About the book
When Eppie gets squished to the size of a strawberry, ends up flying round the world, landing on Planet Sock and about to be kidnapped by a handsome alien prince, it’s up to her brother Zeke to rescue her. What follows is a laugh-a-minute adventure full of short-sighted cats, space rockets, burps, possums, owls, goodies, baddies, galactic battles, movie stars, superstars, false moustaches, girls’ nighties, flying horses, bright pink lipstick, footballs, diamonds, lovesick Martians and motorbike rides with the man in the moon - and that’s all before mum wakes up.
Contents
Cover
About the book
Title Page
Dedication
My Sister’s an Alien
Other works by Gretel Killeen
My Life is a Toilet
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Copyright Page
More at Random House Australia
For
Zeke and Eppie and Mum and Dad.
GK
For Jenny McDermott.
LH
It’s not every day that your sister shrinks to the size of a strawberry, gets tangled in your yoyo and ends up in outer space … but that’s what had happened so far today.
Early this morning Zeke got bored while he was sitting in the car waiting for his mum to take him to school, so he burped the alphabet, picked his nose, did a little fart, checked under the seats for jewelled boxes of hidden treasure and found his precious yoyo instead. Then he offered his sister two million dollars if she would get out of the car and play yoyos with him but while she was leaning out of the car she fell out the window, landed in a pothole, got run over by a truck that was carrying a house and got squished to the size of a strawberry. Now, Zeke knew that he had to stretch his sister back to her normal size but before he did that he thought he might whirl his yoyo on Eppie’s head just for a bit of fun, but it got tangled up really badly in her hair and that’s when their mum finally came out of the house to drive Eppie and Zeke to school. So Zeke hid Eppie in the bottom of his schoolbag and then Eppie ended up getting dropped down a toilet, stuffed in a bin, stuck up a tree, confiscated by the teacher, stolen by a bird, pinched by a puppy, stuck in a bike wheel, grabbed by a garbage truck, mistaken for a tennis ball, stolen by a bully and saved by Zeke who, at the very end of the day, was going to untangle Eppie from the yoyo and stretch her back to normal size (just in time for Mum to pick them both up from school and never be any the wiser), but he unfortunately decided to do some tricks with Eppie attached to the yoyo first … Walk the Dog, Rock the Cradle, Bite Your Bum and Around the World. And it was while he was doing this particular trick that the yoyo string broke, and off Eppie went … all the way round the world.
So, Eppie was attached to Zeke’s yoyo looping round the planet.
Meanwhile Mum had arrived to collect both her children from school, and Zeke was standing all alone in the playground desperately wondering if he should:
a) tell his mum that her daughter was lost in outer space and somehow, quite skilfully, make it all Eppie’s fault
or b) invite all his friends over to help him celebrate the fact that his sister had flown off the face off the Earth and his wish had finally come true.
or c) run after Eppie and try to save her
or d) just stand there and act like nothing had happened.
Well, Zeke was feeling a little lazy and so he chose d) just stand there and act like nothing had happened. ‘Dum de dum,’ he sang to himself, ‘Dum de dum hoola de dum.’
Mum was getting closer so Zeke tried to think of what he might say should his mum happen to ask ‘Do you know where Eppie is?’ ‘Um, who?’ he could say. ‘I don’t know anyone by that name. Perhaps you mean that poodle over there.’ Or else he could say, ‘She’s gone to play at a friend’s? Uh, she’s on detention? A wizard put a spell on her and turned her into dog poop. Or actually she’s been kidnapped, and the kidnappers want a huge ransom that I know we can’t afford so I suggest it would be cheaper to buy another sister. ‘
(Actually, Zeke realised, that last excuse was not a very good one because there’s no way anyone would believe that a kidnapper would want a ransom for Eppie. More likely after five minutes with Eppie, the kidnappers would pay Mum to take her back).
Mum was waving. She was getting close. Act normal, thought Zeke, act normal.
She was coming closer and he was nearly acting normal except that he was bouncing up and down like a tennis ball and opening and closing his mouth so fast he looked like a mixture of a wide-mouthed frog and windscreen wipers stuck on FAST. (Please note that although boys do often act very weird this is not what Zeke normally looks like.)
‘Oh my goodness,’ thought Zeke. ‘I should quit bouncing, shut my mouth and stop my eyes from blinking because otherwise Mum will definitely get suspicious and even though she won’t know exactly what’s happened she’ll punish me anyway. It could be terrible, it could be horrible: much worse than having a sister!’
But actually Zeke need not have worried, because his mum didn’t seem to notice anything odd at all and walked straight past him to the middle of the playground where she bent down and kissed a small tree.
‘Yahoooooooooooooooo,’ Zeke whispered softly. ‘Mum’s forgotten her glasses again.’
‘Perfect,’ thought Zeke. ‘Mum’s blind as a bat and there’s no way I’m telling her where her glasses are.’ (You see, much as Zeke adored his mum, he rather enjoyed his life as well, and although he apparently talked far too much in class and only tried half as hard as he could, Zeke was smart enough to realise that if he told his mum where her glasses were she would immediately see that Eppie was missing and he would of course cop all the blame.) So Zeke said nothing and ran off to the school sports equipment room where he borrowed a tennis racquet.
‘Hi, Mum,’ said Zeke when he returned and gave his mum a peck on the cheek.
‘Hello, Darling. Have you seen Eppie?’
‘Yes, she’s here,’ said Zeke holding up the tennis racquet. ‘But she’s lost her voice so she can’t say too much.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Mum. ‘Eppie’s voice probably just needs a rest. Voices get tired too you know.’ And with that Mum kissed the tennis racquet on the head, said “there, there” and the three of them got into the car.
During the drive home Mum sang her favourite song, Achy Breaky Heart, which made all the dogs they passed on the way howl very loudly. Zeke was of course completely embarrassed, but when you’re in the middle of pretending your sister is a tennis racquet you are really in no position at all to criticise others.
And so, instead of groaning and rolling his eyes as he normally would when his Mum sang Achy Breaky Heart, Zeke decided to pick a fight with the tennis racquet, just so Mum would think everything was normal.
‘M-u-m, Eppie’s pinching me,’ said Zeke. ‘Mu-u-um, she’s kicking me. Mu-u-um, Eppie just poked her tongue out!’
‘Quiet, you two,’ said Mum as she drove with her head stuck right out the window because she thought it might help her see a little better. ‘Quiet, you two or you’ll have no TV for the rest of your lives.’
‘Good,’ said Zeke to himself. ‘Mum doesn’t suspect a thing.’
Once they got home, things were really pretty good for a while. Zeke of course got to eat twice as much afternoon tea and when Mum realised that Eppie hadn’t eaten a crumb she sent the tennis racquet off to bed.
‘I’ll take her,’ said Zeke, acting really kind. ‘You just keep looking for your glasses.’
‘Oh that’s so sweet of you,’ said Mum. ‘And when you get back down we’ll have a nice piece of chocolate cake.’
(‘Actually,’ Zeke thought, ‘I’d
rather have a new yoyo.’)
All alone in Eppie’s room, he tucked the tennis racquet into bed, looked around and quietly began to think seriously what the rest of his life would be like without his little sister … ‘Fantastic!’ he decided.
That night Zeke got to watch whatever he wanted on TV, his mother did nearly all his homework, and he got to stay up extra late. But then, just when he was about to clean his teeth and go to bed, his Mum said, ‘I’ll be up in a minute to give you a hug. I’ll just give Eppie her cuddle first.’
‘No!’ yelled Zeke, jumping up from the couch. ‘You can’t hug her … because … because … because … because for all we know she might have some disgusting disease where your ears blow up … and your nose explodes … and your legs and arms fall off. You can’t hug her. If you do, you might die! And then I’d die of starvation and Gran and Pops would die of shock and then all the neighbours would come to look at our bodies and they’d catch the disease and they’d all die and all their friends and relatives too. So basically, Mum, if you go up and hug Eppie now you could end up killing at the very least forty seven thousand million people and their pets who need to be fed!’
‘Zeke, sick little children need to hug their mothers, so I simply must hug Eppie. But if it will make you worry any less, I’ll tie a hanky round my mouth and stick a peg on my nose. Now then, I’ll look for my glasses for just one more minute and then I’ll be up to hug you both.’
‘Oh no,’ thought Zeke. ‘What should I do? My life is about to be completely over and I never even got to grow my hair really long and play the drums in a rock band. If Mum finds her glasses and sees that Eppie’s a tennis racquet I am definitely going to be dead. Oh, please somebody save me!!!!!!!!!!!!’
Now sometimes, if you make enough wishes throughout your life and none of them ever comes true, the wish accountants who wear suits and live up in the clouds realise that you’re owed a really big wish, and that’s the wish they’ll try to fulfil. Get it? So that’s what happened to Zeke. He hadn’t had any wishes come true for ages and ages (except the wish that his sister would disappear, but that one didn’t really count because she was still haunting him anyway). So the wish accountants decided it was time for Zeke to be given a really, really big wish and they made this wish come true. (Of course this meant that none of his other wishes would ever come true: he would never win the lottery or be given a Ferrari or represent Australia playing football … but Zeke decided he’d just happily blame Eppie for all of this.)
So what do you think happened? Do you think Zeke’s strawberry-sized sister suddenly dropped from the skies and came plonking down the chimney, where she got stuck just long enough in the grate for Zeke to pull her out by her feet and stretch her back to normal size, so their mother never discovered there’d been one single problem and they lived happily ever after and became incredibly rich and all became actors on Neighbours?
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, drum roll please!
No, nothing so fabulously exciting unfortunately. What happened exactly then and there was that the family cat walked past Zeke, and he was wearing Zeke’s mother’s glasses. Fantastic! Mum wouldn’t find them for a million years.
The cat often secretly borrowed glasses because he liked to read, but his eyesight was getting worse. Of course he knew that he really should go to the eye doctor and get his own set of reading glasses, but the nearest animal eye doctor was a dog and there was no way this cat was going there.
‘Thanks, wish accountants,’ Zeke said to the ceiling. ‘Although I do agree with the kids who are reading this book and think you really could have done a whole lot better and just dropped Eppie down the chimney.’ Then Zeke grabbed the biggest fattest book he could find (a cookbook on one thousand and one things to do with fish), showed it to the cat and put the book and the cat outside the back door. ‘Enjoy your read,’ he said to the cat. ‘And take all the time you want.’
Then Zeke went back inside.
‘This is great,’ thought Zeke. ‘Mum won’t find her glasses for ages now.’ And he sat down to relax, put his feet up on the coffee table, stick his finger in his ear and see if any mice were living in there. But suddenly he interrupted himself as he shrieked, ‘Oh no,’ and got such a shock he jabbed his finger so far into his ear that it almost popped out the other side. ‘I forgot that in about twenty seconds Mum’s going upstairs to kiss a tennis racquet good night!’ said Zeke. ‘I’d better find go and find an ugly doll that Mum can cuddle instead.’
But up in Eppie’s bedroom there was no doll that looked at all like Eppie (who by the way is not ugly and does not look like half a worm, no matter what Zeke says). There were seven Barbie dolls and a stuffed monkey and although Zeke thought the stuffed monkey did look a bit like his sister it was way too small.
Stomp, bump, crash, ow! It was his mother coming up the stairs. And so in absolute desperation, Zeke opened Eppie’s wardrobe door, rummaged through her clothes, found a nightie, put it on, stuck a ribbon in his hair, jumped straight into his little sister’s bed and pretended to be asleep … just in the nick of time.
‘How are you feeling, Eppie?’ said Mum to the bedside lamp. ‘Still can’t talk? Well never mind. Let Mummy give you a hug to make you a whole lot better.’ First Mum hugged the bedside lamp, then the chest of drawers, the little chair, the beanbag, the desk and the footstool until finally she’d gone all the way round the room, tripped on the carpet, fallen onto the bed, and given Zekeppie her hug.
‘Eeeeeeeek!’ squeaked Zeke, trying to sound like a girl.
‘In the morning, as a special treat, we’ll do your hair in braids,’ said Mum. ‘And if you’re too sick to go off to school you can play with some of my make-up. In fact,’ she paused for extra excitement, ‘would you like to put on a little lipstick now, just to make you feel pretty?’
‘Help,’ thought Zeke. ‘I’d rather fall into a black hole and spend the rest of my life being cuddled by slaters than wear one crumb of make-up.’
‘Here’s a beautiful red lipstick,’ said his mother. ‘So you can sleep looking just like Snow White.’ And she put the lipstick on Zeke, tucked him into bed, kissed him goodnight, said, ‘Sleep tight, Eppie. I’ll just walk down the hall now and say sweet dreams to Zeke.’
Zeke waited calmly until his mother left the room and then he went into a complete panic. He waved his arms and his legs like an upside down cockroach, covered his face with Eppie’s pillow and screamed like Tarzan …
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
And then when he’d finished he caught a look at the pillow that was covering his face, saw a red lipsticked mouth smudged on it and screamed once more, only more softly aaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Gross.
‘What will I do?’ agonised Zeke. ‘I’ll never get back into my room in time for Mum to kiss me good night!’ He wriggled and squirmed in desperate panic, fell off the bed and rolled around, more and more and more until suddenly he found himself wrapped tight in the lambswool rug that normally lay on Eppie’s floor. And that’s when he caught another glimpse of himself in Eppie’s bedroom mirror. ‘I look almost exactly like a sheep,’ he thought. ‘Especially to someone who isn’t wearing her glasses.’ And with that he got on all fours while still wrapped in the rug and went charging down the hall to his bedroom, bleating ‘Baaaaaaa’ as he passed his mum.
Once in his room Zeke unwrapped himself, shoved the rug into his cupboard and dived into his bed.
‘Good heavens, darling,’ his mother said to his baseball mit as she bumbled through the door, ‘I really must be very tired, because I’ve started seeing things.’
And with that the cat came barging through the door wearing Mum’s glasses and carrying Mum’s biggest fattest cook book (about one thousand and one things to do with fish). Well of course Mum fainted onto the bed and fell flat on top of Zeke.
‘Oh,’ mumbled Zeke. ‘I should have remembered that stupid cat did a speed reading course.’
So there Zeke was, still w
earing his sister’s nightie and a pretty pink bow in his hair, pinned underneath his collapsed mother. She was still as still and not saying a word and Zeke was worried that she might really have injured herself … until he heard her start to snore and mumble, ‘Oh yes, Leonardo di Caprio! Come and rescue me!’
But what was Eppie doing all this time? Had she stopped flying round the world and landed in some extraordinary place? Was she skiing Swiss slopes, fishing in Finland, surfing in Samoa, digging diamonds in Dubai or swimming in the sea with silly seals? Or was she still as small as a strawberry, attached to Zeke’s yoyo and flying round the world, getting giddier and giddier and giddier and yelling, ‘Pass me a bucket! I think I’m going to be sick.’
Well, I’ll tell you. She did fly round and round and round the world high up in the sky, but then after a while she started to drift down, closer and closer to earth. France was right there underneath her and she was just about to get spiked in the bottom by the Eiffel Tower when she flapped her arms like a bird to raise herself higher and was caught by a giant gust of hot air that pushed her up safe above the poking point. And the gust of wind blew her on and on.
‘I could fly all the way home like this’, thought Eppie as she flap flap flapped away.
As she flew over America a group of farmers tried to shoot her, a flock of lazy finches perched on her shoulders as they migrated to Brazil, the Tahitians tried to catch her in a net and put her in the zoo, and in England they wanted to eat her. But strawberry-sized Eppie flapped on and on until finally she got so exhausted that she caught the nearest passing cloud, sat on it and had a little snooze.
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