Allen the Alien, Chapter 7

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They walked in silence for most of the way to Tommy’s home. At one point the duckling looked over his shoulder at his two escorts.

“Thank you for coming along, Mr. Three-Eyes,” Tommy said.

“My name,” said the three-eyed alien with his booming voice, “is TriSight.”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m glad you came.”

“Are you frightened of me, young one?” asked Count Duckula.

“I’m not scared of you personally, it’s your boss,” Tommy said.

“Ellie? Ellie is harmless.”

“That’s what she wants us to think,” said the duckling. “We all know she was hoping you would kill me.”

Duckula stopped in the middle of the road, and the others had to pause until he caught up.

“Why do you believe she wanted me to kill you?”

“I’m a little too sassy for my own good. My mom says that all the time.”

“But kill you?” Duckula said. “I’m aghast.”

“I don’t know what a gast is,” Tommy said. “I just know Ellie doesn’t like me.”

“Well, nobody is going to kill you today,” said the count. “At least not I.”

“Yeah, maybe Mom will if I don’t get home soon.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence again, and Cupcake was indeed a little unhappy that her son was home later than she expected.

“I hope he wasn’t too sassy to you,” she said.

“Nonsense,” said Duckula. “Your boy is a sheer delight.”

They said goodbye, and the two assistants headed back together.

“You have been very quiet, Mr. Three-Eyes,” Duckula broke the silence.

TriSight laughed.

“Maybe I should kill you for calling me that,” he boomed.

“Please. Enough with the killing talk.”

“I do think the boy was correct. Allen probably wanted to make sure he came to no harm.”

“I would like to be clear about this,” said Duckula. “Ellie is a selfish, ambitious and mean-spirited meanie underneath that sweet smile. She always wants something a little different from what she says she wants. But she is not a killer, and I am not some minion who would do any killing for her.”

“I am glad to hear that,” said TriSight. “Do you know what it is that she wants the interplanetary federation to do for her?”

“Not exactly. But when she says she wants peace, I think she is mostly telling the truth.”

TriSight wanted to ask why Duckula said “mostly,” but just then they rejoined Allen and Ellie.

A run-on sentence about writing anything until you write Something

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So it seems to be more complicated than, “OK, I’m going to sit down and write something now,” because your brain goes, “I don’t know what to write,” and you say, “write anything except nothing,” and the next thing you know, you’ve doodled the word “SOMETHING” in big block letters with googly eyes and duck faces all around it and maybe a little shading around the edges of the letters, and then you write about the weather, how it’s cloudy out and you sure wish the sun would shine and that it would cool off or warm up (depending on what time of year it is), and you keep on moving your fingers to spill words onto the page, sometimes for pages and pages of incoherent nothingness, and what do you know all of a sudden you’re in the Arctic searching for a lost shipwreck, and just as you’re giving up hope the sun comes out from behind a cloud and there’s the wreck just where you expected it to be, but suddenly the villain is standing in your way aiming to snatch your victory away, or maybe you’re a young child racing across a field of wildflowers with not a care in the world except to get your mom’s batch of cookies over to the neighbors, when all of a sudden you realize the neighbor won’t know if you’re bringing a dozen cookies or 10 and they sure smell good.

But if you don’t move your fingers and you don’t write nonsense until it starts to make sense and tell a story, well then, I hope you have a nice day even though you didn’t write anything. I’m just here to tell you that nothing is nothing and nonsense is something, and something is better than nothing almost every time. And if you’re hoping that maybe this is the time that nothing is better than something (I did say almost), well, yes, and maybe this is the time you win a million bucks in the lottery, too.

Allen the Alien, Chapter 6

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And now Allen was alone with Ellie.

“You spoke of needing something to be done,” Allen said. “What is this ‘necessary’ thing you want the federation to do?”

“We’re all just so tired of all the fighting and bickering on our planet,” said Ellie. “We need to unite under one gentle and benevolent leader, and I was wondering how you all could play a role in that.”

“Do you have a particular gentle and benevolent leader in mind?”

Ellie’s wide smile grew even wider. “Why, me, of course.”

“I understand,” said Allen. “Well, I just told you that we don’t believe in bosses and we let each member planet go its own way.”

“Oh, I don’t want to boss anyone around,” Ellie said. “I just want to end all the divisiveness and make peace.”

“That will be up to you and your people,” Allen said. “As I said, we don’t typically interfere in each other’s business.”

Ellie was still smiling with her face, but her eyes seemed to grow darker.

“I see,” said she. “Well, I guess that’s how it has to be.”

“Correct,” said Allen.

TriSight and Count Duckula returned.

“The boy is safe,” said TriSight.

“As he always would have been even without a babysitter,” said Count Duckula, who seemed a little irritated.

“Oh, I was hoping you boys would get to know each other along the way,” Ellie said.

Duckula and TriSight looked at each other and something was exchanged without words.

“We do understand each other better than we did before,” TriSight said.

“Splendid!” Ellie said, and her smile grew even wider — but Allen thought her eyes grew even darker. “Well, we will leave you to it, then. Thank you, Emissary Allen, for your graciousness.”

“I am in your service,” said Allen.

“Apparently not,” Ellie said, but then she shook her head. “I apologize, this has been a wonderful visit and truly historic. We have much to learn from you magnificent aliens.”

They watched Ellie and the count walk away for a while, and then TriSight raised all three eyebrows. “What was that all about?”

“It appears Tommy’s advice was sound. We have much to discuss with Fearless Leader,” Allen said. “But first, tell me why you said you understand each other better than you did before.”

“Ah, yes,” said TriSight. “We had a very enlightening conversation.”