By: Zoe Chen

“We have been informed that aliens from a planet named Aridius have infiltrated our planet Earth, and every country has passed a law that any alien found shall be executed, and going to school will now be mandatory to make it easier for us to spot aliens. We urge anyone that has discovered an alien to immediately report the person to the government. Thank you, and good night.” My mom switched off the television.

“What are we going to do, Aurelia?” my mom said worriedly. “They’re going to for sure find out that we’re aliens.”

Hi, I’m Aurelia Willows, an 11-year-old alien from Aridius who was lucky enough to escape the meteor attack that happened on Aridius on January 2, 2024. Let me tell you what happened. Everyone was minding their own business and going about just like any other day when someone screamed and pointed at the sky. Everyone looked up and saw what looked like a huge flaming rock hurtling toward us. My family and about a hundred other people were able to get into the bunker of the bar next to us. However, everyone else in my city didn’t make it. I’m not sure about the rest of the planet, but I’m hoping that they made it as well. When everything cleared, all of us hopped on our emergency spaceships that would shoot us to the planet called Earth, which based on our research, was basically a parallel universe to ours except it was slightly bigger and had some other minor differences. Since our technology was so advanced, we got there in a matter of a few days. Anyways, back to the story.

My mom got up and started to pace back and forth around the room, then said, “Just go to bed and be ready for school tomorrow.” School. That was the thing that I was most nervous about. I had no idea if school was different or not from school on my planet.

The next morning, my mom and I got into our FuturCar and drove to school. We followed the other cars inside to a car line in which people would open your doors for you and carry your backpacks out of your car for you. This struck me as very odd, since at my old school I just got dropped off in front of my school. Also, everyone was staring at my car for some reason. I went to the office since I didn’t know what room to go to. There was a lady at the front desk who was super nice. She asked me what my name was, and I said Aurelia Willows. She told me that I was due to go to 6th grade, classroom E-3. This was also very odd to me, since on my planet I was in 8th grade.

After what felt like an hour, I finally found my classroom. When I entered, everyone started staring at me, and I thought it was very rude, since on my planet, it was very rude to stare at people and you would get detention if you stared too long. I walked to the only empty desk left and the teacher walked up to me and asked me to go to the front of the class with her. “Everyone, this is Aurelia, and she will be your new classmate for the remaining six months of 6th grade.” she said. Everyone muttered “hi” and continued with their work.

The teacher was so much more lenient than at my school, and the lessons were more interesting. When it was time for PE, a few girls came up to me and asked if I wanted to be their friend. I said yes since I needed some new friends here anyways. They were also really nice and helped me with fitting in here. Some other girls said I looked too ethereal to be human and started spreading rumors that I was an alien. I turned pink because they had already guessed right. That’s when my friends got suspicious. “Are you an alien?” Natalie asked.

“Um, er-uh,” I spluttered. They all gasped dramatically.

“So, you are?” They all yelled. Everyone turned and stared. Again. Soon, this news had spread like wildfire all throughout the school and everyone knew, even the teachers. The teachers had a meeting, and they agreed to let me off for a bit unless I brought bad omens to the school, then they would report me. When my mom heard about this news, she was furious at me. She couldn’t understand how I had already revealed myself in the first week of school.

So on one normal day of school, I was just coming out from the bathroom when I saw a man dressed in all black pointing a gun at the principal. I froze, terrified. Then, I had a sudden idea. I sneaked behind the man and used all my strength to tackle him to the ground. I wrenched the gun out of his hand and pointed it at him instead. The principal scrambled to pull his phone out of his pocket and call the police. A few minutes later, the police came to the scene and took control of the situation. I became a hero at school for my bravery and courage and even the laws against aliens were lifted because of my act. Everyone started to respect aliens just because of me and they learned to not dislike people just because of their reputation.