Alice and the Wee Blue-Eyed Monster
by Steven Jon Halasz Alice had just finished her homework. The sun was setting as she looked out the window of her room onto the broad grassy lawn of her family's backyard. Everything was quiet and peaceful, just as it should be. But just then she noticed a pair of flashing blue lights. “What on earth?” she asked herself. Her mind raced through all the reasonable explanations she could think of before deciding that the explanation must be something quite unreasonable. She made up her mind to investigate. Alice went to the back door of her family's house and peeked out. The flashing lights were still there. She studied them closely. They were small and a good distance away, but she could just make out that they belonged to some kind of tiny creature. “How odd,” she thought. “What is that doing in our yard?” Slowly and carefully she crept out of the house and along some bushes, hoping the creature wouldn't notice her, but as she got close, suddenly it made a sound. “Boo!” it...