Dear Readers,
Welcome to or welcome back to Short Story Wednesday. This week’s tale is different from my usual fare. Xyla2 was published in 2009 in a magazine called Stories for Children. I love writing for young readers almost as much as I love reading stories written for them. If a story is well told, I don’t care what market niche it occupies. I hope this one makes you laugh. We all need to do that a lot this year,
Xyla2
I’m Ardo. I used to be a perfect turtle. I had this fabulously wrinkled neck and, my pals said, an adorable tail. My pace was adagio. If you don’t know, that means measured and slow. See? A perfect turtle.
Then one day, while I was on my warm flat rock sunning by my favorite pond, something with hard, steely fingers grabbed me. It slammed me into a dark box and zoomed away so fast I rolled up inside my shell like a tennis ball. When the thing lifted me out of the box, I was in a bright room, and these round, faceless pods with stainless steel skin hovered over me. I ducked inside my shell again.
“Xxuuuyt qgrt yyy!” One of the pods shouted.
“Nope. I’m not coming out.”
“Rwees nkot, Ardo.”
I didn’t care what they promised. I was not budging.
“Gwnok,” finally, one of them said in a coaxing voice.
I love Gwnok. On earth, it’s called a small delicious bug. I poked my head out and, sure enough, Gwnok. Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad.
Big mistake.
They didn’t hurt me, but they embarrassed me a bit, and after I came out of my shell, I was not the same. My legs started to grow—not the front ones, just the two in the back. My adorable tail disappeared along with my shell. I was shocked. Turtles don’t look all that great de-shelled.
I discovered that the Podlings were from planet Xlya2. They were doing experiments—that word still makes me shudder—on earth animals. I explained I was a technically not an animal, but a turtle—tsyyxl in Podling.
“Get a horse or a cow, not me,” I said, but they wouldn’t listen.
Soon, I had the legs of a marathon runner. I was doing laps on planet Xlya2 for something—I never found out what—and then one day—I wasn’t alone.
Garron arrived first. He started as a sleek alley cat, but after some time with the Podlings, his body puffed up like a balloon. When they set him in a deep pool of water to see how long he’d float, he sank straight away. He tried to tell them cats weren’t designed to float, but they came up with another idea. Once he was fitted with a life vest, he’d float most of the day with his feet sticking up in the air.
“I hate this,” he’d yell, but the Podlings ignored him and kept making data entries on their digital clipboards.
Sylvanna arrived later. As a snake, she wasn’t bad, but boy, did she make a fuss when she sprouted not one, not two, but six feet. The Podlings gave her three pairs of pink shoes that sparkled, and she finally agreed to walk on a treadmill.
Art work, Melissa Zepeda, 2009
We all wanted to escape, and since I was the only Podling speaker—I’ve always been good at languages—Garron and Sylvanna sent me to the Podling conference room to plead our cases. I was about to go inside when I overheard something in Podling that froze my turtle heart. If we didn’t escape by the end of the Xyla2 new moon phase, we would never be able to return to our normal selves. The Podlings were about through with us. They were already discussing their next visit to earth to find other creatures to replace us. In Podling, creatures are called blxtto.
I backed away from the conference room entrance and ran as fast as my super ridiculously long legs would go. Garron and Sylvanna met me at the laboratory door.
“Ssso?” Sylvanna hadn’t lost her hissy voice. “What did they sssay?”
I shook my head. “They said vwot again.” I couldn’t tell her that in a few days she’d never be able to lose those feet and slither the way she used to, that she’d always be ahymtx here on this strange planet.
Garron waddled into his corner and sat staring at the walls.
“I’m going on ssstrike.” Sylvanna stomped into her sleeping area and did her best to coil, but her shoes got in the way.
“Strike?” I asked. “You mean I should refuse to be a running tsyyxl?”
From his corner Garron, shouted, “And I’m not going to be a floating—” He looked at me. “What am I?”
“You’re a qtyl.”
“And I’m not going to be a tread-milling hymtx any more either.” Two pairs of Sylvanna’s shoes flew across the room and landed on the floor as the Podlings arrived.
The three of us stuck together. We stretched out side-by-side on the hard floor and refused to move. The Podlings huddled around us.
“Xwwwop!”
“Trrfkdp!”
They were not happy, and they spoke so fast their voices became a loud whirred. It was hard to understand them.
“What did they sssay?” Sylvanna hissed.
“I’m not sure.” I wished the Podlings had faces. Sometimes, expressions help me understand foreign words..
Suddenly, all the Podlings were talking at the same time, and I only caught a few words I could repeat in front of Sylvanna.
Then the wall slid open, and the head Podling swooped in. “Ywxxop!”
We were in for it. I would have given a month of Gwnok if I’d had my shell to duck inside.
“Ardo.” The head Podling shouted my name. “Qxvoo dxyt.”
“Qxvoo dxyt?” I repeated, shocked.
The head Podling sped off, leaving us with the angry lab crew.
Garron nudged me. “What?”
“I think they’re letting us go. Something us about being too much trouble.”
And sure enough, a short time later, they whisked us into the transport tube.
Zoom, zoom, zoom.
Plunk.
Earth.
“Home, at last,” we cheered.
Once we arrived, the changes started slowly but then sped up. My tail reappeared, then my rear legs shrank. It felt so good when my shell settled on my back. Garron became sleek and sly again with great cat whiskers, and when Sylvanna lost the last of her feet, she did have a brief moment of regret. She had to give up her sparkly pink shoes.
When we said goodbye, we were a bit sad, but we promised to keep in touch, and if any Podlings showed up again, we would sound an alert.
So here I am by my pond, warming up my shell, waiting for the wrinkles in my neck to return. Life is good, and—excuse me, I see Gwnok, and I’m hungry.
~The End~
Full Kirkus Review: McKenzie pens a swampy middle-grade story full of humor, hauntings, quirky characters and a mystery that continues to develop to the very end…A short, fun story that will excite both young and old imaginations.
Available on Amazon
I wasn't expecting this story or where it went. But I really enjoyed it.
And now for something completely different…🙂