13, July 1997

The man from out of space

This is a story about a boy called Lesha and his friend Ladik the fox cub who share many adventures all thanks to the magic words WHAT IF... which makes all their wishes come true........

"What if we ran into an ET?" I said to Ladik.

"Ran into who?" He asked and started to back away.

Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you, we were walking along a country lane which led to a potato field. And in that field there was striding on webbed feet a large box. Stomp ... Stomp ... Stomp ... Then it took a leap and landed by my side.

"Hallo-ow, you," creaked the Box.

We said "hallo" to him, and Ladik asked:

"Why do you try to scare us?"

"I don't." Came the creaky voice. "On my way here I read stories about you. So I thought I'd come to you out of another tale."

"We don't know your tale," Ladik shook his head and looked at me uncertainly. Here I wispered to him that this was just it, an ET. It could have mixed up the stories, easily; after all, it came from a far-off Galaxy. Also, it occurred to me that the ET could change its shape, so I asked it:

"Could you turn into a ball?"

"My plea-a-sure," creaked Box Lid.

In an instant we were looking at a whirling ball of colour, as big as a house.

Ladik did not like that: "Oh no, tell it to stop; better a boxshape than this."

The ball burst and in its place we saw a tiny astronaut, In a blue spacesuit, with antennae that stood up from his helmet like a grasshopper's. It was much easier to talk to him when he was like that. He told us that he had come from a very small planet called Alpho-705. The inhabitants-Alphoids—were so many that they could not all fit in, so they had to dwindle. Alphoids had long been receiving signals from the Earth. The one word that recurred in every message was "friendship"; the ET had come to see for him-self what it was. Could Alphoids use it somehow? I exchanged looks with my Ladik: let's show him something about our life.

I mouthed the magic words: 'What if' and offered my pocket to our guest.

"Jump on in!"

There we walked through the forest, waded across the Quicky River, left behind the clearing, and went inside our little house.

First of all we seated the ET at the table.

"See how small everything is here," I told him, "but we don't mind a bit, Ladik and 1, we play here; we couldn't live without one another" "Yes, we're all right," Ladik chimed in. He put a plate of gingerbread on the table, while I put the kettle on.

And off we went to have a glorious feast, like they do in fairytales. We ate, and we sang, and we danced. The ET creaked a few Alpho songs, we sang ours. We taught him a song or two, and some dance tunes.

The ET was grilling in his spacesuit and helmet, but he enjoyed every moment of it. We felt as though we had been friends for years and years. Then we went to the woods to pick berries, and we made a great big bunch of daisies for the tiny man.

Then out we got. The ET started saying goodbye, clear as a bell this time:

"I think I've got it—it's great when all are together, and there's lots of room, and I wish I could come again." He pressed the flowers to his chest.

As we looked the ET began to stretch, fill out, and turned into a saucer-shape.

The saucer sailed up, we could see the bunch of daisies from below; the daisies nodded in greeting. And the ET's voice said: "Friendship! Friendship! Friendship! "

Off went the saucer. We looked up; Ladik grinned, and I waved goodbye.

Return to Mirror Magazine contents