WriteByte

Max tiptoed carefully through the long, yellow grass of his farm in the afternoon sun with a rifle clutched in his hands and determination in his heart. He creeped on the gray-furred kangaroo silently, while the creature feasted on grass. When he had the kangaroo in target, a grin showed on Max’s bearded face as he pulled the trigger of his rifle. The roo dropped dead in the grass as Max’s nine-year-old grandson, Tom, ran over to the gory sight. “What did you do that for?” Tom asked angrily.

Max smacked him on the head. “Don’t you take that tone with me young man, now go fetch the newspaper.” Max usually forgot to collect it in the morning, so this was common.

Max went back to the house. He plonked down in his chair and read the front headline of the newspaper: CROP CIRCLES INCREASING ON FLEURIEU PENINSULA, CROP CIRCLE ARTISTS PLEADING NOT GUILTY

Max rolled his eyes. He hated that kind of stuff. He flicked the pages and glimpsed a page about horoscopes. Of course he didn’t believe in them but he was dying to read something interesting. It had all these different starsigns listed including Sagittarius: his.

It read: You will experience an exciting change in the near-future for the better of you and others around you. Yeah, right!. After Tom came in and slammed the door shut Max threw him the newspaper and asked him to put it in the bin. The bin layed under a window which Tom ended up staring out. “Wacha lookin’ at?” Max asked as he came over. Right where he had killed the roo lay a massive crop circle which neither of them had noticed before. Additionally, the remains of the kangaroo were gone.

Not a word was spoken for the rest of the day except, “I’m goin’ to bed,” from Max. He thought he’d sleep well that night, but boy was he wrong. An hour after Max fell asleep, he spotted a very bright, lime green light glowing outside which reached his room which woke him up. He didn’t even dress differently when he left the house in his slippers with a torch.

The glow stretched across the whole back yard and covered the whole house. He followed the green glow to the middle of his back yard where it was so bright he had to cover his eyes. He stepped on where the light was coming from, but he couldn’t feel anything. Then he looked up.

Above him was a looming, large disc-shaped object (Obviously a flying saucer) floating in mid-air emitting a green light in it’s centre. Max, gobsmacked, dropped his torch as he was sucked up by the light into the object. The ship then shut out the light and zoomed faster than the speed of light off through the atmosphere into space.

Tom woke up the next morning. He got downstairs to the dining room and expected his grandpa to be there. He’s probably sleeping in, Tom thought. The whole morning Tom didn’t see him but decided he wouldn’t wake him up to drive him to school. So he rode instead. When he got back from school, he still saw no sign of Grandpa. He scoured the whole house and at last looked in his room where he found Grandpa Max sleeping on his bed, a broken window and a note.

He breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the note. It was written in very thick letters and read:

Dear reader, whatever relationship you have with this specimen does not matter, he is alive and well. After conducting several, shall we say, “tests” on the male he will suffer some amnesia and head ache, plus a personality change. Unfortunately we are not sure if this will be a slight change or a complete reverse of personality. However as our tests succeeded we can almost guarantee the change will be for the better. Thank you!

Tom looked for a name or at least an adress but didn’t find one. Oh well, at least Grandpa Max was back, if that was a good thing. Which it turned out that it was. Grandpa Max’s personality did completely reverse: he stopped hunting, treated Tom with love and kindness and became the friendliest person Tom had ever met. But neither of them ever did discover who the note was from and what Max was doing that night…

THE END

By Luke Pevreal