It was
the strangest nightmare, let me tell you. But the weirdest thing about it was
that it seemed more real than any dream I'd ever dreamed before!
I dreamed I saw these strange little creatures. They were all different colors.
Some were red or green or blue or yellow, but there were lots of them and they
were slimy with a dingy glow. And they were slithering in through my open bedroom
window! I watched in horror as they slopped across the floor. It was so gross!
Not only were they disgustingly slimy, but after every few feet of slithering
they seemed to make squishy gassy-sounds, which left puffy grey clouds floating
in the air. It wasn't long before I had to hold my nose - they smelled even worse
than they looked. Fortunately the stinky-slimeys seemed to be heading to the other
side of the room. Straight for Dude's bed!
He went on snoring, in the same creepy way he would be doing outside the dream,
completely unaware of anything. The smelly-blobs slid up the side of his bed and
slipped under his covers. "Oh, Man!" I gasped. "Don't aliens smell anything -
how can he sleep with that awful smell all around him!"
The next thing I knew the slimers were slithering back down the side of Dude's
bed and across the floor towards the window. That's when I noticed they were carrying
his watch. They were so tiny that it took about fifty of them to carry it.
I don't know why (maybe it's because in dreams you can have more courage than
you do in real life), but I jumped up, ran across the room and slammed the window
closed.
The dingy colored slimy blobs stopped. Then they started bouncing up and down
angrily, squeaking at me and making more of those smelly gaseous-sounds. I backed
away slightly as they slimed past me and slid under my bedroom door. The cloud
of stench remained behind. I dashed across the room and held my nose as tight
as I could. I opened the door with my free hand and tiptoed after them into the
hallway. I knew every creak on the stairs so I knew I wouldn't wake everyone in
the house, but that smell was so bad I was afraid it was going to wake everyone,
even outside of the dream.
The dull glow of lights trickled down the stairs, but I was in hot pursuit. It
was gross squishing in their slimy trail with my bare feet, but I made myself
go as fast as I could. They squirmed across the kitchen and under the back door,
but I was right behind them, gasping and gagging for air. I chased them down the
porch steps, and just as they wriggled onto the grass, I grabbed Dude's watch
and yanked it away from them.
That's when they got really mad. They all turned at once and started to grow bigger
and greyer and smellier. Then one, a dingy, gooshy yellow one, leaped up and slimed
me.
"Eh-oooh!"
It oozed all over me. I could feel it seeping through my skin. Suddenly I felt
scared and I knew that yellow slime was making me feel this way. It must have
oozed into my blood and was gunking up my emotions with yellow-bellied fear. I
ran backwards and hid behind a tree, but they were after me.
The squeaky, gassy, exploding sounds they made got even louder. A festering red
slimer leaped at me, and it oozed over my hair and down my back. As it seeped
through my skin, the red ooze made me feel angry and mad.
I stomped my feet and gritted my teeth at the blobs that were coming closer. But
before I could do anything about my anger, a bloated blue blob leaped at me. Its
slime made me feel helpless and hopeless. I backed up against the backyard fence.
They got closer and closer.
Then suddenly I saw Dude standing behind them. He looked at me and then he looked
at the slimy creatures. "Uh, like, Yo, um, er, chill, Man," he whispered to me.
"Like um, well, like um, don't be, you know, like afraid."
I don't know why, but I knew in a flash that Dude was going to save me. I suddenly
felt calmer and less afraid. I was suddenly sure that he was a good alien who'd
come to protect us Earthlings. At any second he was going to reach into his pocket
and pull out some totally lethal space weapons and blast those blobs to smithereens.
I just knew he'd do something totally awesome. I could feel it.
Dude took his hands out of his pockets slowly. "Here it comes!" I thought.
But his hands were empty. "Like, um, well, um, Peace," Dude whispered to the slimers.
"And um, like you know, uh...Love," he continued, saying the garbled words slowly
and quietly.
The slimy creatures slowed down and stopped in their tracks, as if they were being
massaged with a relaxing back rub. I stared at them and looked back at Dude. He
spoke to the creatures in a calming voice, reminding them how much they missed
their families and friends, and urging them to go back home. He spoke to them
in that painfully awful way of speaking I just wasn't ever going to get used to.
The weird thing was that I could actually see his ridiculous words floating in
the air. They weren't the best choice of words, that's for sure, but as they drifted
and floated, I could see how gentle they were.
Actually, it didn't seem that strange to see his words floating in the air, at
the time. You sort of expect weird things like that to happen in dreams. His words
were like sweet little glowing lights. As they floated across the yard, the soft
glows wrapped around the slimy blobs, making them softer and more delicate looking.
The blobs got lighter and more transparent and they started to float. They got
lighter still, until they just drifted up into the night sky. One by one they
drifted out of view and disappeared with a tiny, peaceful little "swish" sound.
A stray glowing word wrapped around me as I watched, and I suddenly felt different.
I felt warm and fuzzy. I felt light and happy. I felt good. I wanted to dance.
(And if you knew me, you'd know that I would never be caught dead dancing. So
I must have been feeling really good!)
More and more of the warm lights wrapped around me, and I noticed I was floating
up into the tree branches. I looked down at Dude. He was smiling. All the creepy
blobs were gone, and I felt like I didn't have a care in the world.
Then all of a sudden the backdoor slammed open. Looking down I saw Ellie in her
pajamas, rubbing her eyes as she looked up at me. "Oh my gosh, Junior, you're
floating in the air!"
Then she looked over at Dude and her face turned pale as a ghost. "Junior, it's
an alien!" she whispered, unable to move.
Dude turned to me. "Um, well, Yikes, like, um, er, that is, uh, Man, quick, you
gotta, you know, I mean, like toss me the syncronomoter-watchy-kinda-thingy like,
um, you know, fastish like, Man!"
Instinctively (because it sure wasn't in response to what he said - I had no idea
what he'd said), I dropped the watch down to him. Meanwhile, I floated back down
to the ground. Dude quickly put the watch on and whispered, "It's okay, Ellie.
Everything will be alright..."
As Dude said those words, I couldn't help noticing that they made sense. At the
same time I also noticed that for some reason I was squinting and holding my head
sideways. And for some reason I was holding one of my feet up off the ground,
too. I stood there watching the gentle glow of his words as they wrapped around
Ellie. She rubbed her eyes and then stared back at Dude and me. She rubbed her
eyes again and shook her head.
"Junior,
what are you and Dude doing out here?" she finally whispered in between a yawn
and a hiccup. "And why are you standing like that, Junior? You look like a blind
flamingo!"
Slowly I lowered my foot and let my head return to a more comfortable position.
I couldn't wait to hear how Dude would get us out of this.
"Um, well, like,
well, we were like, you know, sort of like, um, well, chasing away some well,
bogus critters that were out here, like you know, making um, well, you know, like
trouble," Dude said.
"Hmm..."
my sleeping brain whispered to me. Somehow it had noticed the connection between
the flamingo-like position I had been standing in at the time when what Dude said
had made sense.
"Well,
you better get inside. It's late." She shivered. "And it's chilly." She turned
and went in through the door.
It was chilly. I had goosebumps all over! That's when I realized this was no dream.
I turned to Dude. "What's going on, Dude?"
Dude sighed. "Like, I, you know, um, er, well, Man, I... well..."
I squinted my eyes and turned my head to test out my theory. "I, well, sorta,
well..." It didn't work. Maybe it needed the whole flamingo-package.
I raised my foot. "I guess I'd better tell you everything," Dude said perfectly
understandably. I was right. For some reason when I squinted and turned my head
just so, and raised one foot off the ground, I could hear Dude the way everyone
else must hear him.
"Come
on, we'd better get inside," Dude said in perfect English. I hopped after him
on one foot, my head bent and squinting, just in case he had anything more to
say.
Previous
Chapter | Next Chapter
