The Kramorian Exchange

Chapter 2- Jorts, a vest, and a pink polka-dot bowtie

My name is August Halliman, I' am 12 years old and my best friend, well, he's an alien.

    I sprint up the long ramp toward the door of the spaceship and leap into my best friend's arms. Spignek catches me and easily swings me up over his shoulder, playfully smacking my bottom before lowering me back down for a great big bear hug. I haven't seen him for almost three months so this is super exciting.

    "Late, your late, you were meant to be here this afternoon!" I tease him, still with my arms wrapped around his belly, and looking up at his face.

    "I know I know, I'm sorry, but traffic was terrible!" Says Spignek, "It was clear all the way from the Kramorian wormhole to Jupiter but from there on it was like old alien driver, old alien driver, old alien driver. I swear, when an alien turns 1000 they should have to either re-test for their shuttle license or just stay home. Anyway, err, your mum looks pretty, um, no happy"

    I grab Spignek's slender hand and start dragging him down the ramp towards my waiting family. "Unhappy. And don't worry, she'll get over it. I mean, flowers grow back pretty fast right?"

    Spignek pulls back a little, trying to walk slower. "No idea dude," he mumbles, "I've never grown one".

We reach the bottom of the ramp and Spignek stops to hastily dust off his clothing, pulling them straighter before standing up as tall as he can to say hello.

He has always worried about arriving in wrinkly clothing but personally, I don't know what his problem is. I mean come on, how on Earth is someone meant to spend 67 hours in a space ship, including a thirteen-second jump through a very unstable wormhole, and come out looking like a pristine prince on the other side? Impossible, right?

It's not like his clothes are normal anyway. Take right now for instance. Spignek is wearing orange sandal-like shoes on his feet, but his feet are 42cm long and he has six toes, so yeah, not normal. He's covered his skinny green legs to the knees with a pair of ratty, faded blue cut-off shorts, that he absolutely adores and never changes. I think he bought them during one of his very first visits here all those years ago and I don't think I've seen him in anything different ever since. The edges of the legs are all worn and frayed, there's a great big stain down one side and they are way too small. He definitely needs new ones but I'm sure not gonna be the one to tell him, and it doesn't end there.

Aside from the too tight shorts, he's also taken a liking to vests of all things. Sadly, for the rest of us, he failed to take a liking to wearing anything underneath them. The one he has on now only comes down to his top belly button and I wouldn't have a clue what it's made from. It's a browny purple colour and looks like leather, but I am pretty sure it wouldn't have been dyed that shade. I'm also pretty sure it didn't come from any cow found on Earth. Weird right?

I wish, not for the first time, that I could meet the animals from Kramoria.

The one accessory he didn't choose on his own is his Oxypuff backpack. It's bright red and all the Kramorians wear one. They kinda have to if they want to breath while they're here.

To top the look off he's wearing a jumbo size pink polka-dot bowtie loosely around his neck. Yep, jorts, a vest, and a pink polka-dot bowtie. That's Spignek for you.

"Mr. Halliman. Mrs. Halliman," Spignek says, a little formally. "It is good to see you again". He stands in front of my parents with both of his arms stretched out in front of him. He never can remember which hand is used for shaking when saying hello on Earth, so he normally just covers all bases and holds out both at the same time.

I can tell he is anxious and looks a little jumpy, but he then he usually is when he's around my mother. She's always scared him just a tad. She scares me too sometimes!