Field Trip to Earth

Dear Cousin Carla,

This is your favorite cousin, Pam. I am sending this transmission to you from the wondrous Planet Earth, because I am here on a school trip. As you know, I attend North Crater Academy on the Planet Saturn. I just finished my course there about life on other planets. Our teacher took a small group of us to Earth to experience some of what we learned. It is a great honor to be here, because only the top four students in that class were allowed to go. I didn’t want to wait until I got back to tell you about my exciting experiences on this trip, so I thought I’d send you a transmission now.

Our starship landed in a remote area of the planet called the Mojave Desert. The pilot cloaked the ship so that it couldn’t be seen. Our teacher then changed us into the form of humans, and told us to practice walking. Humans do not automatically know how to walk when they are born. In fact, they are not capable of walking until they have been on their planet for about a year. At that time, their young muscles must practice this task. We are in the form of fourteen-year-old humans, so we are capable of walking, but we still needed to practice so that we would get used to it. You should have seen our antics Carla!

In case you are not familiar with this concept, let me first explain it to you. Humans have legs with feet attached to their bodies. Please look at the picture that I sent with this transmission. I understand that you have seen pictures of humans before, but this will refresh your memory. Look at how much smaller these feet are in proportion to the rest of the body. Yet, the job of the feet is to hold the entire body straight in a standing position. The legs move so that the body can walk. Our teacher expected us to do this with no problem!

Well, I started walking, but I was going too fast and couldn’t stop. I bounced right off Tina and Susie. They had been busy trying to hold each other up, but now all three of us were on the floor. Jackie was the only one that seemed to be doing well, until she saw us. She started laughing so hard that she fell backwards into an equipment stand. We all finally stood up, but we were so giddy with laughter that we couldn’t really concentrate on what we were doing. Just then the teacher came in and we all got in trouble. He was so mad because we didn’t take the practice serious. He said that he felt like taking us all back home right at that moment, but he gave us another half an hour to try again. It was a strange feeling to balance like that, but we are all good at it now.

As soon as the teacher was satisfied that we knew how to walk, we left the ship. I can hardly begin to describe how I felt when I stepped outside onto the planet Earth for the first time. The sun was so bright and large. It seemed to emit rays throughout the sky. I could feel its warmth on my face, and in the gentle breeze. I seemed to be able to smell it in the air. I heard a strange sound in my ears. I listened in awe at the musical sound. The teacher told us that what we were hearing was the wind. I was fixated at the blue sky and fluffy clouds that illuminated through the beams of the warm sun, but I forced myself to look around at the planet below.

The brown colors of the earthy ground were enchanting. The gentle wind caused small circles of sand to twirl round and round. We were all amazed to see a small earth creature suddenly dash by. Our teacher told us that the creature was a rabbit. It went to a tiny green bush to rest in the shade. There were several of these green bushes dotted across the desert. Each one caused a blotch of shade under it. The teacher told us that we made shade, too. It was called a shadow. That was enough to cause us to act silly and giddy again. We were running in circles trying to catch each other’s shadows. We could also make our shadows dance, raise its hands, bend, or do anything else that we were doing. The teacher was smiling now at all the fun that we were having. It was a relief to me that we didn’t make him mad at us again.

As soon as we quieted down, the teacher went back to drive the jeep out of the ship’s hatch. We all got in and headed to the road. Since it was our first day on Earth, he would only take us to the nearby town and then back to the ship. We were used to the jeep, because we all sat in it and played with it during our flight to Earth. The teacher had acquired it from a previous trip. It wasn’t long before we were on the road. The vibrations that our bodies felt through the vehicle felt different on the black, paved road than it did on the brown sand. The teacher told us that the color didn’t cause the difference. The sand is made up of many loose particles, but the road is solid. Soon, we arrived at a small diner.

The teacher told us that we would eat now. He said that we would be encountering humans in there, so he told us to act properly as we were taught. We slowly entered the facility, taking in the sights and sounds as we walked along. Upon entering, we were all startled by a human who briskly walked over to us talking loudly about something. I didn’t catch what she had said, but the teacher told her “five”. I guess that was a code word, because after that, she invited us to follow her deep inside of the building to sit at a table. It was strange to actually see a human in person, though she looked similar to the ones in the videos that I saw many times. The teacher ordered something called ice cream for us to eat. He said that we would have something small for our first day. The human brought back small bowls with a scoop of ice cream in each. She also gave each of us a spoon. In case you are not familiar with it, I will describe it to you. It is a small metal object that is similar to a shovel. I know that you know what a shovel is because we played with one together at the Earth artifacts fair back home near my house.

The teacher demonstrated to us how to eat the ice cream. Next, it was our turn. I picked up my spoon, but it twirled in my hands as I tried to hold it straight. I wasn’t the only one that was having that problem. Jackie was the first one to be able to get some of the ice cream substance on her spoon. After we saw her do it, we all were able to do it. We weren’t the most graceful ‘spoon holders’ though. I raised my loaded spoon to my mouth and put it in. It was so cold! I mean really cold! How come the humans like to eat something that cold? Susie screamed and the human came back over. The teacher told her that Susie was just being silly today, and then the human went away again.

We were all silly when we went back outside to the jeep. We kept talking about our ice cream experience, and laughing the whole while. The teacher was even laughing with us this time. We all had a great day. We went back to our ship and that’s when I started writing you this transmission. I can hardly wait to see what adventures tomorrow will bring!
Your Cousin,
Pam