A Short Story (and other short stories)

The Landing of the Pod

The day the pod arrived was a snow day, so I was home from school. Unfortunately, that meant Larissa, my older sister, was as well. I wanted to go sledding, but Dad said I'd have to have Larissa supervising, which meant her breathing down my neck the whole time, so I just gave up and went to the garden to build a snowman, because then Larissa could just 'supervise' from the kitchen window and didn't need to actually bother me. I had just stuck in a stick for his nose (we were out of carrots) when I heard an odd humming coming from the backyard. I made my way to the back cautiously, trying not to crunch the snow under my feet. I peeked round the side of the house, and saw a huge pod, the size of a car, and black as the night, sitting there. Half buried in my backyard. I raised an eyebrow and walked over, not bothering to be careful anymore. When I reached the pod, I began searching for a button of some sort. There had to be something to open it. I was just getting down on my knees to search around the bottom, when I heard a hiss right above me. I looked up slowly, unsure if I wanted to see this thing, and saw a huge light, but not as bright as the sun, shining above me. I realised it was the pod. It was opening. Surprised, I stumbled back a few steps. There were creatures coming out of the pod! I ran behind a tree, knowing full well it would not protect me from alien blasters, but then neither would anything else in the backyard, like an old wooden shed, or a plastic baby slide. It was a large tree too, with a tire swing hanging from it. I peeked out from behind the tree, and saw huge, lumpy shapes rising from the pod. The first one looked down, and I expected it to majestically float to the ground, but it did the most unusual thing. It lay down on its belly, and slid down the side of the pod! I let out a small squeak of surprise, then, realising then could have heard me, darted right back behind my tree, pressing my back to it. After a while, though, I couldn't hold my curiosity, and risked another peek. There were only three pod creatures, and they were still silhouetted because of the light coming from their pod. One began looking around, and before I could get behind my tree again, it had spotted me and was making its way over. Realising there was no way out of this, I came out from behind the tree, ready to face this creature. As it got closer, it's features began to show, and I almost fainted from surprise and relief. It had a beak, two eyes, and a white belly. It was a penguin! They were all penguins! I sank to the ground. I had almost come out of shock, when I heard a someone with a British accent speak.

"Hi! Where are we?" I looked up. The penguin was speaking! It sounded like someone on the radio, too! I crossed my legs.

"Uh....Enstone. It's a village." The penguin nodded, and looked around.

"We came here looking for someone special. Someone we can show an amazing thing."

Then she turned back to her pod.

"Billy!"

"Yes, Lilac?"

"Where's Alice?"

"Uh...aha! Over there!" The penguin was pointing to the plastic slide, which another penguin was clearly having fun on. A smile played on my lips. I was suddenly glad we'd kept that thing. Then I turned back to the penguin called Lilac.

"Can I come?"

Lilac looked confused.

"You said you wanted to show someone something?"  I said, in way of explanation.

"Ah!" Lilac nodded. "Well, I suppose so!"

I grinned.

"Let's go go go!"

A while later, having travelled for about five minutes in the penguins' pod (which looked an awful lot like an airplane on the inside) we stopped. I gave the penguin called Alice a questioning look.

"We landed?"

"Yep. Hang on, Lilac's opening the door."

I began to fidget, excited to see whatever it was they wanted me to see. The door opened, and the light from inside the pod spilled out, just as it had the first time I saw it. I crawled out onto the side, then realised I didn't know how to get down. It was also incredibly cold, much colder than  England, and I found myself shivering. The penguins had slid down like...well, penguins, and I was stuck on top, with no idea how to get down. I peered at the ground. Actually, the snow looked quite soft. Maybe if I just turned around and slid down feet first, I would land just like the penguins....

BLAM!

"Ow....."

Ok, maybe not. I scrambled up, not wanting to be lying in freezing snow for too long, and brushed myself off. Phew. I turned around. The penguins were waddling off already, and I jogged over to them.

We walked for about two minutes, but it felt like ten in the freezing cold and bitter wind. Then we reached a large opening in the rock we had been walking by, in order to take shelter from the wind. It didn't help. The penguins waddled inside this cave, so I followed. Once inside, the wind couldn't get to us, so I stopped hugging myself so tightly. I took a good look at the cave, and my mouth fell open.

The walls seemed to glitter, because there were beautiful jewels in them, a rainbow of colours. There was what appeared to be a waterfall in the back, but it was frozen over. There was tufts of grass growing from the shimmering icy ground, and there were icicles poking out too, like stalagmites, but not. The whole cave seemed to shimmer as if it was enchanted. I wandered around, stroking the gems on the walls, slipping on the icy floor.

After five minutes, the slipping began to get really annoying, and I decided it was time to head back. I turned to the penguins.

"I need to go home now. But this is beautiful. Thank you."

"We hope to see you soon again!" The penguins chorused. I gave them a soft smile, then we all began trudging back to the pod through the deep snow.
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'Ello again!

Ok, that picture wasn't so random, but I just have so many penguin pictures! They come from my brilliant app, 10,000+ Wallpapers!

-clapping-

Anyway, comment anything not related to the story on this sentence so I know it's either a suggestion to change my cover, or my title, etc.

Bai, honeys!