A Little Extra-Terrestrial

Darla looked out the window, holding her small leather ET doll tightly. He was worn and cracked after two years of accompanying Darla on EVERY adventure. Her little brother, only five years old was slumped against the other door of the car, his seatbelt around his middle, a golden retriever snuggled between them to protect the middle line.

Chablis’ tail wagged and thumped Darla soundly on the arm. The world sped by too quickly making Darla dizzy, but she kind of liked the way the colours blended.

“What do you think ET? Do you think we’ll like PEI? Prince Edward Island? It’s so far from home…but I guess you know what it’s like being far from home?”

Darla whispered to the small leather facsimile of the extra-terrestrial she’d seen in a movie two summers ago.

It was the first movie she’d ever seen. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, deep in the forest in Manitoba, just outside of Flint Flon at a drive-inn.

While the other five year olds had giggled and thrown popcorn at each other, Darla had been transfixed. Her heart so moved by the story of a boy and an alien who find each other, and how a group of rag-tag misfits help get ET home.

Darla begged her mother for an ET doll. ET was all she could talk about at school. The kids started calling her alien. But it was better than some of the other names they used to call her. At least if she was an alien she was more like ET, who was a gentle thoughtful creature, not like her classmates who found ways to make her feel like there rocks in her stomach every day.

After weeks of pleading for her very own ET, Darla’s mom brought home a package. It was a cardboard box shut with duct tape, and her name written in blue marker on a white piece of paper haphazardly glued onto the top. In the top left corner, in the same blue marker, the word GRANZIE sat.

Darla was so excited. She started to shake. She loved her grandma. Her Granzie was the one who truly got her, and who loved her despite what she’d be told were her many flaws. She was too loud, but also too quiet. She hated having her picture taken. She loved talking about dinosaurs…too much. Everyone was tired of her obsession with pterodactyls. She refused to wear dresses. She loved to hide, and run away. She only wanted to be reading. Her Granzie didn’t care. She fed Darla peaches and told her stories and taught her to play the piano by sitting her down in front of it and letting her…play. Her Granzie didn’t care that she cried when she found worms crushed under bicycle tires. She never called her too sensitive, and never tried to take her picture without permission.

Her mom grabbed a set of scissors and tried to get into the box. It wasn’t easy. There were so many layers of duct tape, and several well spit curses by her mother at the wrapping job.

In the box lay a small leather ET. And a blue envelope.

Darla’s mom asked if she needed it read to her.

Darka shook her head vehemently. She’d learned to read biology text books at age three and she didn’t need any help, except for with the scissors, she wasn’t what someone would call dexterous.

Darla snatched up ET, the letter and ran to her room.

Darla,

YOU ARE NOT ALONE. HERE IS A NEW FRIEND TO LISTEN TO YOU WHEN I CAN’T BE THERE.

love,

Granzie

…and she wasn’t alone. For two years Darla and ET were inseparable. The kids still called her alien. But she had a world all her own. She could write now. She held her pencil a little differently than the other kids, but her letters were perfectly legible, even though the education assistant told her she wrote like a kindergartener.

ET soothed her. He told her she wasn’t from this planet, so of course it was harder to hold a pencil. She wasn’t from here. That she and he would some day get picked up by his space ship, and taken away from the mean kids at school, her sweet but too loud little brother, and her mom…who for some reason loved her little brother more. If only they could find the right phone.

They had been trying every phone they could find for the last two years.

Darla watched as the car pulled up to the motel, she waited in the car as her brother wiped his eyes and Chablis stood up with excitement.

This vacation was supposed to be fun. But so far it had just been days and days of driving. Thankfully Darla had ET, with him by her side everything felt like an adventure.

For a week ET and Darla followed her family from place to place. It was a lot. It was loud. There were too many things going on. She cried. She threw things. She begged to be left in the car.

But her Dad told her that the beach was worth it. He promised. He said that the water was magic. He was right. The Atlantic Ocean was incredible. Darla stood at its edge and was calmed by the sound of the waves lapping the shore. ET told her that half his planet was covered by water. That the ocean there was even more beautiful.

That night, when her parents took her brother to dinner and left her behind in the room because she’d be having “too many tantrums”, she and ET found a phone and ET dialled and…

It worked. ET had phoned home.

His family was coming to get him.

The next morning as her family was packing up Darla searched everywhere for ET, but she couldn’t find him. She wailed and screamed but her parents said they had to leave.

Darla wept every day for the next week. Her parents didn’t know what to do. Chablis tried to snuggle her better.

They got home and Darla had to go on with her life.

…but somewhere, on a small ship, a small extra-terrestrial keeps trying every phone, hoping he can bring his Darla home.