My Planet

By Siona M.

Pronounced meb-nis

“Welcome to Mebns! The best planet to tour with a beautiful environment and rolling hills,” exclaims the tour guide. 

I take a deep breath of the cool air. Looking far I see floating water in the air, streaming down to the ground like a…waterfall?

“What’s that?” I ask. 

The tour guide smiles and responds, “Those are the floating waters of Mebns what we are famous for! As you can see, the water flows down and creates pools of water in the marshland where the blobfish live.” 

I squint and find pink blobs sitting in the clear ponds. The guide claps her hands. “Since you are already interested, let us go and examine the wildlife here,” she says.

She leads me to the large Jeep and I hop in. 

“Are we here?” I ask.

It has been a bumpy ride through the dirt roads. Instead of answering, she points to the grasslands. I look over and see an elephant  munching on slimy green seaweed. 

“The elephants are eating Xangwasa, an invasive plant species.” My guide informs me. “Onwards, to the forest we go!”

She stomps on the gas pedal and we zoom forward, my body lurching forwards as we gain speed. I keep my eyes closed for the next five minutes, my breakfast threatening to come up. The Jeep comes to a halt and I peek open my eyes. The guide is staring ahead with wide eyes. I slowly lift my head to see a large Chicken Nugget facing us. My guide turns her head at me and presses her fingers to her lips while slowly backing up the car.

“What was that?” I whisper.

The guide waits until we’ve backed up enough so that the chicken nugget creature could not see us.“That is the king of the jungle: the Chicken Nugget,” she finally responds.

I sit and ponder for the rest of the car ride back to camp.

The Jeep comes to a stop, jolting me awake. I yawn and rub my eyes. How long have I been sleeping?  My guide hops out of the Jeep and beckons me to follow her, she seems to have recovered from the shock of seeing the wild Chicken Nugget. Looking around, I see large tents with crops that could go on for miles flowing behind them. My guide grins and says, “This is where the people of Mebns live, the human population is small so that’s why everyone here lives a simple life.”

I gaze in wonder at these content people smiling and talking to each other while doing their jobs. She leads me to the biggest tent of them all, and zips open the flap. Peeking inside I see a large table that could fit one hundred people. My guide glances over at me seeing my questioning look. “Here is where we hold all of our important meetings about our planet. Since there are few people living here, we have a direct democracy and it works well for our society,” she informs me.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and whip around to see who it is. A tall white robot with a digital face speaks,“Hello, traveler. Time to come home.”

I smile, remembering the robot from my planet. The robot hands me a jetpack and we fly into space, back to Earth.