Daniel carefully unwrapped the brightly colored paper. “What is it?”
His grandma grinned at him. “I thought you needed an extra special present this year since Mom and Dad can’t be here for your birthday,” she said.
“Oh, wow! This is cool!” Daniel exclaimed. “This looks like a real UFO.”
His grandma’s smile grew broader. “The clerk at the toy store told me it was one of a kind.”
Daniel touched the shiny silver metal. The toy hummed and vibrated. Its red and gold lights flashed.
“Thanks!” Daniel said as he gave his grandma a big hug. “I can’t wait to see what it does.”
Later that evening when Daniel was getting ready for bed, his sister Julia came into his room.
“What is this?” she asked as she turned the toy upside down.
“Put it down, Julia. You’ll drop it!” Daniel said angrily.
“I’ll hold on to it as long as I want to!” she replied. The lights on the toy flashed on and began to blink.
“Julia, put it down. You’re going to waste the batteries!”
“No I won’t and you can’t make me.” Julia turned the toy over and over in her hands. “I wonder what’s inside?” she asked as she peered through the windows. The toy made a humming noise and the lights blinked faster and more brightly.
“Sometimes I just wish you were on another planet!” Daniel growled.
Julia growled back at him. The toy then screeched, popped, and banged as black smoke billowed from its top.
“ Julia … I think you’d better put it down,” he whispered.
“Yeah, I think so, too.”
She bent over to place the toy on Daniel’s desk. A bright beam of light suddenly shot out at her, and then she was gone!
Daniel grabbed the spaceship. He could see his sister, now miniature, inside the toy. She jumped around wildly, shaking her tiny fist at the windows.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“What do you think?” she squeaked.
“I told you not to touch it! Now what are we going to do?”
“You need to go get Grandma!”
“I can’t. She went to bed early because she has a headache. I can only wake her up for an emergency.”
“This is an emergency!”
“Do you know how much trouble you’re in, Julia? You weren’t supposed to be bugging me and now look what’s happened. Mom and Dad are going to be so mad at you when they get back!”
“I’m really sorry I didn’t listen to you,” she squeaked, “but you need to get help before this spaceship decides to fly back to wherever it came from.”
Daniel thought for a moment about how peaceful his life would be without his pestering, annoying, and cantankerous older sister. He also thought about how lonely he’d be without her. He had to think fast to save her.
“Julia, are there any buttons or switches in there that might beam you back outside?”
“There are hundreds of buttons in here. I don’t know which one to push. I can’t read alien, you know!”
“What about pictures that might give you some clues?” he asked.
“Hang on a minute…there are two buttons here that have pictures below them. One is of a small spaceship; one is of a big spaceship.”
“Push the big spaceship button. That might make the ship grow to a bigger size,” he suggested.
“Okay, here goes.”
The spaceship hummed loudly and its lights flashed brilliantly. Daniel realized that if the ship did grow bigger, he’d better get it outside. He picked it up and started to run.
“Hey! Be careful will you? I feel like a pinball in here!”
Daniel sprinted passed his grandma’s bedroom, shouting, “I need your help in the backyard, Grandma! Julia’s in trouble!”
He set the spaceship down in the middle of their lawn. Smoke puffed constantly from the top of the toy UFO.
“Julia, you’d better get out of there!” Daniel shrieked. He could see smoke spew from the bottom of the ship now and an orange glow lit up the grass.
Daniel jumped as he felt a cold hand squeeze his shoulder.
“What’s going on here?” a shaky voice asked. Daniel turned to see his grandmother staring at the newly large spaceship.
“Julia’s inside my spaceship, Grandma! We’ve got to get her out before it takes off!”
“Oh, dear! Look!” His grandma pointed.
Daniel turned. The ship shook violently as it lifted from the ground.
“Julia, get out now! It’s taking off!” he shouted frantically. As he spoke, the ship disappeared up into the night sky.
“Julia!” Grandma shouted.
“Oh, Grandma, what are we going to do?” Daniel cried. “First, Mom and Dad can’t get home for my birthday and now this happens. This is definitely the worst birthday ever!”
“Why do you say that?” a voice asked from the darkness. “I think it was a pretty cool birthday!”
Daniel spun around. “Julia? You’re still here? I thought you were…up there,” he said pointing at the stars.
“I luckily found an escape hatch just in time. Here I am, safe and sound and the right size!”
“I’m so glad you’re still here.” Daniel said, smiling.
“Me too,” Grandma said. “I’m not sure what I would have told your parents.”
“It’s okay. Daniel and I will tell them what happened. Right, Daniel?” She gave Daniel a big hug and then tickled him.
Daniel wriggled away and looked wistfully into outer space. “Maybe you could just leave the planet for a few hours a day. You know, those hours when I’m awake?”
~The End~
Illustration Copyright © 2010 Feras Nouf
Copyright © 2010 by Jocelyn Holden