This story I wrote freshman year of college (circa Spring semester 2003) for a creative writing class. Got an A+! I've been looking everywhere for it for the last year or so and couldn't find it anywhere. I went to visit my parents this week and my mom had put aside a pile of my old stuff in the basement for me to sort through, and look what I found! A hard copy was set neatly inside an old school folder! I did a little editing, but it may still be a little rough, just so you're forewarned. Also, I tried to keep it in the voice of a 10 year old boy, but I might have lapsed into grown up lingo at a point or two. Just pretend he's a smart 10 year old.
The idea was inspired by a Christmas song that played at the KB Toys I worked at that year. It's called 'I Want An Alien For Christmas' by Fountains of Wayne. If you want to read the lyrics or listen to it you should be able to Google it. It's a cute song.
***
It was still dark out when I awoke that Christmas morning two years ago. My Buzz Lightyear clock said it was only 5:30, but my excitement got the better of me. I threw off my blankets and ran downstairs to the living room. In front of the big bay window, the tall evergreen sparkled with lights and tinsel. Then my eyes fell onto the presents. Dozens of packages sat in piles around the tree, the shiny wrapping paper reflecting the string of lights.
I sat down on the floor, staring up at the tree in wonder. I almost wanted the moment to last forever (except that i wanted to open all the presents), but it ended when something behind the tree moved. I jumped to my feet, ran to the wall and flipped up the light switch. All I saw was a big Christmas tree with lots of presents surrounding it. I cautiously moved forward, squinting into the tree branches. As I watched, one of the branches started to sway up and down!
Swallowing my fear, I made an attempt at bravado.
"He-hello?" I squeaked out. My throat was suddenly very dry. "Who's th-there?" Surely it couldn't be Santa back there, could it?
There was a sound that slightly resembled chipmunk chatter, and a hand slowly appeared from behind the tree. It was green and had three long, slender fingers. Then came the arm, and then a head. The head was also green, and was oval shaped with two antenna and... I did a quick count of all it's eyes. Seventeen, in all. Seventeen eyes across it's face. The eyes all blinked at once, the mouth below smiled, and it waved it's fingers at me. When it stepped entirely out from behind the tree, it was only about three feet high, a few inches shorter than I was. We stared at each other for a few minutes, then it floated off the floor and hovered, smiling down at me. This was way cooler than a bike or a basketball, or Aunt Edna's traditional ugly sweaters. I had gotten an alien for Christmas!
"What's your name?" I asked it.
"What's your name?" it asked back.
"Wayne," I said.
"Wayne," it said.
"Wow! Your name's Wayne, too? I've never met another Wayne before!"
Suddenly Wayne looked confused, but then smiled again and said, "Wayne."
I could hardly contain my excitement. "Wait till Mom and Dad see you! We're gonna have so much fun! We can hang around the house all day and watch The Twilight Zone, and then in the spring when it get nice, we can go for walks in the park! I can teach you how to skateboard and you can teach me how to fly!"
As Wayne smiled at me, still not saying anything back, I heard footsteps and then my Mom's voice.
"Wayne, who are you-" Then she screamed. She stood in the doorway to the living room looking up at Wayne, screaming. Wayne screamed back, echoing Mom's cry, and slowly lowered himself to the floor. Mom stopped screaming and fainted. Dad now stood there in the doorway looking stunned. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face.
"Santa sure was good to you, huh, Sport?"
"Sport," Wayne said.
I grinned. What was not to like?
***
For the rest of my week off from school, I did almost nothing but play with Wayne. I thought my Mom was going to have a heart attack when she saw us flying through the kitchen and up the stairs (Well, Wayne was really the one flying, and he was carrying me because I can't fly on my own). We played video games, and we had a snowball fight in the backyard, and we also built snowmen! Only Wayne's was more like a snow-alien. Then we had a cool New Year's Eve party, and Wayne and I got sparkling grape juice, and we were allowed to stay up past midnight! But when Wayne drank his juice, the fizz made him float up to the ceiling and he was stuck up there for almost half an hour before he finally belched and started to float back down to the floor. It reminded me of the Fizzy Lifting Drink in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
The day after New Year's rolled around too quickly for me, and I had to wake up early and go back to school. I got out of bed and was getting ready when I noticed Wayne watching me, each of his seventeen eyes drowning behind walls of tears. His lower lip was quivering.
"I'm sorry, Wayne," I said. "You can't come to school with me. But I'll be back at three o'clock, I promise."
But instead of this cheering him up, he now started to bawl with his face hidden in his hands. I had no idea how I could cheer him up. I couldn't bring him, i just couldn't. He was way too big to fit in my book bag, and fourth graders didn't have lockers. What would I do with him all day?
An hour later, I was sitting at my desk at desk at school, casually waiting for class to start. The other kids kept looking at the desk next to me, then giving me strange looks. The teacher finally walked in (five minutes late, as usual), went straight to the front of the room, and looked out at the class. For a second, he looked like my mom had on Christmas, just before she'd fainted.
"Okay," Mr Carver said. "Has everyone brought something they got from Santa? Who wants to go first?"
That's right! I had forgotten all about show and tell day!
A girl with blond pigtails immediately shot her hand into the air with much enthusiasm. "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me, Mr Carver, please pick me!"
Mr Carver did and Pigtails jumped out from behind her desk, nearly knocking it over in her excitement.
"I got this!" she squealed. She held out her necklace for everyone to see. It was something that looked like it might be a key, only it had some kind of silvery-bluish glowing gemstone embedded in it. Everyone ogled at it.
"Keeeey," Wayne said, pointing at the shiny stone.
"That's very pretty," Mr Carver said. "What does it go to"
Pigtails shrugged. "I dunno," she said. "But I like it. It's shiny."
Mr Carver nodded. "So it is," he said. "All right, thank you Julie, you can take your seat. Who's next?" He was eyeing Wayne curiously. "Wayne! Why don't you introduce the class to your new friend?"
I stood up and led Wayne to the front of the room.
"This is Wayne," I said. "He showed up on Christmas, I found him hiding behind our tree. He's really cool! He knows how to fly!" Wayne floated up to the ceiling and glided around the room to demonstrate. "And he can move things without touching them!" Wayne pointed at the chalk and the white piece floated up and wrote out 'Greetings' on the blackboard. "And he's really, really good at Tony Hawk 4! He beat the whole game in an hour!"
Everyone was in awe, staring at the little green guy flying around the room.
"Does anyone have any questions?" Mr Carver asked the class. Every hand in the room shot into the air.
"Joey," I called out.
"What's he eat?" Joey asked.
"Everything, almost," I answered. "He really loves chocolate. When he drinks anything fizzy, like pop, he floats and can't get down again 'till he burps." I looked around for the next question and decided to choose Matt.
"Where's he from?"
I thought for a moment. "I don't know," I shrugged. "He's never said."
Wayne floated over to the window and pointed to the sky. "From," he said.
Next, I called on Brian.
"In Tony Hawk 4, how do you-"
"Mr Carver!" a girl up front with huge buck teeth whined. "Wayne is only calling on the boys!"
"All right Stephanie, what is your question?" Mr Carver asked her.
"Does he miss his family?"
Wayne looked back up at the sky. "Family," he said sadly. "Miss."
The room fell suddenly silent.
"Any more questions?" Mr Carver asked. When there was no answer, he said, "Okay, thank you, Wayne and Wayne. Cynthia, why don't you come up next?"
The rest of the day was very boring, hearing about the fire trucks, bikes, sleds and video games everyone else had gotten. I sat at my desk next to Wayne, longing for the end of the day when we could go out and play in the snow and drink hot chocolate. But when we got home, Wayne didn't want to play. Instead, he went right to bed and didn't even eat dinner. I tried to cheer him up, but he was really sad. He really missed his family.
"But we can be your family now," I tried to tell him.
But he just shut his teary eyes, rolled over, and cried a mournful, "Family. Miss."
***
As the winter went on and the days got sunnier and longer, Wayne seemed to be cheering up. I got him to play Tony Hawk with me, and I let him win the first couple times, but then he started getting cocky so I had to show him what I was made of. He still won.
Spring finally came, and as I had promised him months earlier, we went for walk in the park on a nice sunny Saturday afternoon. I brought two skateboards and convinced Wayne to try it out. The helmet was a little lopsided on his oval head, but the antenna poking through the holes in the top held it in place. He had a little trouble getting started (especially since his legs were really more like tentacles), but every time he was about to fall, he would fly up into the air before he hit the ground. That was one power I wished I had, because when we finally started back home, I had ripped my jeans and scraped both my hands, but Wayne didn't have a mark on him.
When we got home, a strange car was parked in the driveway. The license plate said FBA1. I immediately had a bad feeling.
"Wayne, go fly in through the window and hide in my room, okay?"
"Okay," Wayne said. He lifted off from the ground and flew to the back of the house.
I walked up to the front door and reached for the knob but it opened before I even started to turn it.
A man stood in the doorway, wearing dark sunglasses, a black suit, black tie, black shoes, and a white shirt, with a buzz cut. He looked like he'd just stepped out of the movie Men In Black.
"Wayne Thompson?" he asked.
I looked past him into the living room and saw another man dressed the exact same way, talking to my parents.
"Yeah, I'm Wayne," I answered.
"I'm Agent One, FBA," he said.
"FBA?" I asked.
"Federal Bureau of Alienation," he said. "Are you harboring an alien being here?"
"No," I lied. "Should I be?"
Agent One motioned me inside and closed the door. "On the night of December the 24th, an unknown alien craft made an emergency landing in the woods three miles from here," he said. "We haven't found the ship, but we believe the alien somehow climbed down your chimney. Since Christmas morning, we've had reports of an alien life form on and around these premises. Keeping an alien life form is in violation of the Intergalactic Harboring Treaty. We're here to collect said life form for debriefing and neutralization."
I didn't know exactly what he meant by that, but it didn't sound good.
"Well, there's no alien here," I said. "But I'll keep my eyes open for one."
The other agent came over. "They say there isn't any alien here," he said, motioning toward my parents.
"Thank you, Agent Two," Agent One said. "All right, folks. We're leaving. But if we receive any more intelligence about an alien in this area, we'll be back. That's a promise."
Dad followed them to the door, slammed it behind them, and turned to me.
He sighed before speaking. "I'm sorry sport. You've got to let him go."
"No! But Dad-"
"I'm sorry, Wayne, that's the way it has to be. You don't want these nuts from the FBA to get him, do you?"
"No," I mumbled.
"I'll go see if I can find his ship," Dad said sadly. "Maybe I can help him fix it."
I dragged my feet up the stairs to my room and slammed the door.
"Hide," I heard Wayne's muffled voice say. I opened the closet and a pile of stuffed animals spilled out, with Wayne on top. He grinned up at me. "Wayne hide!"
I sat down on my bed and watched Wayne stand up.
"I've got some bad news, buddy," I said.
"Bad news," Wayne repeated. He wasn't grinning anymore.
"You have to leave," I told him. "You can't stay with us anymore."
"Stay!" he insisted firmly. "Wayne stay!"
I shook my head. "You can't stay. It isn't safe. There are people looking for you. Bad people. We have to find your ship so you can go be with your family."
Wayne pointed at me. "Family."
"No, your real family." I pointed out the window to the sky.
"Miss Wayne," he said quietly.
"I'll miss you too, buddy."
It was quiet for a moment. Then Wayne yelled out, "Key!"
"Key? What key?" I asked.
"Key! Ship! Family!"
"You need a key for your ship?" I asked.
Wayne was very excited now. He grabbed me around the middle and took off out the window.
We'd never flown this fast or this high before. Houses hundreds of feet below zoomed by in a blur. Then, suddenly, Wayne began to drop down.
"Slow down, Wayne!" I yelled. "We're gonna-"
We hit the ground, hard, in someone's front yard and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop.
"-Crash," I finished. I jumped to my feet and looked around. We were in front of a big, white, three story house.
"Keeey," Wayne said, pointing to the front door.
"The key's in the house?"
"Keeey." He was still pointing.
I walked to the door and rang the bell. A grown-up lady opened it and looked down at me.
"Oh, you must be one of Julie's friends from school!" she said. "Oh, Julie!" she called over her shoulder. "One of your little friends is here to see you!"
Who was Julie? Did I know Julie?
A little blond girl with pigtails, wearing a shiny necklace bounced up to the door.
"Hi Wayne!" she greeted me.
"Julie?" I said uncertainly. Then it dawned on my. "Oh! Julie! Hi! You're in my class!"
Her face went from welcoming and excited, to perplexed. "Um. Yeah."
I grinned and leaned against the door jamb. "So, anyway. What's up?"
Her eyebrows scrunched. "You're the one who rang my doorbell, remember?"
"Keeey," said a voice from the bushes next to the door. I looked down to the side and saw several of Wayne's eyes looking up out of the shrubbery.
"Is that Wayne?" Julie asked.
Wayne came out from behind the bushes, pointing at Julie's necklace. "Keeey," he said again.
"Julie, I need your necklace," I said.
Her eyes popped huge and she grabbed the key that dangled from the chain protectively. "Why?"
"It's a long story," I said. "Please?"
"Ship," Wayne said. He took each of us by an arm and flew off again.
"Where's he taking us?" Julie screamed.
"To his ship!" I yelled back. "He's going home!"
Houses were becoming fewer and farther between, and a thickly wooded area was approaching. As we flew over the trees, I saw a gaping area, circular in shape, where the trees had been flattened. The area grew larger as Wayne went into a dive.
"Wayne!" I shouted. "Slow down! We're gonna crash! Again!"
We continued to dive, and at the last possible second Wayne righted himself, pointing his feet toward the ground and we stopped, hovering in midair two feet above the ground.
Wayne dropped us and grinned, pointing at his tentacle-like feet. "Airbrakes."
Julie turned around and gasped. "Wow. A spaceship."
I turned too, and saw a large pentagon shape embedded in the dirt at the end of a long skid.
"Keeey," Wayne said, pointing at Julie's necklace again.
"Your necklace is the key to his ship," I explained to her. "He needs it to get home to his family."
"But-"
"The FBA is going to get him if he doesn't leave!" She still hesitated. "Julie! Trust me!"
She finally took off her necklace and handed it to Wayne. He went to the ship and put the key into the center of the door and turned it. With a hiss, the door lifted up and a ramp lowered. Wayne stepped onto it, then paused and turned back.
"Wayne miss," he said. His eyes were wet again.
"I know," I said. "Me too."
He turned again and walked into the ship. The ramp raised and the door closed. The engine started and the ship hovered for a moment before slowly rising up above the tree line and taking off. We stood and watched him go until the tears in my eyes made it nearly impossible to pick out out the little blurry speck in the distant sky. I sniffed and quickly wiped my eyes. Julie put a hand on my shoulder.
"It'll be okay," she said. "He's going to be with his family now. Where he belongs."
***
It's been two years since I got that surprise for Christmas. Every time I look up at the sky, I think of Wayne. I don't think I'll ever forget that little green guy about three feet high, who had seventeen eyes and knew how to fly. And every Christmas I will be filled with the hope that when I run downstairs to open presents, I'll see some of Wayne's eyes peering out at me from behind the Christmas tree branches, and I can see my very best friend in the whole universe just one more time.
***
So there you have it. Thoughts? Comments help me improve and let me know that people are reading! You may also e-mail me if you don't want to leave a public comment, at rengoe84@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading!
Ren
