Child

Soldiers

One day, Billie comes home to the treehouse and says "I have spied!"

Everybody looks at her.

"I have received intelligence from theft, bugging and some traitorous friends."

"What did you find?" asks Orso.

Billie lays a map on the floor and everyone gathers around. "Here." she points to a spot on the map. "This is where they're building the ramp."

"What ramp?"

"A ramp into outer space." Billie spits, like it's obvious. "They are building a ramp into outer space to fight the aliens."

"Why a ramp of all things?" Orso scoffs.

"It seems pretty cool." Idowu says. Nirmal looks at you and sees what he hoped to see.

"All war is stupid." Nirmal says. "This war is no different."

Billie rolls her eyes. "Why can't you just accept that war is sometimes necessary?"

"Because it isn't, Billie. It's always avoidable. And this time it's us who have the power to prevent it."

"What about right now?" Idowu points out. "You're arguing now, aren't you?"

"Arguing is different. We're not arming ourselves with tanks and explosives and invading each others homes to murder each other because someone else told us to."

"Or are you?" Idowu raises their eyebrows. It means nothing to you or Nirmal, but it doesn't annoy you as much as it does Nirmal.

***

Billie is arming herself with stolen guns and an extra protective gas mask and Orso is encouraging her. She says she's going to go and help the Space Force without anyone finding out. You're all sceptical of this, or at least you're pretty sure none of your friends are excited for Billie to do this. Orso certainly acts excited though.

As it gets closer to the time, it seems like Orso is going too. So are you and Idowu and even Nirmal. You can't stop Billie from going, but you also can't stop her from pulling you down with her.

You all wear space suit helmets on top of your normal clothes. But you decide to wear your rabbit mask over it for comfort. 

You all sneak in behind the other astronaut soldiers. You are your group's cloaking device because you can stop the Space Force from seeing you and your friends. You think you could stop the alien from seeing the Space Force and that might really help them win, but you don't try. You agree with Nirmal. We aren't the good guys in this war. We're not fighting for peace, we're fighting for an alien's head. All you want to do is to keep Billie and the others safe.

In the office window, overlooking the troops, you see the Chief of Police, now General of the Space Force, watching over everything, commanding the soldiers from her computer and you can't believe it. You didn't know her that well, but, despite her revolver on her hip, you've always seen her as a pacifist.

The front row of the Space Force run up the ramp and start floating. When they start firing shots at the alien, you try to make the alien invisible to them, but it's too late. They know where it is and it's too big for your brain to deal with.

It's not an alien spaceship like you thought it would be. It's just one big alien, floating in space. Does it have a home planet? Can you even call it an extraterrestrial, if it just comes from space?

You're happy to see all the bullets are bouncing off the alien's skin. But then you notice some of them are coming back to the Earth. You duck, and the left ear of your rabbit is blown off. You're happy you didn't get shot but then you turn around and notice your friend Nirmal wasn't as lucky.