by Dulcinea Norton-Smith –
Tommy lay on his stomach staring into the pond. Fish darted in and out of the shadowy depths, playing hide and seek behind watery plants and stones. Little bugs skittered across the surface of the pond leaving tiny ripples, and every so often a dragonfly hovered around Tommy’s head with shimmery opalescent wings moving so fast he could hardly see them. As the sun warmed his back Tommy trailed his fingers in the water to cool down. The water was cool and silky and … squidgy?
Tommy peered into the water to try and see what squidgy thing his fingers were feeling, but he couldn’t see a thing—just water. He lifted his fingers out but they were clean—no green slime, no pond weeds. He put his hand in the water again and…there it was! Slimy squidginess. He clamped his hand around the slime to pull it out of the water, but before his hand breached the surface the squidge had slipped through his fingers. He tried again and again but each time the invisible squidge slipped away.
Tommy ran into the house. His mum was in the kitchen.
“Mum, Mum,” he said. “There’s an alien in the pond.”
Mum looked up from her book and took a sip of her coffee before answering. “Is this like the vampire you thought you saw in the attic last week?”
“That was a vampire!” exclaimed Tommy.
“It was a bat, Tommy, just a bat,” said Mum.
“Exactly—a vampire,” said Tommy, happy that he had proved his point. “How can I catch the alien, Mum?”
Tommy’s mum sighed. She had learned it was sometimes easier to go along with Tommy’s schemes than try to win him over with logic. “Okay, what does the alien look like?” she asked.
“It’s invisible,” said Tommy.
Tommy’s mum stared at him for a moment. She suddenly looked a bit tired. Good thing she’s got coffee, Tommy thought.
“How do you know there is an alien in the pond if it is invisible, Tommy?” asked Mum.
“I felt it. It was slimy. How can I catch it?”
“Ah!” said Mum, smiling. “I think I might know what your alien is.” She handed Tommy a jam jar. “Take this and try to catch the alien with it. Make sure you get a bit of water in there too.”
Tommy took the jam jar and set off back to the pond. Once again he lay down on his stomach. Once again he peered into the water. Once again he couldn’t see anything. He put his hand into the water, and there it was! The alien slime was still there but he still couldn’t grasp any.
Tommy plunged the glass jar into the water and scooped it out. He held it up to the sunlight and there it was—the alien! Now that it was out of the pond he could see that the alien, covered with just a bit of water, was almost see-through. It looked like lots of little slimy bubbles joined up together, each one with a black dot in the middle.
Tommy ran back to the house.
“Mum, Mum, look. I caught the alien!” he shouted as he ran into the kitchen where he found Mum filling up his old fish bowl with water.
Mum smiled and nodded. “Thought so,” she said. “You found frogspawn. Put it in here.”
Tommy poured the alien into the fish bowl. It slobbered and slithered out of the jar into the bowl with a PLOP. “Frog’s what?” he asked.
“Frogspawn,” replied Mum. “Frog’s eggs. Each one of those tiny dots will soon turn into a tiny fish called a tadpole and then eventually they will turn into frogs.”
Tommy looked at Mum dubiously. “I really think it might be an alien, Mum,” he said, peering into the bowl.
“We’ll see,” said Mum, placing the bowl on the table. “We’ll see.”
Every morning and every evening Tommy sat at the kitchen table and stared at his alien. Slowly each tiny dot began to stretch until they looked like bigger black dots with wiggly tails.
Two weeks after catching the alien, Tommy came down for breakfast and, as usual, checked on it.
“Mum!” he shouted as he looked in the bowl. ”MUM!”
She ran in. “What, what, are you okay?” she asked in a panicky voice.
“My alien has turned into loads of aliens,” Tommy said, squinting into the bowl and watching twenty tiny black aliens swim around.
“Tadpoles.” Mum laughed. “Not aliens. Tadpoles are baby frogs.”
“Sure, Mum,” said Tommy, rolling his eyes. “Baby frogs.” Tommy shook his head. It was tough having a Mum who didn’t know anything. He looked at the tiny black wiggling things. Definitely an alien life form he thought.
Tommy continued to watch his aliens for a long time. Weeks and weeks passed and they didn’t change. Every day he looked at Mum with a told-you-so sort of a smile as each day they remained unchanged and absolutely un-frog like.
Then one day Tommy looked at the aliens and realized they had changed.
“Mum!” he shouted as he looked in the bowl. ”MUM!”
She ran in. “What, what, are you okay?” she said in a panicky voice.
“My aliens have grown legs,” Tommy said. In the bowl each wiggly little alien had grown two little back legs.
“That’s what tadpoles do, Tommy,” said Mum, giving Tommy a told-you-so sort of a smile. “They are starting to turn into frogs.”
Tommy looked at Mum with one eyebrow raised. She really wasn’t giving up. But Tommy knew an alien when he saw one.
“Frogs are green, Mum, and they don’t have tails. These are obviously aliens.”
“Okay, Tommy,” said Mum. “We’ll see.”
Several more weeks passed and the aliens grew bigger. Their tails started to shrink and then disappeared altogether. Each time Tommy noticed a change he told his mum, and each time Mum said, “That’s what tadpoles and frogs do.” Tommy sighed. He was not able to get through to his mum.
One day Tommy came downstairs to visit his aliens. Mum was already in the kitchen holding the bowl up, peering into it. Inside all of the aliens were swimming around with strong green back legs and looking very squished in the tiny fish tank.
“It’s time to put the frogs back in the pond, Tommy,” she said.
“Aliens, Mum,” Tommy corrected.
“Aliens then,” said Mum, giving one of those smiles that Tommy knew meant she didn’t really believe him.
There was no point arguing with a non-believer. “Okay, Mum,” he said. “I will put the ‘frogs’ in the pond.”
Tommy took the bowl out to the pond and knelt down. He placed the bowl on the grass and tipped it on its side so that the aliens could hop out on their own. One by one they hopped out of the bowl and one by one they plopped into the pond until the last four aliens hopped out. They turned all together until they were facing Tommy, who was now lying on his stomach, just like he had been on the day they first met.
“Not going into the pond with the rest of your friends?” asked Tommy.
The four aliens looked at Tommy. Then one hopped closer and said, “Ribbitt.”
“Oh,” said Tommy, looking a bit puzzled. “See you later then.” He couldn’t help feeling disappointed not to have been the first kid on his street to make contact with an alien life force.
“He-hem,” coughed the alien. “Sorry about that. Had a bit of a frog in my throat. To answer your question, we are going to leave the rest of our friends here. It’s time for us to go and explore our new world.” He blinked his purple eyes at Tommy and smiled. “Excuse us, could you move over a bit? You are lying on our space ship.”
Tommy sat up and looked underneath him. All he could see was a large flat rock.
“All together guys,” shouted the purple-eyed alien as he hopped onto the rock and bounced up and down. His three friends joined him, and after a couple of hops, the rock suddenly popped up like a balloon until it looked like a big grey beach ball. The top flipped open and the aliens hopped in.
“Thanks for giving us a place to stay,” called the purple-eyed alien as he hopped inside. “See you later.”
The space ship floated up into the air then floated higher and higher until it disappeared from sight.
Tommy waved goodbye to the aliens in the space ship.
“Byeee,” said the aliens who had stayed behind in the pond, their rainbow-colored eyes blinking at Tommy.
As Tommy walked into the kitchen, his mum gave him a smile. “How are the frogs?” she asked. “Happy in their new home?”
“Aliens, Mum,” said Tommy. “Aliens.”
“Sure, Tommy, aliens,” said Mum, giving Tommy a disbelieving smile.
Tommy gave her a special smile back. Mums, will they never learn? As he turned to leave, he saw a pair of froggy alien eyes peeping in through the kitchen window give him wink.
the end.
Question Time
1. What did Tommy find in the pond?
2. What did Tommy’s mum think it was?
3. How did the “aliens” change from week to week?
4. What happened to the aliens at the end?
