When Aliens came to town, it was the Great
Wall that …
Sophie Qi, Group 3: Fiction, King George V School
o one knows when this happened, or even that it had happened, but it did. On that day, the earth
suffered a nearby disaster that could have wiped out the entire world. Minnicks came to earth.
They were peaceful creatures; they really were. They were creatures smart and ambitious, eager
to discover the universe. After many years of hard working, the vesolje raketa (which in English is
Universe Rocket) was ready to launch. The families of the 30 crew members who were boarding the plane
sniffed and said their final goodbyes. Not that they were worried of course. This rocket was safe enough,
specially designed to be meteorite proof, heat proof, and radiation proof. It had several houses inside, and best
of all, it was as fast as the speed of light. It was their best rocket by far.
So the spaceship set off in search of the answer to life. It whizzed past the Sunflower galaxy, raced past the
Cartwheel galaxy, and braced the cold of the Sombrero galaxy, until they arrived at the Milky Way. So far, these
Minnicks were bitterly disappointed. The Rasas had told them so much about the possibility of horses that could
stay under water, animals that could fly, and plants the colour of sunset. And yet, all they came across was
empty lands, as cold as frozen ice or as hot as melting iron. So there they were, playing with their thumbs when
suddenly the Captain shouted out:
“
Life! Life on planet 48! The blue one! Quickly everyone! Grab your telescopes!”
That jerked everyone into attention. Quickly, they glanced at their surroundings. They all wanted to go there
desperately. This globe looked perfect, rotating quietly, as if waiting just for them to come. Taking a deep breath,
the Captain plunged the Spaceship for landing.
Later, they all reflected what would have happened if they did not jump in. Eva thought they would have
not missed nearly killing a lot of life. Depot thought it was for the good. But whatever they said, they all agreed
on one thing: It was memorable.
When they stepped out and stood on the earth, all they saw was glory. Light and colourful birds chirped and
danced in the pale morning blue sky, trees of every shade of green towered above them, and flowers the colour
of happiness shined beside them. However, their happiness was short lived by the Captain angrily jabbing the
keys of every single button on the computer. He turned around and forced a tight smile.
“
Sorry to break it to you guys, but this little fellow,” He turned around to glare at the computer screen, “is
not giving me transmissions to talk to our home in Gadahak. (In case you did not know, that was their planet’s
name.) I guess the transmissions are blocked by the thick atmosphere here, so we have to leave and go back to
space immediately.”
“
WHAT?” 29 exclaims of dismay crept out of their voices. It sounded like giving a child a present, then
quickly taking it back. Finnaled, the youngest, did not really understand why.
“
Can’t we stay a tiny bit longer?” He begged. The Captain shook his head.
“
You know what will happen. Without a message from us, our home would think we were killed here and
then will send a bomb to destroy this planet, INCLUDING Bob the mouse, your new friend by the looks of it. If
we don’t get out of this planet and resume our connection to home in the next 4 hours, the bomb will be
launched, and no one can stop it after that.” The Captain explained.
I forgot to mention one bad thing about the spaceship. The spaceship could only fly into the space by a
runway at least 20,000 kilometres in length. In the past, all they had to do on other places was to clear away
some obstacles and make a runway. That was easy, but it took at least one day of time. But this time, there were
only 4 hours. They had to find a runway ready to use, and fast.
So they searched, and searched. A river would be an ideal substitute. They quickly found the Nile River in
Egypt. Too short. They journeyed to North America for the Amazon River. Not even close. The time was
ticking…
3
hours left.
Out of frustration, Eva snapped out something about rivers being so short, why not something else. The
Captain became alert after this comment.
“
A long thread! I am sure that just now from the space I saw a long thread! Let us figure out what that was.”
N
Shortlisted