My Friend the Alien

by Zanib Mian

  “I can make people do things just by thinking about it,” I said.

  “NO WAY! Like what?”

  “Anything I want,” I said.

  “Make me do something!”

  “OK.”

  So I made him spit out his cheese puffs all over the park bench.

  Then I made him hop on one leg for thirty-four seconds.

  “Oh my God. That’s awesome!” Jibreel was ecstatic. “Why haven’t we been having FUN with it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you can make people do funny things!”

  “What do humans find funny?” I asked, making notes for my mission as Jibreel listed them.

  THINGS THAT HUMANS FIND FUNNY:

  Farting (purple gas) Falling over

  Burping (blue gas) Wetting themselves

  Snot Poo jokes

  “If I made those nasty boys at your school do those things,” I asked Jibreel, “would people laugh at them and would that give you a happy feeling?”

  Jibreel put on a thinking face. To think, he squashes his eyebrows together and turns his eyeballs left and upwards. I’ve noticed that humans sometimes take a long time to think, and even then they don’t always have answers.

  Finally, Jibreel said, “It would be really funny,” (and he giggled while he said that) “but it’s a mean thing to do and it would make them feel sad for a long time. I don’t like making people feel sad.”

  “Sheesh, Jibreel, you’re sounding really cheesy you know. Are all humans as cheesy as you?” I teased.

  Jibreel blushed pink. “But it’s true. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  I didn’t know what to say to something like that, so I emptied the bag of cheese puffs on my head and Jibreel laughed.

  Day 14

  Today, when I went to meet Jibreel in the park, I didn’t find him smiling at the ducks or petting someone’s dog. I found him lying on the grass with water rolling down his cheeks.

  “Jibreel?” I poked him. I don’t know why, but poking is the first thing I do whenever Jibreel is suffering from a feeling.

  “Yeah.” He sniffed and wiped the water with the back of his hand.

  “Feelings again?” I asked, and then I showed off everything I had learned so far. “Sad feelings. Opposite of happy. Crying?”

  “Yes,” he hiccupped.

  “Why is this happening?” I said. “Did you fall down the zigzags?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “I miss my mum.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She couldn’t escape here with me and my brother. She’s still in my country and I worry about her all the time. Even when I’m trying to have fun.”

  “Y-you… You…” Guys, that’s all I could say. Remember I told you about the warm speck I felt in my body. Well, it was a bigger warm thing now, more like a tennis ball, and I was horrified to discover that it might be a feeling.

  I had a feeling! A feeling that was sad for Jibreel. Oh my God, he couldn’t be with his mum and it was making him spill water from his eyes and lie on the grass and completely ignore the ducks.

  “I miss her hugs,” he burst out.

  And I wasn’t expecting this, but then I made him sit up and I gave him a hug, which made the warm thing in me grow to at least basketball size.

  Whoa. Guys, I’m becoming like an Earth creature. I couldn’t get rid of my feeling. I told it to go away, but it just stayed there being warm inside me.

  Then Jibreel reached for his rucksack and fished out a piece of paper.

  “I’m usually OK, until something like this happens,” he said.

  The hug must have worked because the water had stopped rolling down his cheeks. All that was left was a tiny drop of snot that had escaped his nose.

  I looked at the paper. It was human writing. It said:

  Hello Alien,

  Nobody likes you. Go back home

  where there might be a tiny chance

  you could have a friend.

  P.S. Are you an orphan too?

  When I read it, I had ANOTHER feeling. It was like now one had got inside me, they had all been let loose. This feeling was anger and it was making me feel very hot at the top of my head.

  I thought of the angry red humans from the other day.

  “Am I changing colour, Jibreel? Am I going red?” I asked.

  “Er, yes, actually I think you are a bit!” said a surprised Jibreel.

  I stood up and tried to run away from the feelings. But they wouldn’t leave.

  “What if there’s something in your water here on Earth?” I panted.

  Well, that’s the only reasonable explanation I could think of. I was feeling-free when I arrived. Then I ate their food, drank their water and breathed their air, so the feelings must have come from one of those.

  Poor humans, they’ve had all three of those things since they were born. No wonder their feelings are all over the place.

  Day 15

  The feelings have gone away. But I woke up with an idea that I just couldn’t get rid of.

  I made myself invisible and followed Jibreel to school. I almost missed the bus he got on, because the driver shut the door and started driving off, so I had to make him reverse and open the door again. Everyone on the bus was looking at each other, wondering what was going on. Even the driver was looking at his hands and shaking his head.

  When we got to school, I slipped into Jibreel’s classroom, right behind him, and watched the rest of the kids come in, chewing their bubble gum and chatting about their favourite TV shows. The teacher wasn’t there yet. Then the nasty boys came in together, all three of them. Most of the other kids grew quiet when they came in. I think those boys scare everyone. They stood near the teacher’s desk, talking in loud voices, as if they were in charge.

  I didn’t waste any time. I made one of them release the noisiest, most stinky purple gas ever. Then as the whole class were coughing and holding their noses, I made the second one do twelve loud burps in one go. Then I made the third one sneeze, and a load of snot flew out of his nose and down towards his mouth in uncontrollable pint-sized portions. While at the same time, the first boy let off another whopper of a bottom burp that propelled him at least two metres forward to his desk, which he crawled underneath and hid with shame.

  The room of kids was now out of control in complete ecstatic joy at this humiliating set of circumstances that their not-so-favourite classmates had suffered.

  But not Jibreel. Jibreel wasn’t laughing. He was going a bit red in the face and looking around as if he was trying to find someone.

  “MAXXXXXXXX!” he finally blurted.

  Oh yikes! He knew it was me. Of course he knew it was me.

  “Come to the toilets now!” he shouted to thin air. Thankfully all the other kids were too busy pointing and laughing at the series of unfortunate bodily functions the three boys had had, to notice Jibreel speaking to nobody.

  I followed him to the toilets and made myself visible.

  “Why did you do that?” gasped Jibreel.

  “Didn’t you think it was funny?”

  “I did… and I didn’t. I didn’t laugh!” Jibreel spoke to me, but it looked like he was telling himself. “The point is, it was not nice.”

  “Er, it wasn’t supposed to be nice.”

  Jibreel gave me the one-eyebrow-raised look, which I have discovered means he’s not impressed, so I said, “I wonder what kind of feelings they’re having now.”

  “They’re probably feeling ashamed and humiliated. Maybe even worried, about what’s going to happen next.”

  “Worried? Which one is that?”

  “It’s when you have a problem and you keep thinking about what might happen.”

  “Oh… How does it feel when you have a worry?”

  “You don’t have a worry, you just worry,” laughed Jibreel. “Well, sometimes when I’m worried my tummy hurts.”

  And just then my tummy started hur
ting, right in the middle where my Zerg button is. I didn’t know what it was before, because I’m not supposed to have feelings, but I have had a worry for a while now.

  I held my tummy and told Jibreel, “I have a worry. I have a worry because I am thinking the Filandoo Sperk on my spaceship might have been important after all, and maybe that’s why I haven’t heard from the guys back home. And what if I never get to go home because the spaceship isn’t working?”

  “Maxx, it’s going to be OK,” said Jibreel. “Breathe in and out, like this. It’s something I do, when I remember I’m not going home.”

  He was so brave and such a good friend that my basketball exploded into a warm and mushy hot-air balloon right inside my chest. I took Jibreel and gave him a Big Hero 6 style hug.

  We agreed to meet after school so I can tell him more about the Filandoo Sperk.

  Day 15 (later)

  So now you guys know. I am WORRIED that I haven’t heard from you. Couldn’t you find some other way to get in touch? Don’t worry, though, we’re working on it. Oh, I forgot, you don’t have feelings, so you can’t worry. You don’t know how lucky you are – feelings are hard. I wonder if I will still have feelings when I get back to Zerg. I hope I do. What? It may be hard, but they feel nice.

  I met with Jibreel again in the park. We could see the three nasty boys nearby, but we knew they wouldn’t be bothering anyone today. We also saw a baby dog, and I thought it was so fluffy and cute, I wanted to eat it. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?

  Anyway, we ate some Chocolate with Hazelnut Pieces Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference and I told Jibreel all about the spaceship and the broken bit that I thought wasn’t important. He said that maybe he can help, because the science thing he made in his country, which won a prize, meant that he had to learn a lot of physics and electrical stuff.

  So I took Jibreel to the spaceship. Yes, yes, I know, I’m not supposed to let humans see my ship, blah, blah, blah, but this is Jibreel and anyway what else am I supposed to do?

  We had to walk all the way to the field where the cows are, because Jibreel can’t keep up when I run. I don’t know what they had been eating, but when we got there, the field was misty with purple gas.

  We took off the camouflage blanket and went inside.

  Jibreel was amazed by what he saw. “I can’t believe it’s a real-life alien spaceship!”

  He kept asking questions about everything!

  “What does this button do?”

  “How fast does it go?”

  “How did you learn to drive it?”

  “Where have you been in it?”

  “What does this button do?”

  “Do you have a button that blasts your seat into space?”

  All good questions, but I was eager to get him started on the Filandoo Sperk. I shoved it in his hands and looked at him with flying-saucer eyes.

  “Well? Can you fix it?”

  “Maxx, my friend, I might just be able to. But I need to get it home where my tools are.”

  So we shoved it in his backpack and off we went.

  Day 18

  CODE RED. CODE RED. MISSING SPACESHIP. HELP ME!

  OK, so I’m sorry I haven’t sent a report in a few days, but first of all, it feels funny talking so much when nothing is coming back, and second, I’ve been busy watching Jibreel be smarter than you guys and actually fixing the Filandoo Sperk! But when we went back to the spaceship, IT WASN’T THERE.

  IT ISN’T THERE.

  I looked within a six-hundred-metre radius, just in case a couple of cows might have managed to bump it along with their rear ends, but it really is missing and I don’t even know HOW!

  Guys, my stomach really hurts now. Please, please help.

  Day 19

  Checked again for the spaceship. Still not there. Stomach still hurting. Feelings levels rising.

  Day 20

  Checked again for the spaceship. Still not there. Stomach still hurting. Feelings levels rising.

  Day 21

  Checked again for the spaceship. Still not there. Stomach still hurting. Feelings levels rising.

  Day 21 (Zerg) 4.52 p.m.

  COME IN, MAXX. COME IN, MAXX. YOUR SPACESHIP HAS JUST LANDED ON ZERG WITH THE THREEE NASTY-LOOKING HUMAN BOYS IN IT. THEY SAY THEY FOLLOWED YOU AND JIBREEL FROM THE PARK, BECAUSE THEY WERE SUSPICIOUS AFTER THE CLASSROOM INCIDENT (WHICH WAS AGAINST PROTOCOL MIGHT WE ADD). THEY SAW YOU UNVEIL THE SPACESHIP AND DECIDED TO POKE AROUND WHEN YOU LEFT. THEY POKED ONE GREY BUTTON TOO MANY, SO THE SHIP WENT INTO AUTOPILOT BACK TO ORIGIN. THE BOYS ARE NOT DOING WELL. THANKS TO YOUR MISSION AND REPORTS, WE NOW KNOW THEY ARE ‘CRYING’, PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY ARE WORRIED AND MAYBE THEIR STOMACHS HURT? WE ARE SENDING THEM BACK IMMEDIATELY WITH THE FIRST AVAILABLE ZERG PILOT, WHO WILL BE MAKING A SMALL DETOUR ON THE WAY.

  Day 21 (Earth) 4.55 p.m.

  WOW, guys, we can hear you through the Filandoo Sperk! I guess you must be able to connect to it now that you have the spaceship! It feels so good to hear your voices but I CAN’T BELIEVE what you’re saying! Jibreel is here too and he thinks it’s nuts. We both think it’s nuts!

  Day 21 (Zerg) 4.57 p.m.

  YOU’LL BE HOME SOON, MAXX. DON’T DO THIS NEW TRICK YOU’VE LEARNED, THE WORRYING.

  Day 21 (Zerg) 6 p.m.

  SHIP LAUNCHED. EXPECT IT ON DAY TWENTY-SEVEN AT 6 P.M.

  Day 27 6 p.m.

  OK, guys, it’s day twenty-seven. I’m waiting here with Jibreel. He’s really excited. He has lost the ability to stand still.

  Ah, right on time, I see the ship. It’s preparing to land.

  “Stand back, Jibreel. It will be way too windy for your human abilities in that spot.”

  “OK! I’m just so excited to see it land!”

  Ship has landed successfully.

  Ship door is opening.

  Zerg pilot is coming out, followed by three boys, who er, don’t look so nasty any more.

  Er, three boys have run up to us and given Jibreel and me hugs, and said they’re glad to see us (so glad). O-K.

  Wait, one more human is coming off the ship… What? Did she go with the boys?

  What? Jibreel has just seen her and has broken down crying. He’s wrapped himself around her. She is crying too.

  “My son, my son,” she is saying.

  Wait, guys, did you find his mum? You didn’t… That was the detour…? Wow. I mean, wow. Are you sure you guys don’t have feelings too? Ouch, guys, I’m having too many feelings. My eyes are watering. Everyone’s eyes are watering, but it’s happy water.

  Day 35

  10 a.m. Earth: Come in, Maxx, come in, Maxx, this is Jibreel speaking. Have you reached Zerg safely?

  10.01 a.m. Zerg: I know it’s Jibreel speaking, because no other human has a way of contacting us! Yes! I reached Zerg safely. I’ve been doing lots of interviews here about Earth life! What have you been up to?

  10.03 a.m. Earth: I’ve been enjoying Mum’s hugs. I can’t believe she’s with me again. Sometimes, I get up in the middle of the night just to check. Oh, and those three boys have never called me alien again. Oh, and I’ve started a social media campaign to improve the image of aliens!

  10.05 a.m. Zerg: Ha ha, that’s awesome, Jibreel. I can’t wait to come back to Earth for another mission. See you soon!

  READING ZONE!

  WHAT DO YOU THINK?

  Look back at Day 1.

  What information do you learn from this page about Maxx and premise of the whole story?

  Does the author tell you directly or do you have to work it out from the context?

  Do you think this is a good opening for a book?

  Did it draw you in to the story?

  READING ZONE!

  QUIZ TIME

  Can you remember the answers to these questions?

  • How does Maxx escape from the dog that chases him?

  • What made the two men stop fighting over the car parking space?

  • What is the name of the planet Maxx is from?

  •
What is wrong with Max’s spaceship?

  • Why does the spaceship take a detour on the way to meet Maxx and Jibeel at the end of the story?

  READING ZONE!

  STORYTELLING TOOLKIT

  This story uses the messages that Maxx is writing to his home planet, and the messages the people there write back to tell the story.

  What tools has the author used to help us (the reader) understand who is sending the messages?

  Have you ever read another book which tells the story this way?

  READING ZONE!

  GET CREATIVE

  In his messages back home, Max describes some ordinary things in lots of detail, like the way he talks about the bus on page 4.

  Try choosing an activity you do or something you eat or drink and write an explanation of it as if you are Maxx writing home.

  Think about what he would see or experience to help you write in the style of Maxx!

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  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Bloomsbury Publising Plc

  Text copyright © Zanib Mian, 2020