Shhh...

This is top secret. You can't tell my dad I wrote this.

I'm supposed to be writing for contests this summer (according to me padre), but I couldn't resist a little "splurge" on a story prompted by Myself of Through My Eyes. My prompt was (the image is backwards due to Myself's webcam):

If you don't have a mirror on hand, it says a library, a creature from another planet, and  a character finds a treasure.

Huh. Well apparently I should have used a mirror, because I thought my plot was "a character solves a problem." ...I'll just pull a Spielberg: the treasure is knowledge. (Anyone? Anyone? Movie line game?)

That's okay. Myself, you don't hate me, do you?

P.S. It has no title, so I'm calling it Lipgloss. (That's a bit of an inside joke that no one here will ever understand. Hahayou.)

“So your assignment over the weekend is to research the inhabitants of another planet,” the teacher finally concluded after a 3-hours-long lecture on intergalactic relations. “Your reports will be due on Munsdie.”

                Xxy%ten gathered his various writing tablets covered with doodles of aliens, then fell into line behind Ybegr#n as he marched out the door.

                “Hey, Ybegr#n,” Xxy%ten said, tapping the taller P’kenfris. “Where are you going for your study?”

                “My grandma’s house,” replied the other without looking. “She’s so old, she’s practically from another planet.”

                “Oh…” Xxy%ten wished he’d thought of that, but since someone else was doing that he didn’t want to copy them. “Well, I was thinking I’d fly around and stop at any planet that catches my eye.”

                “Well, have fun with that,” said Ybegr#n as he climbed into his cruiser and flew out of the schooling-port. Xxy%ten did the same.

                “Computer!” The little P’kenfris cried, smacking the touch panel of his vehicle.

                “What?” The computer voice whined.

                “Examine inhabited planets within 20 lightyears of here.”

                The computer proceeded to flash various planets on the screen: large, small, flaming, and even a planet no larger than a dust speck, found on the surface of another, larger planet. The latter piqued Xxy%ten’s interest, so he set coordinates for the larger of the two: a blue-green planet called “Earth.”

                When he arrived, the first place he examined was something his computer told him was called a “Library.” At the schooling-port they called “libraries” information download ports, but, after all, this was an alien planet.

                “How can I help you?” The controlling alien asked when Xxy%ten approached it. It did not look up at him as he approached, but that was something the P’kenfris was accustomed to. He was so impossibly short, as his parents had described it, that he was always looked over.

                “I’m looking for a planet that I’ve been told exists somewhere on the surface of this world. If I remember correctly, it is called… Hoovil.”

                The controlling alien sniffed and shuffled some papers. “Hmph. Well, I would check the children’s section.”

                Xxy%ten nodded and thanked the alien before turning to locate the children’s books. The first book he examined, however, attacked him most viciously, causing his finger to bleed and throb.

                “Excuse me,” the P’kenfris said to the controlling alien. “Your information log sliced my finger. Is there perhaps another method of knowledge transfer?”

                The controlling alien sighed and cleared its throat hoarsely. “Try an eBook, then.”

                “Brilliant!” Xxy%ten cried. “Can it be accessed with POL?” (POL as in P’kenfri On Line).

                “Yeah, sure, whatever,” the controlling alien muttered.

                Nursing his injured finger, the P’kenfris darted happily out of the information download port and into his ship. When he logged onto POL and accessed the Earth networks, he discovered that Hoovil was not an actual planet, but a fictional destination dreamed up by an alien Earth-dweller who went by the name of Dr. Seuss.

                With that report, Xxy%ten passed intergalactic relations with full marks. Ybegr#n did, too, in case you were wondering.