The Terrarium Experiment

When Chris slipped into his sister’s room, the last thing he expected was to hear a voice. Lizzie had been away at college for months and he was just stopping in to grab a sweatshirt.

“—don’t see what all the fuss is about!” The voice came from below, somewhere near Lizzie’s bed.

Chris paused. “Liz?” She wasn't home; her car wasn't in the driveway.

“Anyway,” the voice continued, “all this being cooped up inside is so… boring. I wish I could visit the terrarium.”

Terrarium? Chris looked around but didn’t see anything out of place. Maybe it was coming from outside?

“No chance of that happening though.” The voice let out a wistful sigh. “I guess I’ll just have to make do with watching them on their little screens.”

Suspicion began to dawn on Chris as he followed the sound back to Lizzie's desk and peered over the edge.

A tiny astronaut stood there, peering into an iPad propped up on its stand.

"What in the world?" Chris muttered, then clapped a hand over his own mouth. He'd meant to be quiet, not alert the tiny spaceman to his presence.

But it was too late. The astronaut turned and looked right up at him.

"Great," it grumbled, "another human."

Chris stared down in astonishment as another figure glided up beside the astronaut: an alien wearing a backpack emblazoned with the letters N.A.S.A.

The alien sighed heavily (which sounded more like a whoosh) and said something unintelligible before continuing on in English: “Look here, kid—or should I say… giant?”

Chris blinked once or twice before stepping back from the desk. When he looked again they were still there: two smartly dressed figures engaged in conversation, both no more than four inches tall.

“…just a simple reconnaissance mission…” the alien was saying. “—astronaut gets all the glory…”

Chris leaned forward again to get a better look, and the astronaut and alien both turned to glare at him.

The astronaut pointed an accusing finger: “You!” it said. Then it turned to the alien. “See?” It made some sort of exasperated (and probably untranslatable) noise before adding: “Told you this would happen.”

“Whatever,” the alien said with a shrug, then looked up at Chris. "Listen up, I don't have time to explain everything right now but suffice it to say that we are on a highly classified mission into your world and—"

CRASH!

All three of them jerked their heads towards the bedroom door where Lizzie’s dog, Roscoe, stood wagging his tail next to the shattered remains of her treasured terrarium.

“Oh no!” Chris dove for Roscoe who yelped in surprise and tried to backpedal away from all these unexpected hands grabbing at him.

“No-no-no!” The astronaut was buzzing around as if he’d had six espressos, shouting about debris and contamination  while the alien let out a series of high-pitched whines that seemed more like panicky human cries than anything else.

Chris managed to grab Roscoe’s collar and pull him out of range while chaos continued to reign on the desk below.

“Enough!” Chris shouted over their combined racket. All three fell silent while they stared up at him.

The astronaut's visor was narrowed in what Chris took as annoyance or frustration; it was hard to tell because (despite being small enough for him to hold in one hand) its face was still surprisingly detailed—and completely expressionless.

The alien blinked its enormous eyes slowly and curled its proboscis under its chin in what may have been contrition.

Chris took a deep breath and tried to think through the swirling maelstrom of questions in his mind. ”Okay, let’s start with names,” he said. “I’m Chris. And this is Roscoe.”

The astronaut and alien looked at each other for a moment before the astronaut gestured to itself and said, “Gary."

“These are the remains of my sister’s terrarium,” Chris continued, pointing at the desk beneath them. "And this is her room."

Gary nodded as if this was exactly what he’d expected to hear but the alien began making a series of distressed sounds that made Chris wonder if he was going to be ill.

“Are you—“ he began, but Gary cut him off: “He doesn’t do well with a lot of stimulus but I think we’re all getting off track here.” He motioned down towards the shattered glass still scattered across the desk.

“What say we find someplace a little more… spacious to have this conversation? And not surrounded by… debris.” He gave another pointed look at Roscoe who had retreated under Lizzie’s bed and was now looking out at them with an expression that seemed half sheepish and half defiant.