My Sister's an Alien

by Gretel Killeen

The sun was warm and snug as it shone down on the cloud but as Eppie slept, more and more clouds joined onto hers. Clouds joined to the sides, below and above until the whole sky was filled with clouds, the sun was hidden and Eppie got cold. And that’s when she woke up.

  ‘Hey, how come it’s so dark?’ Eppie wondered. ‘It couldn’t be night time yet.’ A crack of thunder and a blaze of lightning and a most frightening roar of wind followed—rushing, howling, bellowing louder. And before Eppie could click her heels and say, “There’s No Place Like Home”, she was caught inside the most terrifying twister.

  Round and around and around she spun higher, faster, all in a twirl. ‘I’m going to die,’ Eppie gasped. ‘I’m going to be sucked up, twisted and spat out. I’ll never be able to see Mum again. I’ll never eat ice cream or see my school friends or play at the beach or have another birthday. Oh this is an absolute disaster—except for one amazing thing: Zeke is going to get blamed for it!’

  And with that Eppie was squeezed up higher into the tornado and whirled like a banana in a blender (and let me say here that it was just as well that she had tied her shoelaces with a double bow because otherwise there is no way her shoes would have stayed on).

  Now one of the good things about being twisted and turned and spun around if you are a girl who has been squashed to the size of a strawberry is that all of the tugging and pulling and whirling around does tend to stretch you back to normal size. So that’s what happened to Eppie. Then there was a great big pop, like the sound you make with your finger and your mouth but much, much louder.

  pop

  and Eppie was blurted right out of that twister and upupup into space where she floated around for quite a while and then landed

  thump

  on a place called Planet Sock.

  Meanwhile Zeke was still lying on his bed wearing his sister’s nightie, a pink bow in his hair and a smudge of his mother’s bright red lipstick, and being squished under the heavy sleeping weight of his absolutely exhausted mother who you may remember had just begun to snore. The room shook with every rumbling snort, the curtains flapped, the bed springs groaned and a gust of humphy-galumphy Mum—snore—air would go right up Zeke’s nose and nearly make his hair blow off.

  This torture continued for quite some time until Zeke got completely and utterly fed up and yelled out ‘Oh, bottom!’ (because he wasn’t allowed to say “bum”). ‘This is terrible,’ he said. ‘With all this noise the police are definitely going to come here to see what all the fuss is and try to rescue our family, but they’ll only find Mum and me and they’ll guess Eppie’s been killed by Mum’s elephant snoring—maybe sucked up her nose and got stuck in her brain. And then they’ll have to take Mum’s head off and clean her brain with a vacuum cleaner to look for Eppie and they won’t find her of course and all the police and doctors will be so upset that they’ll stop concentrating and probably sew Mum’s head back on round the wrong way, which will make it impossible for her to sit down and have dinner with us, let alone hug us good night. Oh bottom, bottom, bottom.’

  ‘Stop snoring, Mum!’ Zeke ordered urgently. But it was too late, because just then there was a tap tap tap on the window and he looked up in fright. But it wasn’t the police; it was, to Zeke’s surprise, the three possums who lived in the attic. They were dressed in their party gear, bright frocks and floral shirts, and were very very mad.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing down here?’ asked the biggest possum whose name was Ralph Gorgeous. ‘We’re trying to have a party upstairs and no one can even hear the band because of this terrible, deafening, rumbling noise. It’s making the whole house shake and shake and making our fabulous party drinks spill all over our lovely fur coats.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Zeke. ‘The noise is my mother. She’s really tired from looking for her glasses, which are actually being worn by the cat. But I couldn’t tell her that because if Mum had her glasses, then she would have seen that my stinker sister is nowhere to be found. So Mum would have asked me, “Zeke, where on earth is Eppie?” And I would have had to say, “Well actually, Mum, she’s not on Earth at all; she’s attached to my yoyo and is flying round the world … oh and by the way she’s shrunk to the size of a strawberry.”’

  ‘And then of course Mum would have got absolutely furious and confiscated the rest of my life … and that’s probably exactly what she will do when she wakes up … straight after she’s killed me!’

  Then Zeke burst into tears (but he pretended that he just had a cold), gave a great big blow on his nose and then wiped the snot all over his sleeve.

  ‘Ar yuk!’ said the second possum whose name was Fluffybigbum. ‘Don’t be such an animal!’

  ‘Do you think you could help me?’ Zeke asked the three possums as they sat perched on the window dressed in their party clothes which didn’t really fit because they’d been pinched from neighbours’ clotheslines. ‘Could you spread the word on the bush telegraph, perhaps ask the flying fish, or the secretive snakes or those gossipping goannas … just spread the word that we need to find where Eppie is because, much to my regret, we have to get her back.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the third possum, whose name was Nosewhistle Jo. ‘Asking animals one by one—I’ve never heard of anything so primitive.’

  ‘You’re right of course,’ Zeke replied. ‘I should hire a plane that writes in the sky,

  lost:

  one stupid strawberry-sized sister,

  contact Zeke,

  and don’t tell my Mum.

  ‘Are you joking?’ said Ralph Gorgeous. ‘Or has some horrible slug slid in your ear and into your head and eaten half your brain? Because if you really want to find where Eppie is quick smart, I suggest you hop on the Internet.’

  ‘But I don’t know how to use the Internet,’ moaned Zeke.

  ‘Then we’ll find Wise Old Owl and he can teach you,’ said Nosewhistle Jo as he whistled Hey diddly through his nose.

  ‘Well could you help get me out from under here first?’ said Zeke in a muffled voice as his mother made one more enormous snore, rolled smack bang on top of him and said, ‘I love you too, Tom Cruise.’

  ‘Quick! Get me out of here!’ said Zeke, and with that Fluffybigbum jumped off the window sill and into the bedroom, walked straight up to Mum and said in a very deep voice, ‘Hello, I’m Tom Cruise. Follow me.’ And up Mum got and followed Fluffybigbum the possum all the way down the hall and safely to Mum’s room, where she fell fast asleep once more, snoring like a dillion pigs.

  Then, before you could make whatever sound it is that a wise old bird could make, bwa bwa, bwa perhaps, The Wise Old Owl flew in through the window with a flurry of feathers and smashed straight into the mirror. ‘Ow!’ said Owl. ‘Those mirrors are horrid. Every time I look in one I think I’ve seen the most beautiful bird and break my beak trying to kiss it.’

  ‘Are you sure this is The Wise Old Owl?’ whispered Zeke to Nosewhistle Jo.

  But it was The Wise Old Owl and pretty soon he was setting up the computer to send Zeke’s message and find out just who in the world knew where Eppie was. ‘This plug here, that button there, put this thingummyjig in that what-not,’ said The Wise Old Owl as he ordered everybody in the room to assist with his important task. ‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘Now we’re ready to type the message.’

  ‘Message typed,’ replied Zeke with pride.

  ‘And now we shall send it off round the world,’ bellowed The Wise Old Owl triumphantly. ‘Watch me press this little red power switch.’ And the whole thing went Kaboom.

  In fact the message wasn’t sent to computers all round the world, but printed instead on each of The Wise Old Owl’s feathers, which had blown right off in the explosion and were now fluttering high into the sky to be spread by the world’s wandering winds.

  ‘Oh no, I’m naked!’ said The Wise Old Owl. ‘But at least the message has been sent. Could someone hand me a dressing gown while we wait for our replies?’

  W
ell Ralph Gorgeous lent Owl his leopard skin coat and then they waited. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

  ‘Want a chocolate biscuit?’ Zeke asked The Wise Old Owl.

  ‘No thanks. I’m on a diet,’ he replied.

  Wait, wait, wait, wait.

  And then with a hum and a whirr and a whiz, messages started flying in from every single corner of the globe … and some even came with photos. Yes, photos of what looked like a strawberry with something attached to its head. ‘I wonder how they took those photos of Eppie?’ thought Zeke.’ Cameras always break when I try to photograph her.’

  Someone even sent in a video in which you could very clearly see that Eppie was singing that song that made Zeke want to vomit every time he heard it, I’m a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World!

  She’d been seen over Botswana, Croatia, Canada, Tasmania and Scandinavia. Some cow even sent a message to say she’d seen Eppie jumping over the moon.

  But the most recent sighting had been by two astrologers who were visiting their mummies in Egypt.

  They said they’d seen a girl dancing way out on Planet Sock who was singing a little song to herself called My Brother Zeke is a Boy’s Bra.

  ‘That’s her. That’s her!’ yelled happy Zeke. ‘That’s my horrible, disgusting, worm head, pig’s bottom, bosom brain sister. Yahoo! Let’s go get her!’

  ‘Not us,’ said Ralph Gorgeous. ‘We’ve got a party to go to and, besides, we’ve done all we can.’

  ‘Well if there’s anything I can ever do for you,’ said Zeke, ‘just plop down through that man-hole in the ceiling.’

  ‘Possum-hole,’ corrected Nosewhistle Jo.

  ‘Actually, Zeke,’ said Fluffybigbum, ‘could I borrow that pretty dress you’re wearing?’

  Zeke had forgotten he was wearing Eppie’s nightie and was so embarrassed he shrieked, ‘Aeiou!’, ran from the room and tumble, tumble, tumbled down the stairs like a tennis ball.

  And that’s where he lay like a spilt laundry basket and dreamt that he blew up a thousand balloons, tied all of their strings to his belt and floated up, right up into space where he found his sister Eppie and made her promise that she would pay him a fee of a thousand dollars a week for the rest of their lives for the privilege of being his sister.

  But then Zeke woke up and unfortunately remembered all the trouble that he was in.

  ‘Oh no, oh no, a few hours to go before Mum wakes up and Eppie and my yoyo are still lost in space. How am I ever going to get up there?’ he wondered as he lay on the floor rattling away, listening to his mother snore. ‘You can’t get a bus to space, or catch a train, or a plane, or walk, or run, or roll or skateboard or … Hey, wait, I know! I could go to a circus, dress up as a clown and get them to blow me out of the cannon … off the face of earth and into the starry skies … or if that didn’t work and worse came to worst I could fall in a pothole, get run over by a truck that is towing a house, get shrunk to the size of a strawberry, attached to a yoyo and hurled into the sky like a rocket … Hey wait a minute!’ said Zeke to himself. ‘That’s it—a rocket!’

  Well of course Zeke tried to make his own space rocket using old toilet paper rolls, egg cartons and silver foil but the glue wouldn’t dry and there was no sister to sit on things to make them stick better (because she was selfishly dancing on Planet Sock) and no mum to help with the cutting out (because she was upstairs, begging Tom Cruise to marry her, in between snoring like a fart cushion) and so in the end he snuck out the door, got on his bike and rode to the nearest space centre.

  ‘Hello,’ Zeke said, when the space centre’s door was opened by a huge toothless purple-haired woman. ‘Excuse me for bothering you so late in the night but I’d like to go on your next trip into space.’

  ‘Oh that’s nice,’ said the toothless purple-haired woman. ‘But I’m very sorry you can’t come because what we need is males who are strong, brave and fearless; we have enough little girls with bows in their hair.’

  ‘What!’ gasped Zeke. Oh yes, the nightie, and off he rode home to quickly change into his Superboy suit and once again knock on the space centre door.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Superboy,’ said the toothless purple-haired woman, ‘but I’m afraid you’re far too young. ‘

  And with that Zeke said thank you and rode off into the night. Only to return ten minutes later wearing a false beard and a moustache.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mister Super,’ said the toothless purple-haired woman, ‘you’re absolutely perfect except for one simple thing: you are far too thin.’

  And off rode Zeke as fast as he could to find cotton wool to stick in his cheeks, and pillows to stuff down his suit so that every single part of his body seemed quite enormous and he looked like a balloon filled with marbles … and he could hardly move.

  S l o w l y Zeke got back onto his bike and s l o w l y he reached for the pedals and ever so s l o w l y he began to ride, back to the space centre.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said the toothless purple-haired woman. ‘I’m sure you’d make the perfect astronaut, but you’re just a moment too late. If you’d been here even a minute ago things might have been quite different but, as it happens, today’s space probe is now full and leaving any second.’

  ‘Bup!’ said Zeke with his cheeks full of cotton wool. ‘Bup, bup, bup, bup!’ But the toothless purple-haired woman had already left, to eat mashed peanut butter and melted ice cream (mixed with a pinch of salt and scrambled snails) while she watched the latest space rocket take-off.

  So Zeke stumbled along in his fat Superboy suit, beard and moustache, desperately looking for a way to get past the locked wire fences and onto the launch pad.

  ‘Who’s there?’ said a voice from out on the tarmac.

  ‘Pleath blet me in plast thith gade,’ repeated Zeke.

  ‘Listen, old fellow,’ said the voice. ‘Swallow whatever you’ve got in your mouth, then come here and tell me what you said.’

  And so Zeke removed all the pillows and stuffing and his beard and moustache. Then he slipped under the big wire fence to walk towards the voice. And when he got right up to the voice, he found himself talking to the space rocket flight attendant who was dressed in a very nice, casual outfit with matching tie and little peaked cap. The attendant was just about to fasten all doors and check that all seatbelts were fastened when Zeke said, ‘Wait! I need a lift into space.’

  ‘Sorry, Superboy,’ said the attendant. ‘We just gave the last seat to a shooting star who’s a little bit sick with the flu. So you’ll have to catch the next probe which leaves in about … oh,’ and with that the attendant looked at his watch. ‘In about eleven years. Now get off the launching pad if you don’t mind and go and stand somewhere safe.’

  10 9 8 7

  Are you thinking poor Zeke, he’s missed his chance?

  6 5 4

  Well, not on your life!

  3 2 1

  Because what do you see if you look very closely?

  ZEROBLASTOFF!

  Look, right there on the pointy bit. Do you see a little person dressed as Superboy sort of making a face like he’s sitting on something sharp? Well, guess who that is? It’s Zeke, blasting through space with his mouth so wide open that he’s just swallowed three flies and a pigeon.

  Up, up, up he went, through the clouds, through the blue skies and beyond. Up to the rainbow, through the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and up into space, dark space where a zillion stars were twinkling brightly saying, ‘Zekie, come and play with me.’

  After seven hours, or maybe five minutes, Zeke’s bottom really began to hurt. So he tried to get more comfortable by doing a shift and a wiggle but he slipped completely off the tip and began to slide down the space probe. ‘Uh Oh,’ said Zeke.

  He tried to wrap his arms around the space probe, but he just kept slip sliding down. Down he slipped, down, down, and his eyes wide open with fear. He tried to grab hold of a wing as he slid, he tried to grab on with his legs. But down he slid with the engine flames
getting closer. He was hot and scared and his hands were all slippery and he was gaining speed … when all of a sudden he came to a halt as his Superboy suit got caught on the corner of the window and Zeke took a peek inside.

  ‘Hello!’ he called to the silver-suited astronauts as he tap tapped on the glass. ‘Hello!’ he bellowed. ‘Could you help me, please?’ But nobody heard him because they were all eating spacecorn, which is like popcorn only a gillion times louder. That’s right nobody paid him any attention at all until all of a sudden the space probe took a sharp turn to the left and Zeke was hurled at the window and his face squished up hard on the glass. The astronauts heard a tremendous thump, looked up to see Zeke’s flat face, and then all fainted into their spacecorn buckets.

  ‘Oh fabulous,’ said Zeke, dangling from the window. ‘Help me, you great fat burp heads!’ And then he quietly began to cry, feeling very sorry for himself until he was rudely interrupted by a gentle rrrrrrrrrrrrripping sound. ‘My pants!’ shrieked Zeke. ‘My Superboy suit is tearing!’ And sure enough it was.

  ‘This is all Eppie’s fault,’ mumbled Zeke bitterly as finally his suit tore completely off and once again he was caught in his undies. (Yep! The Barbie ones his mum gave him for Christmas last year, nineteen pairs for the price of one.) ‘Help!’ he screamed into the dark universe, as he was hurtled through the atmosphere.

  ‘Help, help,’ he called as he raced through the galaxy at a billion trillion zillion dillion hillion kilometres an hour. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!