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.
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