A ‘pet’rifying trip to Neptune
This is an entry in Junior Dispatch’s alien short story contest. The effort earns the writer a free book from the York Emporium and a chance to win a $50 movie gift card and a $50 gift certificate from The York Emporium. Read the rules to the contest here, and get your story in by August 1.
By Tennison McGraw
Age 8, York
One day my friends, my family, and I took a trip in a rocket ship. We were going to the planet Neptune. I took my mom, my dad, and my brother TJ. I also took some of my friends like Natalie, Jamie, Miranda, Rachel, and Elijah. My cats, Trixie and Ricci, came along, too. With that many people we needed two rockets, so we borrowed one from the rocket launching station.
For the trip, we packed our clothes, some food, and some water. The countdown began – 5,4,3,2,1, Blast Off! We were heading to Neptune! It was a short trip because our rocket was really fast. We landed before we even got to finish our lunches.
Before we got out of the rockets, we had to put on our space suits. In one of the rockets, there was an American flag and a camera. We grabbed them both and left the rockets.
Neptune is a bluish-purple planet. It has a water track, like a river, that goes around the planet. We began walking to find the perfect spot to plant the flag. We found a tree and decided to plant the flag there. We took a picture with our camera.
When we turned around after planting the flag, we saw an alien! It was big and green with 3 eyes. It was dressed in a bluish-purple space suit that seemed to match the planet. We were scared, so we all ran and ran until we were out of breath. While we were running, we fell into the water track. We could see that the alien was still looking for us, so we tried to get out of the water, but the sides were too slippery. Finally, we got out. We thought we were safe.
Meanwhile, my cats Trixie and Ricci had found a strange animal. It was half-dog and half-cat. Believe it or not, we thought it was kind of cute. While I was holding the strange animal and we were petting it, the alien caught up to us. We started to run away, but we noticed that the alien wasn’t following us. When we turned around, we saw that the alien was crying.
The strange half-dog/half-cat animal was squirming to get out of my arms. Suddenly it jumped out of my hands and ran up to the alien. The alien picked it up and the strange creature started licking the alien’s face. The alien looked so happy. It wasn’t crying anymore. When that happened, we realized that the strange animal belonged to the alien. The alien wasn’t really chasing us. It was just looking for its pet. We walked over to the alien and it said something that sounded like, “Oogity Woop Woop.” We didn’t understand the language, but we could tell that he was saying, “Thank you.”
After all of that running, we were pretty thirsty. The alien invited us back to its house to have something to drink with it and its pet. Its house was pretty far, so we decided to just get something to drink at our rocket ships. The alien and the strange half-dog/half-cat came with us. At the space ship we drank Tang and the alien seemed to really like it. It was getting late and time to go to bed. I asked my mom if the alien and its pet could have a sleepover with us in the rocket ships. She said okay.
The next morning, we all woke up early. It was time for us to return to Earth. We flew the rocket to the alien’s home so we could drop it and its pet off before we blasted off. Before we left, we took a picture of all of us. We all said goodbye and then my parents, my brother, my friends, my cats, and I got back in our rocket ships and headed home. What a fun time we had on the planet Neptune!
