Danny Flash and the Alien Crash

CHAPTER SEVEN:

I was taught to not make assumptions, but I'm going to break the rule here.  I am going to assume that you have never held an alien before, and if you have, you probably haven't held my alien before.  My alien was about three and a half inches tall.  Its forehead was already wrinkly but when it talked or made a face, it wrinkled even more.

Its eyes were like two little pinholes on its head, pitch black, while somehow containing a faint sparkle, like a distant star hiding in the blackness.  Its nose was a tiny little bump with three nostrils.  The two on the outside looked very similar to a human's nose, but a third nostril in the middle was shaped almost like a mail slot, long and thin with tiny bristles on either side like a vacuum cleaner.  Its mouth did not have lips.  It was a thin, somewhat curvy line, going across its face.  When it wasn't speaking, which was most of the time, it almost looked like another wrinkle. Its ears were like two little gumdrops on the sides of its head.  Despite all this, it was quite cute.

Its skin felt a bit leathery and was cool to the touch as I cusped it in my palm and brought it down the stairs.  Of course the first person I saw that morning was the most quizzical, my sister Annabelle.

"Whatcha' got there?" Annabelle asked, pointing at my palms, as I scrambled to keep the alien turned away from her and pressed up against my body.

"Nothing," I said.

"If you got nothing, then why you got something?" Annabelle said.

"Leave me alone, Annabelle." I countered back, "Not in the mood."

"Not in the mood for what?" Annabelle said.

"This," I said.

"You're not in the mood for this?" Annabelle repeated, knowing she was getting on my nerves.

"Yes," I said.

"But whatcha' got there?"

I sighed heavily and pushed my way past her into the bathroom.  I closed the door and locked it.  I set the Alien up on the counter and crouched down to its level.  It turned away from me and took in this new room.

Its eyes went from the towel on the wall, to the shower, to the toilet, to the sink.  I turned on the sink to wash my hands and it doubled back, startled.  It almost fell off the ledge, but I caught it with the back of my hand and gently pushed it back up onto the ledge.  I pointed to the faucet.

"Water," I said.

"Water," it repeated.

I turned the water off.

"Water?" it asked.

"No water," I replied.

"No water," it said, staring at the faucet.

A tiny drop came out from the faucet and splashed into the sink.

"Water!" it said, looking back at the tap.  "It's learning quick," I thought.  It took most humans a year to learn how to say "No," when they're first born.  It was getting concepts on the same day they were introduced!  

I looked around the bathroom for some place to hide my little alien.  I grabbed my mother's makeup bag and tried to place it inside, but when I closed the top and tried to zip it, it was too bulky.

"Narf Marf," I heard the alien say.  I unzipped the bag.  It popped out with a flourish of dust and face powder.  Its skin was slightly pink from the make up in the bag.

"Sorry," I said.

My little alien picked up a lipstick, held it out to me and said "Sorry?"

"No," I said. "Lipstick."