Life On Mars

• Trish Gonzales, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2022

I stare out of the glass dome, towards orange hills and rovers scanning the surroundings. I miss Earth, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. We treated our home poorly, and we had to evacuate to this planet. Mars. Someday I hope to explore this mysterious place. My watch vibrates. This is my chance to start a new life here on Mars.

A person fits an astronaut helmet on me, and I look in the mirror. A voice comes in through the “walkie-talkie” I carry and I jump in surprise, not knowing where it came from at first. Then I relax and a disjointed voice tells me what I have to do. “Remember, take a sample of the red dirt and come straight back.” I repeat these instructions over and over in my mind. There’s a door on the right side of the room I’m in and I open it. This is it. No more glass domes, no more confinement.

I scoop up a tiny bit of red dust and place it carefully into a little container. Alright. That wasn’t so hard! Now it's time to go back. Suddenly, a flash of bright purple catches the corner of my eye. I can’t help but be a little curious and step towards it. Another flash. Another step. I thought they said there weren't any aliens on Mars? I look down to my feet and see something I can’t quite identify. It’s bright purple and certainly looks like an alien. It starts to crawl up my leg and I pick it up. One eye, green pointy ears and cute and fluffy. I know I shouldn’t stay out this long, but this is something I should report to the space agency.

“Simply a prank. That’s it.” They say. I’m not convinced,, but I don’t want to get fired, so I remain silent.

Out on my second trip, the same purple alien crawls up my leg and this time, I examine it more closely. Underneath the fur, I feel something hard, like metal. I turn it over and notice a little panel. Beneath it, there are batteries. Suddenly I realise what this is. I saw these toys all the time in shops back on Earth. Somehow, someone’s managed to get one here and play a prank on us astronauts. I walk back, happy to have solved the mystery of the purple alien. I think I love life on Mars. Even if we had to leave Earth.