True Story Time - My Sister, the Alien

Because my sister was older than me it was only natural that she was smarter. I learned a lot from her. For instance, I learned that I was adopted. My parents had never told me about this, and in fact denied it when I asked, but then my sister had warned me that would happen.

"They don't want to upset you," she explained. "So they'll never admit it. But I remember it well! My parents and I went for a walk one day." Here she paused and looked at me to see if I realized the idyllic life she'd given up for me. "And there you were, floating in the sewer."

"How could I float if I was so little?" I questioned breathlessly, picturing my pitiful little self drowning in a sewer as a baby.

"Oh, you were floating on a log," she said airily, "and I found you. We all felt sorry for you so I fished you out with my umbrella and we brought you home. I've had to pretend like you were my sister ever since!" she finished with a sigh.

Naturally I appreciated the sacrifice she'd made for me. But just in case I wasn't grateful enough, she let me in on a weighty secret that burdened her young mind terribly. "There are aliens, you know," she confided in a nervous whisper one day, as our kitten streaked across the bed.

"Really?" I quavered, making a grab for my sock just as the kitten attacked it and getting scratched in the process. "What are aliens?"

"Oh, they are monsters from space," she told me, "and they are mean!" I let go of the sock to suck on my scratched finger and the kitten disappeared under the bed with it. "If you don't do exactly what I tell you to do, they'll come and you'll have to go to space with them and be mean, too!"

"Why do I have to do what you say?" I inquired indignantly.

"I'm only telling you what they said," my sister said, hurt. "I'm warning you!"

"How do you know this stuff?" I inquired skeptically.

"Because I'm the only one who can understand them. So I'm useful."

"Well, I just won't go with them," I decided, but she shook her head sadly at my futile defiance. "They'll turn you in to one of them. Then you'll have to go."

"How?" I demanded shortly, a little fed up with these persistent aliens. I looked under the bed, but the kitten was up in the mattress springs destroying my sock. I got back on the bed and began bouncing, hoping to drive her out.

"There's something you have to drink," she started to explain, but I interrupted her.

"I won't drink it!" I avowed.

"Sure you will," she predicted, "after awhile, when you get thirsty enough. They won't give you any thing else to drink."

And that, it seemed, was that. Leaving my other sock on the bed, I went off barefoot to play. Leslie suggested we play "princess," That sounded good - until she informed me I had to be the prince! I started to argue, but then I remembered the aliens. I played prince. Later, she got to be Batman and I had to be Robin. It was a long day. The next day, I suggested we play Mousetrap. "No, we're playing Chess," she announced.

"Let's play jump rope," I'd beg. She'd get out pick-up-sticks. Eventually my mother began to notice my cheerful acquiescence to everything my sister wanted and one day she took me aside privately.

"You know, you can do what you want once in a while," she said, trying to pull my hair ribbon out from under the coffee table where the kitten was tearing it up. "You don't always have to do what your sister wants." She pulled her hand back quickly and reached for a magazine.

"No, I want to do what she does," I quickly answered, watching her poke at the cat with the magazine. "Especially since I'm adopted, you know."

"Tracie, you are not adopted," my mother said through gritted teeth.

"Mom, you know I'm not a baby anymore," I said. "You can tell me the truth."

"I think I hear your sister calling you," she said. She laid the tatters of the magazine on the table and left the ribbon to the kitten.

This went on for quite a while. One night, after our story, prayers, our drink, a trip to the bathroom, the bonus story my sister always shared with me about monsters, another drink, a swat for refusing to stop talking, and another trip to the bathroom, we settled down to sleep. Our backs were touching all the way down to our cold little feet to prevent anything from grabbing us from behind. We'd jumped into the bed so quickly and from such a distance that even the monster under the bed that waited each night to grab us by the ankles and drag us under for his dinner, had given up and gone to sleep. Aware of my parents on guard in the living room and the kitten closed up in the bathroom for the night, quietly shredding toilet tissue, I drifted off.

"Ow," I yelped. I'd been startled awake by something sharp poking me in the side. I tried to turn and look, but got poked again. "Leslie," I hissed in a whisper, but got no response. Sleepily rubbing my eyes, I got up and pushed the curtain aside. Moonlight poured in and I turned to the bed. My sister had vanished! In her place a small fury was twisting and turning, all claws and teeth and strange, hissing sounds.

I stared in disbelief for a moment, and then it dawned on me. The aliens had gotten mixed up! They'd missed me and gotten her by mistake! I burst out laughing and laughed so hard my parents came running from their room to see what could cause such mirth in the middle of the night. The light went on and the alien turned into our kitten! She'd been sprung from her confinement by none other than my sister, failing to shut the door tight after her last visit. My sister herself appeared, having been taken in to my parent's bed after a bad dream.

The spell was broken. I no longer believed in aliens. I no longer waited on my sister hand and foot. She didn't have a willing slave any more. Instead, we grew to be friends. One day she even admitted that I hadn't been adopted after all.

"Nope, it was really me that was adopted," she confessed with a melancholy smile. "I was a princess in Egypt, and you were my loyal servant. One day my kingdom was attacked by enemies. You managed to escape, and..."