And Other Stories Read Online Free

bowl? If there is, we can all get down on the
floor and eat together.")
    Splortch said, "You two
Splortchians stand over there. We'd like to take your
image."
    "Our picture?" said
Brian.
    "I guess so," said
Splortch.
    Brian shrugged and led Lucky under
a tree, where he stood looking at Splortch and Miglick, who were
standing in front of the space ship. Miglick said, "Perfect," and
Brian smiled as the alien pressed a green button on the control
panel.
    In the next instant, Brian was
looking at a boy who looked exactly like himself and a dog who
looked exactly like Lucky. The blue alien was standing beside
Brian, and the green alien was missing. The tree was behind the boy
and the dog, and the space ship was behind Brian and the blue
alien.
    Brian said, "Hey! What
happened?"
    The blue alien said, "Rowf!
Rowf!"
    Brian raised a green tentacle to
scratch his head, and then he stared at the tentacle.
    The dog said, "Ret's go, Sprortch.
And you two hummings, be carefur in our bodies."
    "Don't press any buttons while
we're gone," said the boy. "You don't want to start the methane
machine until we're back."
    Brian stared, then shook his
tentacles in frustration.
    "Rowf!" The blue alien rubbed its
head against Brian's tentacles until Brian patted it.
"Rowf!"
    "Rots o' things smell grr-reat!"
said the dog.
    "Come on, Miglick," said the boy.
"The sooner we prove hummings aren't really people, the sooner we
can start the methane-making machine."
    "Rokay! See you rater!" The dog ran
ahead of the boy to get a good whiff of a dead skunk. "Yo! That's
grr-reat!"
    "Dang!" Brian stomped his tentacles
twice, and then he squatted and told the blue alien beside him,
"It's okay, Lucky. We'll fix this. Um, somehow."
    Just then, a woman behind him said,
"All right, who's making a monster movie?"
    Brian turned around. A tall police
officer stood at the edge of the clearing with her hand on her
holstered pistol.
    Brian said, "I'm not a monster, I'm
a space traveler. I mean, I'm a kid, and this is my dog. No one's
making a movie. Can you help?"
    The police officer cocked her head
to one side, then called, "Jack, what do you think?"
    A fat police officer came out of
the woods and walked toward the space ship. He stared at it and
said, "I think I don't know what I think, Sarge."
    "It's simple," said Brian. "Only I
can't explain it. And there's not time to try, 'cause we have to
save Earth right away!"
    "You're a kid?" The policewoman
moved her hand away from her pistol and scratched her
head.
    "Sure," said Brian. "The aliens
switched bodies with us by pushing that green button." He pointed
at it with a tentacle.
    "This one?" the policeman asked.
And he pressed the green button.
    •
    Meanwhile, the alien who looked
like Lucky and the alien who looked like Brian walked out of the
woods. A girl called, "Brian!"
    "Herro," said the dog.
    "No, I think I'm Pry-on," said the
boy. He called to the girl, "Who are you, humming from
Urp?"
    "What's the game?" said the
girl.
    "There's no game," said the boy.
"I'm Splortch. This is Miglick. We're from Veebilzania. We must
decide whether we should kill everyone on your planet by turning it
into a rest stop for space travelers."
    The dog nodded in
agreement.
    "Okay," said the girl. "I'm Captain
Brandi of the Starship Enterprise."
    "Glad to meet you, Captain
Pran-dee."
    The girl said, "I've got your space
ship locked in a tractor beam. You have to leave Earth alone, or
I'll blow up your ship with my photon torpedoes."
    "Oh, oh!" said the dog.
    The girl said, "Is Lucky
okay?"
    The boy said, "Um, we have to go
now."
    "No way," said the girl. "Or I'll
blow up your ship. Besides, Mom said you have to come in for
lunch."
    The boy said, "These Urp creatures
are more clever than we suspected. Maybe they really are
people."
    "I don' know," said the
dog.
    The girl patted the dog's head.
"Poor Lucky. Did you eat something you shouldn't have?"
    A woman stepped out of a house and
called, "Brian! Brandi! Lunch is ready!"
    "Coming, Mom!"