The Adventure of the Magic Chia Plant

Chapter 4: The Blue Alien

"Why isn't it growing?" Bench asked nervously.

Brent closed his eyes, thinking hard, then struck his forehead with his palm. "That plant's not going to grow in sand. It needs soil."

"And water," Bethie added, nodding wisely.

"Fresh water, not salt water," Brent added.

Bench gasped and looked around him wildly. "The bottle!"

Brent frowned in confusion. "What bottle?"

"Bethie's plastic bottle! Remember the one she used to water the other magic plant with?"

Brent relaxed and waved a hand reassuringly. "We can just use the water from our canteens; we don't need that particular bottle."

"Don't we?" Bench started looking around him again with his flashlight. "Did you notice anything strange about your binoculars?"

Brent glanced down at his backpack, where he had stashed the device. "They're working very well."

"Too well?"

Bethie pointed at the flashlight and shaded her eyes dramatically with one hand. "The light is very bright!"

Bench gave his brother a meaningful look. "See, even Bethie noticed."

Brent stood up with a sinking feeling. "You mean you think we might need that particular bottle to water the seed so that it will grow?"

"Well, there seems to be something different about the stuff we brought with us. And the only thing that Bethie had with her was— "

"The bottle," Brent sighed. He looked at his sister, who was still sitting on the ground, staring expectantly up at him. Would she even remember where she had put it? She had a notoriously poor memory, but that had never really gotten her into trouble. After all, she was just in first grade, and no one expected much from her. They never let her carry anything of importance.  But now, it seemed that their way home hinged on it.

He knelt in front of her. "Beth, do you remember the bottle you brought here with you?"

"Yes, it's green. Mountain Dew." She smiled and then frowned. "It's under."

"Under what?"

"Under this." She scraped a handful of pink sand from the ground beside her and let it filter through her fingers.

Bench was already sprinting back towards the surf. "She means it's in that hole where you found her!" He yelled, gesturing at them to follow him. He had always been better at deciphering her cryptic statements.

"Oh no," Brent took out his binoculars again and watched Bench drop to his knees and start crawling around on the beach. Even though the view wasn't as clear, Brent could see well enough in the light of the three moons that the seawater had finally reached the hole and was in the process of filling it in.

If the bottle were really at the bottom, they'd never be able to find it.

"Come on, Bethie, we have to go," he said hurriedly, stowing the binoculars back in his bag and pulling her up. Together, they dashed across the sand, but of course, the little girl was much slower. Brent gritted his teeth and slowed his pace to match hers, praying Bench would find it before they arrived.

He had. But there was another problem.

"It's not in the hole." Bench pointed his flashlight at the water, his voice strangely soft. "It's over there."

They could see the bright green bottle clearly in the cone of light.  It bobbed several meters away beside a smooth, rounded, three-foot-high bluish-black boulder near the shore. Brent estimated that the water was around thigh-high at that point; fortunately, the waves were small, and there didn't seem to be any sharp rocks or shells underfoot.  He could retrieve it easily.

He exhaled a gust of relief and put Bethie's hand in his brother's. "That's okay. I can get it. You hold on to her before she gets lost again."

But Bench clutched the back of his shirt, stopping him before he could move a step. "Wait. Watch." He continued to train his flashlight at the water, his expression intense. 

 Brent fidgeted impatiently. What was the issue now? A fish? A crab? It would take him merely seconds to wade out to sea, and then once he got the bottle, they'd all be able to go home—

Suddenly, Bethie squealed. Brent could barely restrain himself from screaming. A huge, blue tentacle ringed all around with white suckers had suddenly slithered out of the water. Like an elephant's trunk, it nosed around interestedly around the bottle, then curled around it and dragged it underwater. The boulder—it's not a boulder, Brent thought wildly—started to submerge, but before it did, an eerie black eye blinked open lazily, then another. And another. There seemed to be dozens of them, but there were probably more on the other side. They all seemed to focus on the children with uncanny intelligence before vanishing one by one under the surface. Within a minute, both the bottle and the creature were gone.  

The three children stared at each other in dumbfounded silence. What was there to do? What was there to say?

"Great," Bench said finally. "We meet our first alien ever, and all it wants to do is drink Mountain Dew."