by Phetsavanh Hongthong (age 12) – Luang Prabang, Laos

There once was an alien who lived on a star in outer space. It wasn’t a girl or boy; It was just an alien.

One day, a rocket ship crashed into the alien’s star, and destroyed it. The rocket came from Earth, so the alien went there to see why they shot a rocket at its star. But when it came to Earth, the people were very afraid, because they had never seen an alien before. Many were worried that it was a bad alien, because a lot of the news reports on TV said it might be dangerous. Still, some people thought it might be a good alien, and wanted to help it.

Actually, the alien was also afraid of the people. The alien told the people what happened to it’s star, and asked why they shot a rocket at it. The people said it was an accident, and that they didn’t know there were aliens living on it. Many of the people felt bad, so they started to build a new star for the alien. Even though many people wanted to help, there were even more people who were still afraid of the alien. The frightened people decided to fight the alien, and they killed it.

Afterwards, the people who were afraid realized that maybe they had made a mistake, and the alien hadn’t been bad after all. They regretted what they had done. All of the people worked together to turn the star they built into a monument of the alien, so everyone would remember that being afraid can be dangerous.