(You can hear this story here.)
The car had just arrived at the local park, and even though the engine and air conditioning had been off for less than a minute, was already heating under the summer sun. The mother looked in the rearview mirror at her six-year-old daughter, Geraldine. “But you have to try. I’m only taking you to the library today if you try.”
Geraldine, small, skinny, and timid nodded. “I’ll try, Mommy.”
“It’s not that hard, sweetie. Just play with the other children longer and you will make a friend. You just always…” The mother stopped herself. She didn’t want to shame her daughter. But Geraldine had no friends. All the other children ran around and were little wild hellions, as six-year-olds should be. But Geraldine was..different. And her mother worried greatly.
“Yes mommy. I’ll play longer and then,” her eyes lit up, “we can go to the library and have a cookie.”
Her mother’s eyebrows furrowed, but she couldn’t hide a smirk. “I didn’t say anything about cookies. Let’s go.”
Five children at the park were playing ‘last tag’. If you are ‘it’, you count to 10, then have to tag all the other players. The last one tagged gets to choose the next ‘it’.
Geraldine knew these children from school, and they knew her. She was the kid always picked last on a team. Geraldine wasn’t bad at sports; she simply tired out easily.
They had just finished a round, and it was time to pick the next IT. Mindy Rockwell, a girl in the class above Geraldine, had been tagged last, and thus had the glory of picking the next ‘it’. (You couldn’t pick yourself. Rules are rules.)
Geraldine hated this part. If she could disappear, she would. She would become totally invisible and sit on a park bench and read. She looked over to see her mother watching. Her mother smiled and gave a thumbs up.
Geraldine sighed. As Mindy perused the group of classmates, her eyes fell on Geraldine. Small and skinny, she had fear in her eyes, and ever so slightly shook her head. Geraldine thought, “‘no’, please ‘no’, I don’t want to be ‘it’. I can’t run fast; I get too tired. I’ll never tag everyone.”
Mindy’s eyes narrowed as she focused on her prey. With a cruel grin, she called out. “Geraldine is IT!” Several of the children groaned, and others took off immediately.
Geraldine slumped. But rules are rules, and Geraldine trudged to the plastic fort, covered her eyes, and counted. “Ready or not, here I Come” Geraldine sounded as defeated as she already felt.
She took a few lucky swipes at two nearby kids, who thought she would be too slow. Not bad, three more to go. Geraldine ran after one, who sprinted away. Geraldine gave quick chase and tagged him.
Geraldine wasn’t devoid of energy. But if you think of all your energy for the day as water in a glass, most people start each day with a full glass and use up their energy throughout the day. Well, Geraldine started her day with half a glass at best, and even that got used up fast.
She had miscalculated by sprinting so much at the beginning of the game, and now her arms and legs were heavy, very heavy. She slugged along to tag the next two. Just two.
Just two more to go.
Mindy, tall and athletic, sprinted close, but not too close. “C’mon Geraldine! You can get me! I’ll let you get me!” Geraldine took a swipe, but Mindy was too quick and dashed out of reach. “C’mon Geraldine! Run!”
She couldn’t tell if Mindy was encouraging or mean, but she suspected the latter when the other kids stopped playing and started laughing. “C’mon Geraldine! Don’t you want to play?” Mindy giggled, sensing Geraldine couldn’t run after her.
Geraldine’s feet dragged; she couldn’t do it anymore. She had tried. Tried and failed.
Finally, Mindy announced, “This is boring. Let’s play something else!” She and the other kids raced off, leaving Geraldine alone. She looked to see if her mother was watching, maybe if her mother saw she was playing she could call it quits and still go to the library. But her mother was engrossed in her phone, like all the other parents.
Geraldine sat at the end of a slide, already hot under the day’s sun. What was she doing wrong? Why couldn’t she keep up with the others? As she sat, a glint of light caught her eye. It was in the nearby woods. Her mother always said, ‘Stay where you can see me.’ She did some quick mental calculations and figured whatever was glinting wasn’t too far. And besides, she had seen nothing in the woods before. Maybe that was a new playground set? What Geraldine lacked in physical endurance she more than made up for in curiosity.
Checking her mother again, this time relieved that she was engrossed in her phone, Geraldine snuck out of the playground and into the woods.
Whatever was causing the reflection was deeper in the woods than Geraldine initially thought, but not so deep she couldn’t take a quick peek and then go back. Finally, Geraldine, all alone, found the largest sandbox she had ever seen!
It was about fifteen feet across, or close to the size of her parents’ bedroom. And probably about three feet high, just under her petite little arms.
Geraldine had seen nothing like it. She walked up to it and looked at the sand. Something wasn’t right. The sand wasn’t, well, sand-colored, like when her parents took her to the beach. This was darker, coarser, gravelly and somehow shimmering. And moved, the shimmery gravelly sand not only moved, it was chewing.
She reached over to touch the sand; it felt hot. That’s when the sand noticed Geraldine, and a sudden tidal wave of dark sand flew up into the air and turned. Whatever it was, it was still chewing. Bits of rubbly spittle fell out of its large maw. It was a head, just a head, no body, no arms and legs, just a giant round head with fiery red eyes glaring down at Geraldine.
Geraldine looked up at this monstrosity and said, “hello!”
The ridges that filled in for eyebrows raised. Clearly, whatever this monster was, it wasn’t expecting company. It swallowed and cocked its ten foot tall head.
Geraldine smiled. “I’m Geraldine. Who are you?”
The monster considered this, then spoke.
“General Trap from Planet Belthor. I am leading my army through the galaxy searching for planets worthy of conquest. This planet of yours, what is its name?”
“Earth, silly.”
“Earth silly. Very well. This Earth Silly…”
Geraldine giggled. “No, just Earth. Just Earth, that’s it.”
“Earth. Are you the leader of Earth? I want to speak only to your planet’s leader, who can negotiate terms of your surrender.”
Geraldine, all six years of her, replied. “Yes. I am Earth’s leader. We surrender.” She laughed and bowed.
“And…what…are you?” The monstrosity swallowed.
This time Geraldine cocked her head. “What?”
“What species are you? If we are to dominate your planet and subjugate your species, we should know what you are.”
“Oh. We are human.”
It hummed the word. “Humans. That has a delicious sound to it. How many… humans are there?”
Without a pause, Geraldine reported, “As of 2024. There are over 8 billion people on Earth. People is another word for humans.”
“Perfect. “ A long, thin tongue stuck out of General Trap’s mouth, then folded back and picked something out of it’s black teeth. “And you have been designated to speak for all 8 billion humans? “
“You betcha,” said Geraldine while adjusting her small glasses.
General Trap nodded. “Good. What are the terms of human’s surrender?”
Geraldine thought for a minute, nodded to herself in agreement, and said, “Cookies. Two cookies. Chocolate chip. No oatmeal raisin. Raisins are gross!”
“Very well. Anything else?”
Geraldine thought some more and shook her head. “Nope. Just the cookies.”
“Very well. What are these ‘cookies’ for?”
Geraldine laughed. “We eat them silly!”
“Ah. So they are a lesser species. To be caught and devoured alive.”
“Eww. No! We don’t eat things alive. Nasty.”
Trap’s red eyes widened. “You don’t? That’s the best way. And speaking of which…”
He looked up at the sky, which darkened. Imagine a combination of large storm clouds and swirling flocks of ravens, covered the view of the sky above the treetops.
“My army is fast approaching, and my soldiers will be hungry. Eight billion will be more than enough to satisfy their hunger.”
Geraldine scrunched her nose. “You eat people?”
“Not yet. Besides, we will only eat most of you. Some will be spared.”
“Will you eat me?” Geraldine asked.
“Let’s see.” General Trap’s nose, like the semiliquid rest of him, extended into, well, an elephant’s trunk. Geraldine giggled at first, then flinched as the trunk shot out at her, but then giggled again when Trap took a big long sniff, almost vacuuming up Geraldine’s curly black hair.
General Trap took in the scent, retracted his trunk back into his face, then said, “No. We shall not eat you. You are too sickly.”
Geraldine crossed her arms. “Rude!”
“It’s not rude if it’s true.” General Trap replied brashly. Then, seeing the hurt look on Geraldine’s face, he added, “Besides. As the planet’s leader, we can use you for more important things. After all. You are clever, correct?”
Geraldine shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I think so. I love to read. The librarian said she had never seen a six-year-old read the classics over and over like I do.”
“Librarian?”
“Yes. The nice lady at the library. You know? Libraries?” After a silence, Geraldine continued. “Libraries are wonderful places. They are large buildings filled with all the books you can read. Hey! I want to add something! You can take over Earth, but I want my own library. Full of so many books, I have to use ladders to reach them. And no eating people; that’s mean.”
General Trap considered this and countered. “You can have a library with all the books you want. And we will only eat bad people.”
“I don’t know.” Geraldine looked down.
“And I’ll let you decide which people are the bad ones.” From the park area, a squeal of laughter broke out from Mindy Rockwell and the other children. A menacing grin crossed Geraldine’s youthful face. “Deal!” Wind whipped Geraldine’s hair as the sky became pitch black.
“So be it. The conditions of your planet’s surrender are accepted. Prepare to face… your doom!”
Geraldine looked up to see what first appeared to be rainfall. But instead of raindrops falling to the ground, shimmering black gravel fell from the sky and stopped just above the treeline. It hovered for a moment as Trap let loose a sinister laugh. “Fool! I have tricked… Oh, hi Mamma. Hi Pappa!”
Above him, the dark floating gravel coalesced into two heads, one slightly smaller than the other, but both enormous. Way too big to come down below the treeline.
The smaller head peeked down and spoke first. “Hi sweetie. What are you doing?”
“We’re playing planetary surrender,” said ‘General’ Trap. The mother head pursed her lips. “Oh, honey. I don’t like that game. It’s too…violent.”
The father head, which now sported a mustache and square glasses, said, “Dear. That’s children’s imagination. Besides, look…” The father head tilted towards Geraldine and the mother head gasped. “Oh! Hello! Trap. Did you make a little friend?”
Trap smiled. “Yes. Mamma. Her name is Geraldine, and she is one of over eight billion humans!”
“Hello” came Geraldine’s little voice, and she waved.
The mother head nodded back. “Well, hello Geraldine. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Our little Trap has such trouble making friends. He’s terribly shy, especially around girls…”
“Moooomaaa. Not in front of my friend,” Trap pleaded. Geraldine felt her cheeks get warm.
Father head said, “Honey, you’re embarrassing the boy. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Geraldine. Thank you for keeping Trap company on our rest stop, but we must be going.”
Geraldine asked, “Rest stop?”
“Yes. We just took a little break. We are on our summer vacation and on a tight schedule if we want to get to the vacation resort on time.”
Mother head rolled her eyes. “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
“And schedules were made to be followed; otherwise, why make them?” Father head retorted, with a grin.
Ignoring him, mother head turned to Trap. “Did you find something to eat?”
“Yes, Momma.”
Behind her, Geraldine heard someone call out, “Skittles? Skittles? Has anyone seen my cat Skittles? She is a grey tabby that got out of the apartment this morning.”
Father head smiled. “Well, we really should be going. Again, pleasure meeting you, Geraldine!”
“Goodbye sweetie. Have a wonderful day!” said mother head.
“Bye, friend!” Trap said.
“Safety seat!” the parents reminded him.
“I know. Jeez!” Trap’s head smushed down, back into the sandbox, which floated up in the air. At the bottom of it was an array of blinking lights.
“Goodbye! I’m glad we met!” Geraldine said and waved as the three large creatures sped into the sky. They moved with such speed the whooshing wind almost pulled tiny Geraldine over.
In a moment the sky had cleared, and if not for the bent grass, it was as if nobody had been there.
Geraldine turned to go back to the park, but was stopped short by her angry mother. “Geraldine! Young lady! What have I told you about wandering off!”
“I’m sorry, Mommy. I made a friend in the woods.”
“What? Honey! That is so dangerous. I’ve told you not to talk to …”
“No mommy. He’s another kid. He’s silly!” Geraldine’s face lit up. “He called me his friend! I made a friend today, Mommy!”
Her mother looked around. “Where is he?”
“He’s not here. His mommy and daddy came to get him. They are on their family vacation. His daddy said they are on a tight schedule if they want to make it to the vacation resort on time. So they had to leave.”
Her mother smiled and let out a sigh. “Well, that sounds about right for a family vacation. And certainly not something a six-year-old would just come up with. I believe you! You made a friend today! How wonderful!”
Geraldine raised her eyebrows. “So, we are going to the library?”
“Yes, sweetie. Let’s go.” She took Geraldine’s small hand.
“And a cookie?”
Her mother eyed her shrewdly, then wrinkled her nose. “Sure. Why not? The library and a cookie!”
Geraldine grinned from ear to ear as they walked back to the car. Behind them, a small grey tabby ran back to her apartment.