I made friends with a creature from outer space. For one week, I was the luckiest kid in the world.
I don't feel so lucky anymore.
The consequence of helping an alien escape from the government: Only ET got to go home.
I should have joined him in the spaceship.
The men in Hazmat suits grabbed me the moment ET's big red glowing spaceship disappeared.
The large Christmas tree ornament-like craft had just taken off, leaving a rainbow trail in the night sky. My big brother Michael and his friends fought back, but the government guys pulled out weapons.
We'd been in the middle of a redwood forest at the time. The men picked us up and carried us, kicking and screaming, for about a mile to the road. The full moon I had flown my bicycle past now sank lower on the horizon.
My sister Gertie wiggled free once, but they outnumbered us, and she didn't escape. They brought out zip ties to restrain us.
Mom tried her best to get them to release me, arguing that since the alien was gone, and I was perfectly healthy, they had no right to do anything to me, but they only pushed her away and threw me into the back of a black van.
Someone said I wasn't healthy, I still looked sick.
I didn't feel sick.
They did radiation tests, sticking me with needles and heart monitors and everything. My hands got cuffed to the stretcher, too. Guess they thought I'd pull another escape attempt.
Gertie screamed from a different truck.
"What are you going to do with her?" I asked.
The people in space suits, not much on conversation, didn't answer me.
The truck resembled an ambulance on the inside, mixed with an FBI surveillance vehicle. They had television cameras, oscilloscopes, radar, and a bunch of scientific equipment. Their radios crackled. Reel to reel magnetic tape on their refrigerator sized computers squeaked noisily.
Still giddy from my recent victory, I chuckled, grinning at my captors. "We beat you! You'll never see ET again!"
A fat face peered at me through the plastic window of a space suit. "Yeah? That means you'll never see him either."
I kept smiling. "It doesn't matter. He can go home now."
The guy had nothing to say to that.
The van rumbled noisily away from the forest.
I touched my chest, thinking about ET's last words to me. That he'd always be in my heart.
When we at last arrived at our destination, and the men began their work, I would be the one crying, "Home phone."
Unfortunately, no telephone on earth could fix this.
