Short Story: Friends from Moon

By Pranika Sharma

In a small town of India, there once lived a girl named Shreya. She was very curious about outer space. Every night she would stare at the sky in the hope of discovering a new marvel in the Universe. She wished to see aliens.

She had read many books, magazines and watched several shows on aliens and space. All of these stated that no aliens were found yet. And this made her even more determined to be the first one to meet them.

One day while eating dinner, she was looking outside her window. Everything around was quiet. The stars were shining and it seemed like the moon was smiling at her. And suddenly, she saw something that she was looking for! She quickly ran outside to get her telescope and focused on it. A bright blue light was coming from a tiny UFO.

Curved roof, flat bottom, it really looked like one! It looked like it’s coming towards her home. Swinging this way and that way, it finally landed in her home garden. It was smaller than she had imagined. 

It was dark! Her parents were not home, and her elder brother was too busy playing video games.

Suddenly, the gate of the UFO slid open and through it, she saw a tiny, 3-foot high alien in a spacesuit! Shreya was hiding behind a tree and watching what they would do next. The alien in the spacesuit turned left, then right, and looked back and front. Then, it swung itself round and round for 5 seconds and stopped. It made some unusual noises.

They were three in number. One of them was very small, about less than one foot. The first who stepped out of the UFO, took out a huge flag from its pocket and harshly hoisted it on the ground. Suddenly, Shreya felt ticklish inside her nose and as much as she tried, she could not stop letting out a big and loud sneeze.

The aliens were alarmed. One by one, quickly, they started to get inside their UFO. Shreya ran and tried to stop them. She caught hold of the little alien before it could get in. The other aliens did not realise its absence and zoomed back. It started yelling, but all in vain. Shreya told the alien that she couldn’t understand what it meant.

So, the alien took out a device that looked like wireless earphones and put one in Shreya’s ear. She could hear and understand it perfectly. It said, “Hello, can you understand me?” Shreya shook her head in disbelief. “Ok, my name is Ugbgyl and I am the king of my planet.”

Shreya was surprised to know that she had caught the king. But why was he so small? She asked him. He said that on his planet, the smallest was considered the largest and the most majestic on the planet. She asked why they were so angry while hoisting their flag in her garden. “Well”, said King Ugbgyl, “Humans have put so many flags on our planet, we get very angry as it ruins our planet’s beauty. “Which is your planet?” asked Shreya.

“Moon. Tell me your name, little girl?” he asked. “My name is Shreya,” she was astonished that so many people have gone to the Moon and none have come across these aliens. Shreya enquired, “So, now what will you do? How will you return to the Moon?”

“I can send an alert to my guards using this button. They will soon come to take me. But till then, do you have any rice? It’s my favourite meal,” said the king, pushing the big green button.

Perhaps they have green rather than red for alert on their planet, Shreya thought as she led King Ugbgyl into her house. She went to the kitchen. Her mother had taught her how to cook, so she cooked rice for him. He ate very slowly and kept talking to her. He told her about the problem of moonlets (which is what they called trees). There were very few of them left, and so no one could easily write things and even obtain paper.

Also, without moonlets, he emphasised, that they would die due to lack of nitrogen, a gas that was essential for their survival.

By the time the king finished eating, the UFO landed in the garden. The king rushed towards it and Shreya quickly grabbed her pen and gave it to him as a souvenir.

The king shouted from the UFO as it rose high above in the air, “Don’t tell anyone about us! We will remember you!”

Shreya was very happy. Many light years later, the aliens on the moon returned to Earth and remembered her as the greatest saviour of all.