My Sister's an Alien

by Gretel Killeen

  ‘Don’t cry my little fellow,’ said the kind deep voice of The Man in the Moon as he caught Zeke in his great big hand. ‘Here put this cheese suit on and cover up those Barbie Doll undies.’

  ‘I can’t wear a suit made out of cheese,’ replied Zeke.

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ said The Man in the Moon. ‘If you want everyone to see your …’

  ‘Okay, okay, ‘interrupted Zeke as he grabbed the suit made of cheese and The Man in the Moon.

  While The Man in the Moon whispered in his ear, ‘My mum gave me twelve pairs of Barbie Doll undies for my birthday, and boy do I know they’re embarrassing.’

  Once he was dressed in the cheese suit, which I must say wasn’t all that warm because it was full of holes, Zeke told The Man in the Moon all about strawberry-sized Eppie, the possums, the owl, the Internet, the kaboom, the astronomers, and even his mother’s loud snoring.

  ‘So that’s what that dreadful noise is,’ said The Man in the Moon.

  And sure enough, when Zeke stopped sobbing, even though he was sitting on the moon, he could still hear his mother’s dreadful snorts.

  ‘So you see, my sister Eppie was last seen up in space and I absolutely have to find her before my mum wakes up and blames me and yells and screams and carries on until my ears burst and my head explodes and I’m stuffed and put in a museum. And besides,’ continued Zeke very softly, ‘I want my yoyo back.’

  ‘Oh I understand,’ said The Man in the Moon, or Moonie as he liked to be called. ‘I used to have a yoyo myself but I dropped it one day and it fell to Earth … and created the Grand Canyon I believe. But enough of that. Tell me, son, where was little Eppie last seen?’

  ‘Well some astronomers saw her on Planet Sock. Do you know where that is?’

  ‘Haven’t got a clue,’ said Moonie. ‘But I’ve got a Planet Directory. Let’s hop on my new space motorbike, take it for a spin and find this sister of yours.’ And that’s exactly what they set off to do.

  They jumped onto Moonie’s lovely cheese space motorbike and went racing off the surface of the moon, far away and into space, stopping off at the Milky Way to get a couple of milkshakes.

  ‘Yeehaa!’ they both squealed and they giggled so hard that they nearly fell off twice.

  ‘Hold on tight,’ said The Man in The Moon. ‘And keep your eye out for dangerous unidentified flying objects.’

  ‘You mean aliens?’ asked Zeke.

  ‘No. I mean humans in silver suits eating spacecorn and fainting while they career around the neighbourhood in space rockets,’ said Moonie.

  And so they sped through space, ducking and weaving around all the stars, in a sky space called Hollywood, then through bright light and into black holes, all the while laughing and giggling and fighting over who was taking up too much of the seat. And then with a sudden screech of brakes Moonie said, ‘First stop, Pluto for petrol. ‘

  On Pluto, they checked the Planet Directory but couldn’t find Planet Sock anywhere, so they asked the petrol attendant who was a dribbling big-eared pup.

  ‘Dar,’ he said in a deep slow voice. ‘Um ah I don’t know. Try the next stop. Those Martians know lots of things.’

  And so Moonie and Zeke rode to Mars, which is a planet made of chocolate with a caramel centre, and they asked two flubbery Martians if they knew where Planet Sock was, but their ears were so covered with folds of fat that they couldn’t even hear the question.

  Next stop was Venus, the planet of love, and Zeke and Moonie hadn’t even turned off the engine before a hundred long-haired girls ran up and tried to cuddle them. ‘Oh puke,’ said Zeke and The Man in the Moon. ‘Let’s get out of here! Girls’ germs, girls’ germs,’ they both screamed together and off they went scared to billyo that they might be hugged and kissed to death.

  So, finally, completely covered in kiss marks and desperate for a scrub-a-dub wash, they landed on Neptune to ask if anybody knew of Planet Sock.

  Well now, Planet Neptune is ruled by a giant fish with a long flowing beard and long flowing hair and an enormous fork. He’s bad and mean and mighty unclean, afraid of no one except barbers and baths.

  ‘Oh pong!’ said Zeke. ‘This guy smells worse than Eppie.’ And on they went to ask their question.

  ‘Excuse me, Sir,’ said The Man in the Moon pinching his nose tightly. ‘You don’t habben to doe where a place called Pladed Sog bight be?’

  ‘Of course I do, but I’m not telling you,’ roared the King. ‘Now get out of here!’

  ‘Bud please, Sir, ‘continued brave Zeke while he also pinched his nose tight. ‘I deed to doe where Pladed Sog is so I cad fide by sisda.’

  ‘Sister?’ bellowed the King. ‘She wouldn’t happen to be beautiful would she?’

  ‘Dot in de least,’ said Zeke disgustedly. ‘Eppie looks like a plasdicine chihuahua.’

  ‘Well I’ve heard on the satellite that a beautiful girl landed on Planet Sock. She arrived wearing some sort of round crown on her head and the people there made her their Queen.’

  ‘Oh, my gosh!’ gasped Zeke in a whisper. ‘That round crown is my precious yoyo and so the girl wearing it must be Eppie. But how could anyone think that she was beautiful, when she looks like an ugly chihuahua?’

  ‘I heard that,’ boomed the mighty mean Neptune. ‘And how dare you speak badly of my son’s future wife!’

  ‘Wod?’ said Zeke. ‘You bust be jokig.’

  ‘Do I look like I have a sense of humour?’ grumped King Neptune.

  ‘Doe,’ said Zeke quietly, ‘bud you loog lige you should ged wud.’

  ‘Get out of my sight!’ thundered Neptune.

  ‘Doe, waid!’ said Moonie, ‘We deed to find de girl.’

  ‘Well I’m damned if I’m going to tell you where she is,’ laughed the king, ‘because we’re off to get her for ourselves.’

  And with that Neptune and his son Nipper slid onto their beautiful flying white horses and charged off to Planet Sock.

  ‘Follow those horses,’ Zeke yelled to Moonie who was so impressed by the Neptunes’ horsepower he was thinking he should possibly get a faster space motorbike.

  ‘Follow them, please!’ screeched Zeke one more time.

  ‘Pardon,’ said Moonie in a daze.

  ‘Oh forget it,’ said Zeke as he grabbed for the space motorbike. ‘Just hop onto the back.’

  Well now, I don’t know if you’ve ridden a space motorbike made of cheese, but it’s not that easy to do. Especially if you’ve got a huge Man in the Moon plopped heavily on the back. Vrooooooooooooom went the engine, then they both tumbled off.

  Then they clambered back on and the engine vroomed again and they kangaroo-hopped along the surface of Planet Neptune until they tipped over once again.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, let me do it,’ said Moonie.

  ‘No,’ said Zeke. ‘It’s my turn.’

  ‘But it’s my bike.’

  ‘Well it’s my turn.’

  ‘My bike.’

  ‘My turn.’

  And so they continued arguing like seagulls until the flapping wings of the flying horses could no longer be heard.

  Then Zeke said, ‘Hey what’s that over there?’ and while Moonie turned to look at absolutely nothing, Zeke hopped on the bike and headed off into space with Moonie hanging on the back. But unfortunately, not for long.

  ‘Weeeooo, weeooo’ came the sound of the Planet Police sirens. ‘Weeeooo, weeeeooooo. Pull over or we’ll be forced to shoot!’

  So Zeke of course did pull over with a bump and a screech, and the Planet Police pulled up right beside him on their brand new glowing gold spaceboards.

  ‘You’re both under arrest for driving dangerously and must come with us to the Police station, ‘said the two little crimson police dressed in their cool sky surfing gear.

  Zeke and Moonie wanted to escape but didn’t have a sultana-sized idea how. So they hopped on the back of the spaceboards and caught the waves and currents of the heavens toward the station. That is until they wer
e suddenly ambushed by a spaceship full of screaming girls from Venus.

  ‘Hi, boys. We’ve come to rescue you!’ squealed the girlie girls. And that’s exactly what they did. They swooped by on their pretty pink skycycles, plonked the boys on the handlebars, and then pedalled far away.

  It was great, they had escaped, but there was still a problem because the girls had no desire to chase Neptune and Nipper all the way to Planet Sock. That’s right: the girls wanted to go dancing with Zeke and Moonie, then play hide and seek and spin the bottle.

  ‘There is no way I’m doing any of that,’ said Zeke. ‘I would rather live in a toilet.’

  ‘Me too,’ replied The Man in the Moon. ‘We’ve got to jump off here before we’re violently ill.’

  ‘Not on your life,’ laughed the girls’ leader, a tall strong girl with bright red hair called Vanessa Venus. ‘There’s no way you’re running away from us, and I’m going to make sure of it!’ And with that she threw a handful of pink-magic-kissing dust at Zeke and Moonie and then began to laugh loudly. ‘This will make you want to hug and kiss us every minute of every day for the rest of your lives.’

  Well it worked on Moonie who was so completely covered by the magic dust that it even went into his ears, nose, eyes and mouth. But it didn’t work at all on Zeke because he is allergic to dust and he just sneezed it all off.

  ‘Quick!’ yelled Zeke. ‘Off we go.’

  ‘No, I’m very happy here,’ said Moonie as he kissed and cuddled the gaggle of girls.

  So Zeke jumped from the skycycle handlebars with a “yahoo” and luckily landed on the roof of a passing space taxi, which was a free service provided by the local council and looked a bit like a chocolate doughnut but moved a whole lot faster.

  ‘To Planet Sock please,’ Zeke said to the driver who was a small slimy yellow fellow with three heads.

  ‘Of course, of course, of course,’ the driver replied, and so off they went.

  Pretty soon they caught up with Neptune and Nipper and were close enough to even overhear their secret conversation, which was about Prince Nipper not keeping his bedroom tidy enough, and therefore not being allowed to watch any TV until he’d picked everything up.

  Suddenly the Neptunes spotted Zeke and drew their special silver arrows to fire at him as he passed. But the cab driver drove like a football star, ducking and weaving and spinning and turning and never once receiving even a scratch on his bumper bar. The Neptunes were furious. Who was this smarty pants? And they ordered their horses to fly faster.

  Leaping over planets and galloping across galaxies, they raced at a pace through space until Zeke arrived on Planet Sock a good ten minutes before the Neptunes.

  ‘Thank you,’ Zeke said to the cab driver as he waved him goodbye.

  Thinking he was all alone, Zeke started to wander about Planet Sock and soon realised the entire planet was made out of nothing but socks. The ground was socks, the trees were socks, the cars, the houses, the pets and the people were all socks.

  ‘Aha,’ thought Zeke. ‘I get it now! Planet Sock’s the place where all those socks go when they disappear from the washing.’ (Suddenly he remembered home, and the hurry he was in to rescue his sister and get his yoyo back before his snoring Mum woke up.)

  ‘Hello,’ said a red sock.

  ‘Hello,’ said Zeke. ‘I’m wondering if you can help me. Have you seen a silly girl called Eppie who has a yoyo stuck in her hair?’

  ‘What did you say?’ said the red sock. ‘A silly girl called Eppie?

  Officers! Arrest this boy!’

  ‘Why?’ squeaked Zeke. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘You’ve spoken badly of our queen, you traitor!’

  ‘What?’ said Zeke. ‘Stupid Eppie is your queen?’

  ‘Double arrest this man,’ said the red sock. And with that a whole army of socks (about a drawer full) arrested Zeke (but only once, because they didn’t have a clue how to double arrest anything).

  Anyway, the socks took Zeke off to jail, and may I say the socks all marched very well, and when they got to the jail it was also made of socks, boys’ sports socks, and they

  stank!

  But that’s where Zeke sat, in the pongo sock jail for what seemed like days and days and days, but was probably about fifteen minutes. Then there was a fanfare of trumpets (which actually sounded a little muffled because socks are not great trumpet players) and Zeke was escorted to the magnificent Sock Garden, that quite honestly just looked like a pile of washing.

  ‘All rise to meet Her Majesty,’ said the leader of the army, a rather attractive tall blue sock with a gold circle round the top. And with that Queen Eppie arrived.

  ‘Hello, stranger in a cheese suit. My name is Queen Eppie. Welcome to my Queendom.’

  ‘Eppie, it’s me,’ whispered Zeke.

  ‘Me who?’ replied Queen Eppie.

  ‘Me, Zeke your brother, you stupid git!’

  ‘Aaaaaagh don’t you call me a stupid git,’ said Eppie, ‘or I won’t tell you that I’ve been lying here really missing home while I listened to Mum and her snoring.’

  ‘Missing home!’ said Zeke, not believing. ‘What is there to miss? Here you’re a queen and spoilt rotten.’

  ‘Well actually, Zeke, I’m pretty bored. Whenever I want to get up and do anything some sock goes and does it for me.’

  ‘Gosh Eppie,’ scolded Zeke. ‘Have you been hit on the head? You used to be the laziest fuzzhead that I’ve ever met, and I was quite proud of you. Anyone else would dream of this life. I can only imagine that you’re very ill and I must get you home immediately, because other than that you’re an ungrateful dingbat.’

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Are so.’

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Are too.’

  ‘Guards!’ called Eppie. ‘Take this silly boy away and hang him from the clothesline.’

  And hundreds of socks came towards Zeke, making frightening faces as they marched. But they actually looked cute instead of scary and Zeke wanted to reach down and cuddle them. Luckily, however, he came to his senses and, as the sock guards reached out for Zeke, he grabbed the whole bunch and tied them up in a knot.

  ‘Now come with me,’ Zeke ordered his sister.

  ‘No, I’ve changed my mind,’ said Eppie. ‘You’re absolutely right about this place being good. So I’ve decided that this is where I should stay.’

  ‘Well, that’s bad luck cause I’m taking you home.’

  ‘But …,’ said Eppie.

  ‘There’s no time for buts,’ said Zeke urgently as he heard the distant thunder of hooves. ‘I have to take you right here and now because King Neptune is somewhere here on this planet, ready to kidnap you and make you marry his son!’

  ‘Oh fantastic!’ said Eppie. ‘Then I’m definitely staying. I hear Prince Nipper is gorgeous.’

  ‘You come with me, Eppie,’ ordered Zeke. ‘Or else I’m dobbing to Mum.’

  The flying horses were coming closer.

  Zeke jumped for cover up a green sock tree and the socks shrieked, screamed and squelched (which is a sort of high piercing noise that socks make when they’re afraid).

  But Eppie stood very straight right in the middle of the garden, smoothing her hair, neatening her gown, fluttering her eyelids like a film star and trying to make her bosoms look enormous, even though she actually didn’t have any.

  ‘I hope he’s rich,’ wished Eppie. ‘With a boat and a palace and a sister I can play with. And I hope I shall have beautiful clothes and jewels and parties and cakes and lollies. And I hope that he is as handsome as a dream.’

  The flurry of horses came closer and halted right before Eppie. She waited for the sock dust and lint to settle, then slowly opened her eyes while puckering her lips as though ready for a most romantic kiss … and lo and behold if she didn’t get a kiss, a great big wet sloppy kiss that smelt a lot like fish.

  ‘Oh gross!’ screamed Eppie as she opened her eyes and saw that Prince Nipper was a fishhead.

>   ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaagh!’ shrieked Eppie.

  ‘Follow me,’ yelled Zeke.

  But Nipper had grabbed Queen Eppie with his slimy fish fins and was laughing delightedly.

  ‘Help,’ Eppie blurted out.’ Help me, Zeke. I promise I’ll eat all your yucky vegetables for absolutely ever.’ Suddenly Eppie thought she needn’t have bothered to make such a big promise because Nipper was so slippery he was losing his grip on her anyway, and down she slid, swish boom bah, and landed softly on the sock ground underneath. But she still needed rescuing.

  ‘Do you promise you’ll eat my yucky vegetables?’ demanded Zeke.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eppie sulkily.

  ‘Pinky then,’ said Zeke holding out his little finger.

  ‘Pinky,’ said Zeke touching Zeke’s little finger with hers. And so the deal was done. Eppie would eat Zeke’s yucky vegetables and Zeke would rescue her. Then before you could say ‘sock a doodle do’ the brother and sister were holding hands and running away as fast as they could.

  ‘After them!’ yelled King Neptune. And off they went through the sock town, chasing Queen Eppie and Zeke, over the sock bridge, past the sock tower, through the sock shops, the sock schools and the sock hospital that was busy repairing all the sick socks with holes in their heels and their toes.

  ‘Dive,’ yelled Zeke.

  ‘Dive where?’ yelled Eppie.