puzzlement, “It’s called a handshake, people use it to greet each other as well as say goodbye.” 85

A smile seemed to replace her inquisitive expression, “Ah well among my people we have a custom for saying goodbye to friends both old and new,” she leaned in and wrapped her arms around me, drawing me into what felt more like an attempt to squeeze the life out of me than a hug.86

I’d have spoken up about the intense pressure of her embrace if not for the overwhelming fragrance that wafted through the air at that moment. It was like that scent that I had smelled earlier in my room, after having come too from my fainting incident. Yet it was far stronger than that, almost intoxicating in a way. Perhaps that was the reason I didn’t complain about the amount of pressure that was in the hug. In all honesty, it felt rather natural to me at that moment to. 87

Well, just as soon as she had initiated the hug it was over and she was on her way up the ramp. She only stopped once she was all the way up the ramp. Turning around briefly to wave her hand at me in a last goodbye which I almost was to dazed to respond back to with a wave of my own. In a few seconds the ramp had returned to its closed position and I was stepping back from the ship, expecting a huge blast off like experience. After all that’s the way that the spaceships of earth managed to escape the planet’s atmosphere so why should this be any different than that.88

However I was not to be dazzled by an explosive display of rocket fuel and fire. Rather the ship seemed to slowly lift up off of the ground, allowing it to maneuver out from underneath the branches of the tree with great ease. It climbed into the sky high enough that it was hard to see with the naked eye. In fact, if not for the fact that it was a clear night my eyes most likely would have lost track of it by now. Once it had reached this level of elevation it pointed its nose towards the night sky and rushed upwards in a flash. There was a small trail of flame and exhaust, sort of like the taking off of a space shuttle only from midair.

With a sigh I went back inside the house, doing my best to slip in but failing miserably. My sister had come down stairs and was in the middle of fixing herself a late night snack. Judging from the looks of her she had been out with some of her friends at some party or maybe cosmic bowling. I never really could keep up with all the things she got interested in. After all it seemed to be something new every month.89

As I walked past her to head upstairs she leaned in close and took one whiff of me, “Oooo, does my little bro have a girlfriend or something.”90

“Knock it off Sis, I’m not into wasting time dating girls and things like that and you know it. I jus want to go to sleep,” was my reply.91

“Mmhmm, well my nose never lies and its telling me that you have some girl’s perfume all over you. I bet you just got dumped and are too upset to admit it,” she chided me as I exited the room.92

With all the excitement over my body started to slip into a state of exhaustion. I was far to tired to try to deal with her taunting. Though it didn’t really become apparent how tired I truly was until my head hit the pillow. My mind instantly slipped into a state of deep sleep, dreaming of things that quickly faded from my mind by morning. That was alright though, all those things that had me worried all evening had been taken care of. The next day everything would be back to normal and the only thing that would concern me again was the next test to worry about and occasionally dealing with being made fun of by my sister or some other popular kid.93

When I woke up the next day I started to wonder if the whole adventure had been some strange dream. The sort of thing that you have when you ate some really funky food the night before when you know you probably shouldn’t have. By the time I had gotten dressed and was heading down stairs to breakfast I was sure that it had to have all been some really weird dream. When I reached the table and sat down to eat I noticed that my mother had set out one more plate than we normally would have.94

“Are we having someone over for breakfast Mom?” I asked wondering if perhaps one of my Sister’s friends had spent the night or something else of the like.95

“Don’t be silly, you know your cousin Jasmine is in town for the summer,” answered my mother.96

As I turned to look at her in bewilderment I felt someone’s arms wrap around my shoulder’s from behind and then a chin on my shoulder before an all to familiar voice with an all to familiar sweet scent said, “Oh don’t worry Aunty, I’m sure Jason is more than happy to see his big cousin.”97

The end? Or is it, only time will tell!!!!98