By Anne E. Johnson –
What a shimmery morning on planet Ek-Trila-19! A sleepy trilk named Zebbo opened his four giant eyes and gazed over his steamy slime swamp. The smaller sun was already visible, shining on the lavender goop that Zebbo called home. Soon the larger sun would follow, and the swamp steam would burn off into the orange atmosphere. This was much nicer weather than last week.
“RrrrAWRRRR!” In Zebbo’s ball-shaped body, his stomach gurgled. He pulled up out of the slime with a shloop!, balancing on his three rubbery legs. Without moving, he studied the surface of the slime. A school of shinglefish cut through the muck like black knives. Zebbo plunged in, scooping with his jaw. Fifteen shinglefish were hanging from his teeth when he came up for air, and he chewed his breakfast hungrily.
Feeling contented, Zebbo breathed in the gloriously stinky morning air through holes on top of his body. Rotating with each step of his long blue legs, he made his way to the dry bank and sat down. With a constant “blub-glub, blub-glub,” the Big Slime River churned its glistening glop into the many little swamps along its path.
“May I sit with you, Zebbo?” he heard somebody thinking. Nobody on Ek-Trila-19 could talk, so instead they sent thoughts to each other.
Before Zebbo could see who it was, Laaa plopped down next to him. She was the cutest girl trilk in the swamp region. Zebbo tried not to think about how her dark blue skin was much prettier than his own. But Laaa heard his thoughts anyway, and sent back a reply.
“Oh, Zebbo,” she thought, “I think you’re a nice color. Your skin looks beautiful against the lavender slime.”
Zebbo was embarrassed. He never knew what to think to Laaa. He liked her so much that it made him nervous. When he was alone, he would imagine sharing his swamp with her forever. But when she was nearby, he kept that thought out of his mind so she wouldn’t hear it.
Still, it didn’t seem to matter to her that he wasn’t clever.“The ‘blub-glub’ of the slime makes me happy,” was all he could think. They sat together at the edge of the swamp, listening peacefully to the river’s endless chugging.
A terrifying CRASH! jolted them from the ground. Then there was no sound at all, not even “blub-glub.”
“What happened?” they thought at the same time. The river had filled the swamps every day of their lives. It was never supposed to stop. Without new slime, the swamps would dry up, and the trilks would have no homes. Zebbo was afraid, and he could feel that Laaa was, too.
Suddenly Laaa jumped into the swamp and began sloshing and spinning across the bottom. “Come on, Zebbo,” she thought urgently, “we have to find out what’s wrong.”
The two trilks dragged along the creek leading to the river.
“Over there!” thought Laaa, pointing north with one floppy foot. The biggest rock they had ever seen was blocking the river’s flow. “That must be what made the crashing sound.”
Zebbo rolled his four eyes toward the sky. “Where did it fall from?”
“I don’t know,” thought Laaa. “But we’ve got to move it. Let’s start a thought chain to call every single trilk to this spot.”
Zebbo and Laaa concentrated hard to send an emergency message. “Come to the river, north of the swamp region! Pass it on!”
Soon hundreds of trilks were sloshing their way out of the swamps, rotating toward the huge rock on their skinny legs.
Zebbo looked at the suction cups on the bottom of his feet. He got an idea. Full of determination, he stuck one foot after the other to the side of the rock, and climbed to the top. From there, he thought clearly enough so everyone could hear: “Trilks on the east bank of the river, stick your feet to the rock, and pull with all your might.”
Laaa thought loud and clear, “Trilks on the west bank, push the rock with all your might. Ready? Set? Go!”
Slowly, slowly, the rock began to move. After lots of hard work, the rock was safely on the east bank of the river. The slime chugged through at great speed. Zebbo felt tired but proud as he and the other trilks headed back to their swamps. Laaa was still by his side.
“We make a great team!” she thought, cuddling against him.
Zebbo listened to Laaa’s happy brainwaves and the reassuring “blub-glub” of the river. Then he took a deep breath through his air holes and thought with all his might, “Laaa, will you please share my swamp with me?”
“Yes, Zebbo,” came her answer, “I would love to.”
It was the nicest thought Zebbo had ever heard.
