🐋 Extraterrestrials and their Baby Wipe 🐙

           

*If this Short story seems a bit long or strange, that’s because it’s based on a dream I had. Enjoy!*

Today my brother isn’t going on the bus. He did not get up on time, and Mom told me not to get him up anymore. I don’t know why, but I’ve been craving this moment; the moment when I would be able to sit on the bus in my own seat without anyone next to me. Now, you may be wondering why I want this so much. Well, our bus is very crowded. It’s three people in a seat. So now I have a chance to sitting alone.

            I looked up at the front of the bus just as it rolled to a stop. In front of my vision, on the back of the seat, I saw a white circle appear with purple, blue, and black sparkles floating inside it. It was all I could do to not fall in since the bus was stopping.

            Something white gently floated out of the portal, or at least I thought it was a portal. It was not paper or a paper towel. As it landed on my lap, I quickly grabbed it, shimmying my sleeves on my hands, in case it was toxic or something. I twisted it and turned it in my sleeves, moving my head to one side, and gently patted my foot to the rhythm of wonder.

Quickly, I found it was soft, but not wet. It smelled like cucumber, just like the baby wipes my parents use for my little brother. The still, but soft texture feels just like a baby wipe. If it is one, how did it get here? What was that portal thing? Is it magical? Stuffing it in its own little pocket in my backpack, I pulled out my book and tried to read. But, of course, my human traits got the better of me. For the rest of the ride, I ended up turning it over and over, with my foot tapping, and the turn of my head.

I won’t lie, the sight of me inspecting this baby wipe with my little, casual dress on, I probably looked like a child, whether than an eighth-grader. People did give me questioning looks, but when they sat back down they immediately went to their book, phone, or just chattering, like normal. They’ll probably forget all about me. They usually do.

During the entire school day, my mind was occupied with what the heck happened this morning. Good thing I have no tests today.

As soon as I got home, I showed and told my findings to anyone who’d listen.

“I’m sure you just fell asleep and dreamt about the portal, and the baby wipe probably just found its way into your backpack from this mess of a house,” Mom responded, burping the baby.

“Mom! It’s as real as you and me! I’m serious!” I fought.

She sighed, “Honey, I’m too busy for this nonsense. Why don’t you go tell your brother?” She walked away, shaking her head.

“But… I’m telling the truth…” I said, slowly getting quieter and quieter.

I went up to my room and stared at the wipe once again.

There are millions of possibilities to this wipe: I could’ve just imagined it, someone could’ve sent it to me for various reasons, I could have magical powers and have conjured it with my mind. The real question is, which one is it?

I looked around my room. Game posters were hung everywhere, clothes were strewn all around. My led lights glowed a light yellow, which matched the flowers outside my window. Little figurines jumped on the desk to the instrumental music playing from my blue speakers. In one corner of my room, I had a bookshelf, but it was not filled with books as expected. It was filled with tiny sculptures and pots that I had created. I did that hobby in the basement; where I had room to store my art supplies.

Just as I was admiring my favorite pot, I heard screaming from downstairs and strange zipping sounds from my breezy window.

Frowning, I rushed downstairs, carelessly throwing the wipe on my bed and knocking over one of my sculptures. Pausing at the stairway, I thought, “aw man, that was one of my favorite ones.”

My brother joined me in the dash down, and once we got down there, he shouted, “What’s going on!”

“Look… outside!” Mom stuttered.

We rushed to our parents, my baby brother looking very confused. His eyebrows were furrowed -as I showed him- and he had his hands over his mouth.

“We call the police! Like, now!” Nina demanded.

“No, we should not. They’ll never believe us,” Dad pointed out.

That’s alright because I have a plan. “Mom, hand me the baby. I’m going to change his diaper, Nina, come with me and help. I may need you to watch him,” I said. Nina groaned. “We may have to fight them. Or at least go up to them and ask what they want, all assuming they don’t act first.”

I grabbed my baby brother from Mom and headed for the bathroom, where the changing table was. “Nina, I know babysitting isn’t your thing, trust me it’s not mine either, but I need you to do this. I need you to watch the baby while we figure it out. Plus, I have no idea what’ll happen and you might break a sweat and a nail if you don’t do this,” I pleaded.

“Well, if you put it that way, it sounds like I’ll be gross and without nails. But if I watch him, I’ll only break a nail?” she queried.

I sighed, “yes.”

“Then of course I’ll watch him! I can’t be all sweaty for my date! Just make sure you get back soon! I have to get ready!” Nina responded.

“I promise,” I finished changing his diaper, and shoved a bottle in his mouth. “Hide with him in the basement. I don’t know what’ll happen.”

I ran off with the others and continued looking out the window.

The UFOs had landed, and there was a ramp coming down with shadows looming on it.

“What should we do?” My little sister asked.

“Oh, hi, I didn’t see that you were down here, too. I think you should go into the basement. It’ll be safer,” I proposed.

“But I want to be with you guys! I’m not too young!” she protested.

“Dude, you’re like eight years old,” Nathaniel, my brother, commented.

“Look, once you’re down there, you could help Nina watch the baby, she’ll need it,” I said.

“Alright, fine,” she sighed, gloomy walking away from the window.

“I think what we should do is us kids should stay inside and have the parents go outside to see what they could do with the alien situation,” I suggested.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Dad said.

“While Nath and I prepare for battle,” I added.

“What! You guys are not going to fight them! Especially without knowing their intentions!” Mom objected.

“Just go out there! We’ll only come if it looks like you need backup!” I replied, pushing them out the door the closing it. “Come on, let’s go upstairs and get ready.”

We headed upstairs and to my room. I had Nath, or Nathaniel arm himself with kitchen knives, while I got dressed in my medieval assassin/wizard costume, with a long, pointy wooden staff and a dagger to arm myself.

“Only show and use your weapons when I say,” I ordered, once we met back up downstairs. “Let’s sneak outside, and assess the situation.”

Succeeding in our stealth checks, we sneaked onto the porch and hid behind some bushes that were in front of the porch. Peeking out, we saw that Mom and Dad were hiding behind trees, while strange figures shot some sort of blue electricity from organic-looking weapons. By organic, I mean they look like they were literally part of their hands. Or I should say tentacle suction cups.

The strange figures looked like people with an exception of their heads and bodies. I know it doesn’t make sense, but trust me; I’ll explain. Their heads were Octopuses, with their tentacles acting as arms and hands flowing down their side. Then, where their feet are supposed to be, it looks like human legs glued together, and then covered in the skin of the creature. Said skin was like an orange color. Their actual feet were really more tentacles, and the tentacles moved like a spider’s legs when they walked.

“Here’s the plan. I’m going to distract them, while you get Mom and Dad outta there. We shouldn’t fight them, since they have ranged weapons,” I told.

“Who’re you going to do that without being shot?” I didn’t answer him. Instead, I stood out from my hiding place; into the spotlight.

“Hey! Weirdos! What are you doing? You’re ruining the lawn! Why Dad is not going to be happy about this!” I shouted.

They turned toward me, stopping their fire. Mom and Dad looked at me from behind their trees and made motions with their hands for me to stop. I smiled at them; then switched my gaze toward the aliens.

They spoke in their language which sounded like a series of mumbling, muttering, and strange marine-animal sounds.

“Yeah; you! You have no reason to be attacking us! Go home to wherever you live!” I shouted.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nath helping Mom and Dad out of their hiding spot, and into their house.

“Now, I’m going to go inside, while you creeps leave,” Not turning my back to them, I opened the front door and backed inside.

“What were you thinking!” Mom shouted.

“A thank you would be nice,” I muttered. “We saw that you guys needed help, so we went to save you!”

“We told you to stay here for a reason! We were trying to protect you!” Dad shouted.

“What’s done is done. Could we save this for later, and take note that they are approaching the house!” Nath interrupted.

Unfortunately, he was right. The aliens had seen that we got Mom and Dad, and are now marching towards us with weapons in hand, or, tentacles, rather, with such force, the ground shook. Behind them, were more of the army coming out from other UFOs that had just landed! 

“Uh… guys, I think our Friday is going to be canceled. Maybe forever,” I commented.

“I say we run,” Nath suggested.

“We just moved here! We can’t just run!” I objected.

“What else are we supposed to do?” Mom asked.

“Defend. Attack,” I replied.

“Are you sure? It’s not safe. I say we send you guys a way to escape, while we stay here,” Dad proposed.

“Dad, we just moved here, I’m not leaving. Plus, all those hours of reading and watching movies and shows, I think we can handle this,” I said.

“Alright, but if you get hurt, blame yourself,” Dad shook his head.

I helped everyone get “weapons” and “suit up”. This just means getting weapons sharpened, and putting on workout clothes. We checked up on Nina and Sam, who were having the time of their lives, and filled them in. We then checked up on what the aliens were doing.

They stopped advancing and instead were setting up camp outside our lawn. All around the camp they had guards and said guards were guarding all the entrances to our house. It seems as if they aren’t worried about anyone from the outside coming in. Which makes sense, because just as I noticed the guards, I also noticed something invisible shimmering all around our plot of land. It must be a strange shield thing that prevents outsiders from coming inside. Or, from seeing us.

Throughout getting ready and looking out the windows, Mom and Dad have been trying to call people, but it seems our internet is down. Dad tried to fix the router, but it seems it is not the router; Is an outside problem. That shield must be blocking our internet and wifi also. 

We had some extra time, having the aliens not attacking us yet, so we decided to refuel ourselves and place some traps around the entrances.

“What are they waiting for?” I wondered; looking out the window.

“Maybe they’re trying to see what we’ll do. Like waiting us out,” Dad suggested.

Looking out the front windows proved to be a bad idea. A new; super big UFO came, and out of it was a super huge Octopus person! Huge as in as big as our house! It had the same color and texture of the skin as his fellow humanoids have, except it was not part human. It was all Octo.

“These alien dudes really think highly of us, don’t they?” Mom observed.

I could’ve sworn, that one of the humanoids glared at Dad right when he said aliens.

“Dad did you…” I started.

“Yes, I saw that,” he responded. “We should, uh… go make a game plan, here.”

We sat on the couch, listening to the jittering of the humanoids and their UFOs.

“I think we should try to leave,” Mom said.

Dad’s eyes lit up as they darted to the window.

“Dad, what…” I started before he shushed me, and ran out of the room.

When he came back, he waved us upstairs, and into their bedroom. He grabbed some notebook paper and a pencil on the way up.

“Close the drapes and the bathroom door,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

“Show us what?” Nath asked as Dad wrote something on the paper.

Once he was done, we read what he wrote. “They must’ve bugged the house when we were outside. They can hear us. I know because of when I said aliens and in the living room, they gave me an angry look.”

After we read it and gave him a thumbs-up, he said, “It’s gotta be around somewhere…” he made rustling noises with his feet in a pile of clothes.

He then wrote on the paper again. “I’m not going to show you guys anything, it’s all for the bugs,” after this, he wrote some more. “I agree with your Mom. We should evacuate the house and get someplace to stay. We should take pictures of them to convince relatives. We should take the car too. Agreed?” We all nodded.

“Ooh, found it. The great; uh; green secret weapon!” Dad shouted, pulling out a bag of cash. “They’ll be trying to find out what the weapon is; maybe even come inside. Mom, get the baby and Nina ready. Nath, gather some food inside our backpacks. Georgia, help me barricade all the entrances to the house except the garage. Everyone else, when you are done with your task, meet us in the garage. Good plan?” He wrote.

We all nodded again, then hurried off to do our tasks.

“Woah, that’s a good idea Dad. I’m sure we’ll defeat them super easily. But the only entrance that’s big enough is the front door, how’re we going to get past the guards?” I asked loudly, winking at him.

“We will break the door down with a couple of chairs, then maybe we’ll surprise them enough to give us time to charge the weapon,” Dad said loudly, winking at me back.

We brought a couple of chairs from the dining room and leaned them against the handle of the front door. Behind us, in the kitchen, Mom went downstairs and Nath packed some food into our backpacks. As we passed him to lock and barricade some windows, I could see that he was also packing some clothes for everyone. Finishing our job a few minutes later, we headed downstairs with Nath at our heels.

“I cannot leave! I have to get ready! I have a date tonight!” Nina was shouting.

“Would you rather stay here and get kidnapped by aliens, and never go on a date ever again? Or would you rather come with us and live?” Mom shouted back.

The baby was sitting on the floor next to Mom, hugging her sometimes, and other times having his hands on his mouth with his eyebrows furrowed. Nath fell in line next to me. Nath put a hand over his mouth and was smiling and shaking.

“This is not funny!” I hissed at him.

“Nina, you’re coming and that is final,” Dad boomed.

“Ugg! So unfair!” Nina shouted, marching  to the couch and kicking it repeatedly.

“Alright, you guys go upstairs and get the ‘weapon’ ready. I’ll stay here and stop her thinking that she’s leaving for that date,” Dad responded, winking at me.

Mom picked up the baby, and we made our way to the car in our garage. In said garage, lining the walls were bikes, various tools, and bins for storage.

Grabbing a couple of hammers, I said, “put these in some of the backpacks. We may need them.”

Nath grabbed more tools and a few other things, while Mom and I got into the van. “Do you think they know what we’re doing?” I whispered.

“Maybe, maybe not. They’ll know once they see we’re not upstairs,” Mom replied.

Nath handed everyone a backpack, telling us what was in there, and explaining that there was only enough food in each pack for a few days. During this explanation, Dad and Nina came inside.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we need to go. Now!” Dad announced, hopping into the driver’s seat.

He opened the garage door by pressing a button, just as a couple of aliens came through the basement door.

“Step on it!” I shouted.

Behind us, the opening garage door revealed part of the army of aliens filing into lines and aiming their weapons.

“Wait! Dad! Aren’t there force fields around the property! Won’t they prevent us from escaping!” I pointed out.

“We’ll see,” he replied, backing out of the garage.

The aliens started firing their weapons at us, denting the Exo-skeleton of our car and shorting it out.

“She’s down!” Dad proclaimed.

We got out of the car as fast as we could and ran straight to our neighbors’ house. Once we reached the barrier, however, we hit it and bounced off it.

“What’re we going to do now? The house must be swarming with those things!” I panicked.

“Try not to die, find out what they want, I guess!” Mom replied as the aliens got closer.

When they were just a few feet from us, they raised their weapons, and as two we raised our hands over our faces to attempt to block them. When nothing happened, my baby brother, who is the only person who slapped Mom’s hand away, started laughing.

Peeking through my fingers, I saw that they had lowered their weapons, and were looking at me.

 “Um… do I have something on my face?” I responded, lowering my hands.

They just looked at each other. “Besides fear, no,” one of them replied in English.

“You… you understand us?” Dad questioned.

“Why, of course, we can! We are the best, most developed species in all of the universe! We have technology that far exceeds your human tech,” another one said, earning glares from the aliens next to him. “Sorry, gone a little too far there.”

“Who are you guys? Why have you come?” Nath demanded.

“We’ve come to retrieve…” one of them started, before being interrupted by a new arrival.

Once the aliens all around us saw the UFO, their eyes got wide, and they started talking to each other in their horrible-sounding gurgling language.

“We will call off out forces in your dwelling. We advise you to lock all doors and windows, for it’s about to get messy,” the biggest of them said. “Also, keep the ‘Baby WIpe’, as you call it, safe. Don’t let anyone take it.”

We were then escorted inside our house.

“What should we call you guys?” I wondered.

“Call us Octomans. Our enemies, the Whales of Injustice are the other species that have arrived. Be careful around them, they will try to trick you to go against us. If you do go against us, you’ll mighty regret it,” one of our escorts said.

“Is that a threat?” Dad demanded.

“I think it is more like a warning,” with that, they shut the door after us, and we followed their orders in locking everything, not that there was anything much to lock.

We all gathered in my bedroom to look at the Baby Wipe I had found this morning, and out the window.

“So you weren’t kidding,” Mom said, inspecting it.

“Yup,” I agreed, peering out the window.

The aliens that had just arrived left their UFOs. These guys looked even stranger than the Octomans. Their top part, much like the Octomans, was a whale. The bottom part of them, however, had dark, human legs, with beach shorts that said “I love Whales” on them. You could also see their belly button.

Once they rushed out of their craft, they shouted in their language, which, later we were able to get the Octomans to translate as “Whales of Injustice!”

“We should look outside downstairs. We don’t want to draw attention to my bedroom,” I suggested, closing the curtains.

“Why’s that?” Nina demanded.

“Well, the wipe, of course,” I motioned to the Baby Wipe that Mom was inspecting.

We left my room, only to see that the Whales of Injustice were trying to break into our hallway through the windows.

“The windows won’t hold ‘em!” Dad shouted.

“We’ll have to fight them, then!” I replied, quickly grabbing another staff from my room, and making ready to shove them away. This one was better for shoving, for it was not sharp like the other one.

There were three windows lining our hallway. Mom, Dad, and I would stand in front of each one, while Nina, the baby, and Nath stayed sade in the nursery.

“So… what now?” I wondered.

“We wait, I guess,” Dad replied.

When the windows finally broke, we tried to fight them off the best we could. Dad tried pushing them out with the dagger Nath had, while I shoved them with my staff. Mom had to push them out with kitchen knives. But whatever we fought them with, they just grabbed it out of our hands, with their tentacles, or, in the case of the whales, their mouths.

Mostly the tentacles attacked us, which was weird because I thought they were sort of teaming up with us, or at least not attacking us. Are they trying to get inside to get the Baby Wipe? Why don’t they just come inside downstairs? Where the windows aren’t guarded? They said no one gets it, though. Does that mean I can’t give it to them? Man, aliens are so weird and confusing!

After just a few minutes of trying to keep them out, we ran out of things to push them out with.

“We need more stuff! Get your brother!” Mom shouted to me.

I ran into the nursery, looked Nath in the eyes, and told him what he needed to do.

When he got back to the windows from his retrieval mission, he had brought with him toy lightsabers, legos, mini weapons such as fake swords, and tiny wooden shelves, he brought doll stuff Nina used to play with, and a lot more random things.

“Nina’s doll stuff? Where’d you get that!” Mom shouted, shoving a tentacle outside and then attempting to close the window.

“Well, I’ve just kept a few old things of hers. You know, in case she needed it,” he winked.

When Nina was little, she was very into organizing and getting rid of stuff. But a few weeks to a few years after she’d get rid of stuff, she’d want those exact things again. Mom and Dad would make jokes like what Nath did, all the time.

Mom rolled her eyes, grabbed a fake dart gun, and loaded it before her window was forced open again.

“Hey, bro! Could you pass me that baseball bat of yours?” I requested, shoving a tentacle out the window before it choked me to death.

Doing a cheesy-looking flip with his hand, he precariously threw it, javelin-style at me. Instead of grabbing it midair, I moved to the side, and let it hit the eye of a whale.

“Nice shot!” I cheered, grabbing the bat. After many more minutes of Nath passing us random things, Mom Dad, and I shoved them out of the windows, the rate at which they came slowed, and our Dad’s window came to an Octoman that was actually human-sized, instead of being like eight-feet tall.

“Hello, humans,” he said.

His tentacles flowed down his sides, and he wore a uniform -somehow- that had a ton of strange-looking metals.

“I am the human’s communicator between humans and us. I talk to your government and negotiate with them. I am also the leader of these here Octomans,” he gestured outside at the chaos that was unfolding. “I’ve come to negotiate. If you give me the Baby Wipe, we’ll leave you alone and leave with those Whales of Injustice on our tails.”

“What’s so important about the wipe anyways? If you wanted it, then why do I have it?” I questioned.

“Well, the Whales of Injustice and we were fighting over the wipe, then suddenly, a kid with a portal gun showed up, and portaled the wipe out of there. In answer to your first question, the wipe heals anyone it’s being wiped on. For example, if I wiped it over this gash here,” he gestured to a cut on one of his tentacles. “It’ll heal.”

“Cool, but why is it so important?” I wondered.

“Because otherwise, without it, we would lose the war with the whales, therefore dooming our people,” he explained. “That wipe… is the only thing keeping the whales from unleashing their whole army. Their army is like triple the size of ours.”

“Well if it’s so important, I have to give it to you,” I said. “But one of you guys told us to not give it to anyone,” I said.

“Yeah, he did say that, but I revoke his order. He worded it wrong,” the leader replied.

“Alright then, I’ll get it.” I left the conversation, and into my room where the wipe was. 

Looking outside, my heart sank. Our lawn was destroyed. It was going to take hours of hard work to put it back into order again. After all that work, we put into putting it back into order last summer. Grabbing the wipe, I noticed that it had a strange green glow on the outer edges. Huh, that wasn’t like that before. Maybe it senses that the Octomans are near, or something. But then again, it didn’t glow like this earlier.

A few minutes after he left, the rate at which the Octomans and Whales came into the windows slowed to a stop, and we shut all the windows. We went downstairs and examined the mess they left us with.

“These guys are so rude, coming into our house, fighting us, then leaving this mess. I do hope we have no more encounters with these whales and Octomans,” Mom shook her head looking at the broken t.v.

“Do you think there’s insurance for this?” I queried.

Dad just laughed. “No, but if we could present this problem to court, and the Octomans were telling the truth that they speak to the government, maybe we’ll get some money back.”

The new silence was broken by a Whale of Injustice slamming into one of the windows.

“Why haven’t they left yet?” I fumed.

“I dunno. Maybe they can’t get the whales to leave. Or, they are just not holding their end of the bargain,” Dad suggested.

“Ugg! I should’ve made them pinky swear!” I shouted, kicking a fallen whale. It was not breathing, nor were all the other whales in this place. Why didn’t they collect their dead?

“Honey, they don’t have fingers,” Mom pointed out.

Rolling my eyes, I stormed outside.

“Hey, fish brains!” They all stopped what they were doing, and looked at me. “How about instead of fighting, and ruining our lawn some more, how about we play a good old-fashioned game of Basketball? If the Octomans win, they keep the wipe. If the whales win, they get the wipe. Either way, you both leave, and get out of our lives forever! But before you go, clean up this mess!”

They all blinked innocently. The first one to make a move was the leader of the Octomans, who snapped his fingers and a few drones came from his UFO.

“Those are cleaning drones. We Octomans accept this challenge, though we do not know how to play. We have seen it before when we first got to this ‘Earth’,” he said.

“That’s alright, we can teach you,” I responded, then moved my daggered eyes on the Whales of Injustice.

“Hmph. I suppose we could play,” the largest of the whales said in crude English.

“Meet us at the neighborhood basketball court in ten minutes. Don’t forget to put one of those invisible shields over it,” I told.

Nodding, I went back inside.

“What was that about? Did you say something about Basketball?” Mom demanded.

“Yes, I did say that. I told them, since they didn’t leave, that we are going to play a game of Basketball, which will declare who is the winner of the wipe,” I explained.

“Wow, that’s like, actually smart,” Nath commented.

Once again, I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just hope this works.”

We put all our “weapons” away, deciding we won’t do much with them anyway. I got dressed in cooler clothes, with sunglasses, a hat, whistle, and I grabbed our best, and only Basketball.

When we got outside, it was dead. All their UFOs, tents, and stuff from staying the night were still there, but the aliens themselves were gone. There was not a marine animal in sight.

“You know, I would say our lawn looked normal for once, except for all the stuff around,” Dad commented.

We walked through the empty neighborhood/ We could only assume it’s this empty because a Spring Fest is going on downtown. It’s actually quite sad that this neighborhood is empty. We could use a few witnesses for court.

I swear some of these houses shouldn’t be able to be bought, they were so huge. Some of them looked like mini castles, while others looked normal, and some even looked super modern.

The castle-houses had massive turrets, and beautiful stonework on the outside walls, along with gates at the end of their driveway, with cameras. The super modern-looking ones had sick water features, lots of windows, over the top security systems, with huge pools. All the lawns around this place are so pristine, they look like they belong in a magazine.

Our house, on the contrary, looked nothing like any of these. We live in that one house that looks like it doesn’t belong in the neighborhood, the one that is in the valley. All over our lawn, we have dead trees and leaves, along with toys here and there.

            I sighed once we got there; no one was there except the Octomans.

            “Where are the whales? If they’re here too late, they’ll be forced to forfeit,” I said.

            “They’ll be here. They’re just late; like usual,” their leader said.

            “How do you guys speak our language?” I questioned.

            “Well, in this universe, English is the common language everyone speaks. Which everyone, as in all the species, finds strange, because it’s the hardest to learn,” he replied.

            “Wait, there are other species? What’s your name? Do you have one?” Nath wondered.

            “Why, of course, there are other species! There are thousands of species in the universe. You, humans, are known for your foolishness. You are the only species not in the galactic ‘government’,” he answered. “For your second question, you could call me Captain or Mr. Campy.”

“Captain Campy? Do you like to camp or something?” Nina demanded.

“Precisely. Oh look, the whales are here,” Captain Campy said.

“Now that we’re all here, I’ll explain the rules,” I said a few minutes later.

It took a little while, but I managed to fully explain the basic rules of Basketball.

            “So you just have to get the ball into that hoop?” One of the whales questioned, pointing to a fin at the hoop.

            “Correct, Mr…” I responded.

            “Mr. Willy, call me Mr. Willy,” he said.

            “Now that all of you know the rules, let’s get started. Captain Campy and Mr. Willy can be team captains. Captains, choose your team of five people, or creatures, rather,” I announced.

            “We are not creatures! Nor animals, nor aliens! We are Marine Extraterrestrials!” Mr. Willy rebuked.

            “Um, alright. Captains, choose your Marine Extraterrestrials,” I repeated.

The Octomans team consisted of their tallest people, which was saying something because every one of them was already taller than six feet. Most of the people on their team were as tall as, or taller than the basketball hoops.

The Whale of Injustice’s team consisted of their people with the longest, biggest fins.

The game is going to be close, really close. I wonder what their running speed is, especially the Octomans’ speed. They walk with their tentacles like spiders; I wonder if they can run because their suction cups must make it hard to do things. Will they even be able to bounce the basketball?

“We all know the rules, and we chose our teams. I’ll be reff! Get ready!” I announced,

Both teams met up in the middle of the court, as I showed them earlier.

“Ready! Set!” I then blew the whistle and released the basketball high over our heads. Of course, the Octomans get the ball first.

Their leader, Captain Campy had the ball and was trying to dribble as he ran, but to no avail; it never touched the ball.

Blowing my whistle, I then said, “Travel!”

They stopped running, the Octomans went to defensive, and The Whales of Injustice went to offensive and passed the ball in.

I was right; the Octomans can’t dribble. Does this mean the whales have the advantage?

The whales had the ball into play, and were dribbling like pros to the basket, but never made a shot; the Octomans stole the ball just in time. The Octoman with the ball almost moved, but caught themself just in time. I got my whistle ready, almost accidentally blowing it. Instead of dribbling, they passed it to one of their teammates who had moved closer to the scoring hoop. This went on, the whales trying to block and steal the ball, while Octomans played offensive and passed it. Eventually, the Octomans got it to the basket. The Octoman jumped, then scraped the ball off his suction cups and through the basket.

“Score!” I shouted.

“Aww man, does this mean that we’re done?” One of the whales queried.

“Nope. We’re going to play this for about six more minutes. The team with the highest score at that time wins. Bit if there’s a tie, there’ll be over time,” I explained.

“What’s overtime?” An Octoman questioned.

“I’ll explain if we get there. Hand me the ball, the whales get to pass it in,” I responded.

They passed in the ball, and the game continued. I called like a dozen or so travel fouls to the Octomans and a few personal fouls to the whales. The whales’ fins slapped Marine Extraterrestrials on accident sometimes, when dribbling, because they were so big.

Tweet! “Travel,” I shouted.

The Octomans turned, ran, and tackled me, tentacles, and freaky eyes flying everywhere. The basketball went towards the whales.

“Penalty! Penalty!” I shouted, falling to the ground from their weight.

A few minutes later, we managed to calm them down and devise a plan.

“Alright, since you guys clearly can’t play very well physically, why don’t my family and I play for you. Nina can be referee while watching the baby, while everyone else plays,” I suggested.

So here we are now, a few minutes later, Nina holding the ball between me and the whales.

“You ready to go against the Basketball champ?” I demanded.

“You ready to go against the Basketball noob; as you call me?” Mr. Willy answered.

“Oh yeah, I am. I mean, I do carry my team at games,” I replied.

“Carry?” He never got to know what I meant, because Nina blew the whistle and threw the ball up.

I snatched the ball and zipped past Mr. Willy. The whales tried to steal the ball, but I was too fast for them. Over three minutes, I passed, shot, and feigned the ball all over the place, raising the score ten to three. Of course, my team had a score of ten.

“That was the best. I never realized that humans could be so fun and innovative,” Mr. Willy said.

“Oh, we can be a lot more fun than that. Well, not that we’ve finished, our clear winner is the Octomans. Now it’s your guys’ turn to fulfill your side of the promise. I guess this is goodbye,” I announced.

“It was an honor to see the human culture, and partake in a game of Basketball to get our wipe back,” Mr. Campy said.

“Yeah, what he said,” Mr. Willy agreed.

“I’m glad you guys had fun. Now, not to be rude or a bad hostess, but could you please take your troops and leave? It’s sundown,” I invited.

“Yes, we may leave; we owe that much to you,” Mr. Campy said, waving his troops, and leaving.

Mr. Willy sighed, “thank you, I do believe playing this Basketball game bonded our two people. Hopefully, when we get back to space, we’ll be able to stop this unnecessary war between our peoples.”

“You’re welcome, I just have two questions before you leave. How do you block our satellites from detecting you? Why are you guys fighting in the first place? You guys have so much in common,” I questioned.

“We have our ways. For your other question, let’s just say that when two peoples are very similar, they can have a lot of disagreements,” Mr. Willy then ordered his people to follow him, and they marched off towards our house.

            “Well, that was crazy,” Dad commented.

            “Yeah, and it was so cool,” Nath added.

Once we got home, we gave the Octomans their wipe and waved goodbye to the departing Marine Extraterrestrials then went out and got ice cream. Why? To celebrate being the first humans to ever ward off two alien species from our planet.