Ciara O’Neil, aged 7 from Porchester, Hampshire
 

The Mysterious Planet
 

It might have been the world’s most beautiful night. No moon, stars like searchlights. A thin layer of ice covered every branch and leaf and blade of grass. It was perfectly, eerily still. Nothing rustled the hedges and I could imagine rabbits and badgers rolled up tight in their underground dens. It took the haunting scream of an owl to tear me out of my dream. It reminded me that I was not here to enjoy nature. There was work to be done.

For weeks my friends and I in the Superstar Astronomy Club had been watching a mysterious new planet, which seemed to be spinning in circles in the sky. Last night it had stopped and was coming nearer to Earth. My friends and I had decided to meet tonight in a clearing in the forest on the top of Oaktree Hill, so that we could view the new planet.

As I arrived at the clearing with my brother Cian, I could see that Amy had already arrived with her brother Morgan. They were sitting on a rock wrapped up snugly in their coats, scarves and hats. Cian made a sound like an owl, which made Amy jump. “Hello”, said Amy, “You frightened me”. “Hurry up, Amy”, I said, “We need to set up our telescopes in case the planet disappears”.

We set our telescopes on two cube-shaped rocks and began to look at the planet. The planet was a yellow colour and it had a purple ring around it. I could see lots of craters on the surface. As I studied the planet I thought I saw something fly out of one of the craters. I could not believe my eyes so I cleaned my telescope lens and looked again. “That’s better”, I said to Cian, “That’s a much better view”. As usual Cian nagged me to have a look himself. As he was looking at the planet he shouted “Flying saucer!” “I don’t believe you”, I said, “Let me have a look”. As Cian and I were fighting over the telescope, Amy shouted, “He’s right, come and have a look through my telescope!” I rushed over to Amy only to find that Morgan had beaten me to it. “Let me have a look”, I shouted. “No it’s my turn,” screamed Morgan. Everyone was fighting over the telescopes. We all became so excited that we all ended up falling on the ground.

As we lay on the ground we looked up into the sky and could now see the flying saucer with our own eyes. The flying saucer was silver with a gold ring and flashing lights around its edge. It was getting closer and closer and seemed to be coming towards us. As it got nearer I could hear a sound like our washing machine spinning our clothes dry. The noise got louder and the lights became brighter. We were all very scared and could not move. We had never seen anything like it before. It became windier as it got closer. Our telescopes blew over and Cian’s hat blew off and disappeared into the trees. I closed my eyes, as I was so scared. Suddenly everything went quiet. I slowly opened my eyes and saw that the flying saucer had landed in the clearing. The flashing lights around its edge were blinding and we had to try to cover our eyes. Then the lights went out. “What’s going to happen next?” I asked myself.

Everything was still for a few minutes. “What’s happening Ciara?” asked Cian, who still had his hands over his eyes. ”Shsshh”, I said, “They’re going to hear you.” As I watched the flying saucer there was a buzzing sound and a long blue tube came out from underneath it. The tube snaked towards us. It stopped about a metre in front of me. Suddenly a green liquid oozed from it and formed a puddle on the ground. “Urgh, disgusting!” said Cian. The liquid divided itself into two and then to our amazement turned into two aliens. They were green, the size of rugby balls and covered in fluffy fur. Both of them had two blue eyes on long stalks coming from the top of their head and they each had a mouth in the middle of their body.

One of the aliens looked at Cian and said, “Blobby, blob, blob, wibble, wobble.” “What’s he saying?” asked Cian. An arm came from the side of one of the aliens and turned a dial on his belly. “Wibble, wobble, parlez-vous Francais?” he asked loudly. “I think he’s speaking French”, said Amy. “What’s he saying?” asked Cian again. The alien turned the dial on his belly again. “Je suis une blob from planet Blob in the galaxy Blobby Minor, I am Wibble and this is my friend Wobble. Do you speak English?” I was too scared to speak but Cian shouted, “I do!” “We have been travelling the Milky Way on our holidays and we visited your planet 10 million of your Earth years ago”, explained the one called Wobble. “The animals on your planet were a lot bigger then.” “Look at that one,” said Wibble pointing at Cian, “He would have got stuck in between a T-Rex’s teeth.” Shivering with fright I told the aliens that the dinosaurs had disappeared a long time ago and I asked them why they had come back.

The aliens looked at us with a puzzling grin and said, “We have come back for our blurbles.” “Blurbles? What on earth are blurbles?” asked Morgan. The aliens looked at each other and seemed to laugh. “Your telescopes are on them,” said Wobble.

We all turned around to see what our telescopes were standing on. “They’re only rocks,” said Amy, “You’ve come all this way just for pieces of rock?” “They’re not rocks, they’re blurbles,” explained Wibble, ”We made them look like rocks so the dinosaurs wouldn’t eat them. We use them when we travel the universe and it was when we were in the Blibble Way that Wobble remembered we had left them here.” “What do they do?” I asked, looking rather puzzled. “We’ll show you,” said Wobble. With that the two aliens made their way to the cube rock shapes. “Would you please move your telescopes,” said Wobble. Amy and I folded up our telescopes and put them on the ground. As the aliens stood over the two cube-shaped rocks, telescopic arms appeared from inside their bodies and hovered over the rocks. Slowly the rocks started to open up. “Wow, that’s fantastic!” I gasped. The inside of each blurble looked like a giant TV with scenes from far away galaxies. We stood mesmerised. The different solar systems appeared before us – it was an astronomer’s paradise. We saw all different types of planets, comets and we even glimpsed a closer look at the sun. The evolving pictures showed us what it was like on Blob and the galaxy Blobby Minor.

“Can we have one, can we have one?” I shouted. “No”, said Wobble, “If we leave one then other people from your planet will know we were here and we could not run that risk.” With that the aliens turned back into liquid and went into their flying saucer. The machine took off with its flashing lights shining brightly. As they disappeared I thought I heard the aliens having an argument. We all shouted, “Goodbye!” as the flying saucer slowly disappeared out of sight. In silence we all packed up our telescopes. I realised that mine was broken when it blew over as the aliens had landed. I picked it up and walked home in silence with the others.

When I met up with Amy the next day, we agreed to go back to Oaktree Hill that night as we had both had a strange feeling that something was going to happen. That evening, as we walked up Oaktree Hill, we were surprised to find that the flying saucer had already landed and Wibble and Wobble were both waiting for us.

“Where are the other two?” the aliens asked. “They are at home,” Amy replied. “What have you been doing at school today?” the aliens asked. “Nothing much,” I said, “I’ve been sad as I broke my telescope last night”. At that point the aliens went back into their flying saucer and took off. As the flying saucer rose into the sky I heard Wobble shout, “Perhaps this will help!” and a large object landed on the ground with a ‘thud’. It was a blurble. On it was a note, which said:

Dear Friends,

We have left you blurble, so you can talk to us and see us, when we’re not there.

Going back to Blobby Minor…..blobby kisses xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Although we never saw Wibble and Wobble in person again, we often sat on Oaktree Hill with our blurble tuned into the solar system, and talked to our alien friends as they travelled the Universe on their adventures.

Ciara O’Neil

top