THE FIRST THING NICK DID WHEN SHE REACHED HOME WAS TO OPEN CONSPEARISEE.COM AND AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

Nick timed the minutes it took for galmin to reach zero.

It took seven minutes forty-two seconds. So she hadn’t been wrong the other day.

Nick had copied and pasted the Terms and Conditions onto another document, as she didn’t have time to read it while timing the minutes.

Nick hurried to the chat box, to report her agreement. She felt oddly proud of doing so. To her surprise, the box already bore the message:

[Thanks for agreeing, Nick!]

Nick restrained herself from typing, ‘Hacker!’

[how did you know i agreed?]

[It’s my website. Of course I know you agreed.]

Nick thought that this was a pretty good reason.

[Did you read the terms and conditions?]

[some of it]

[Did you get to the part about death?]

[sure]

[Oh. Good. That’s the most important part.]

[whatever. so i agreed. what now]

[I will be landing in the next two galactic days, at the nearest McDonalds. Perhaps you want to congregate there?]

[i dont know. how long is one galactic day]

[fourty four galactic hours.]

[in earth time]

[You mean Driew.]

[whatever. just answer me]

[Roughly a little less than one Driew day.]

[and one minute is…]

[One galactic minute is 0.77 Driew minutes. One galactic hour is 30.8 Driew minutes. One galactic day is 1355.2 Driew minutes.]

[thats confusing]

[Driew time is confusing.]

Nick was about to type a reply, when the most unexpected sound came. The sound of the electronic lock being pressed. Nick hurried to type:

[wait. my mom arrived.]

Nick ran out of her room, relieved to find her mom still hadn’t entered. Nick smoothed down her hair, her hands fidgeting.

Her mom finally entered through the door.

“Hello Marine,” she said, flustered, “I’m so, so, sorry I haven’t told you earlier. But I just got a notice that I would have to be going to California for a business trip. Ms. Wooddell next door would look after you. I’ve just come back to pack a few things. I’d be back by Monday.”

Nick wasn’t given a chance to speak, not that she would have, before her mother hurried to get her clothes. Nick was suddenly reminded of Ben. She took a seat on the couch.

Her mom flung open the front door with a small suitcase in fifteen minutes.

“I’m so, so sorry Marine, I just had to go. I really would have liked to tell you a few days in advance,” her mom said, checking her watch, “Oh, I’ll be late. Ms. Wooddell should be able to take care of you. Bye Marine Barine!” The door slammed shut.

Only then did Nick stand up.

If one galactic day one Driew day, and if something was going to happen in two galactic days…this weekend would be perfect.

Nick suddenly realized she had automatically taken this Exflipper seriously.

Nick shook her head. No. This was ridiculous. Some fourteen-year old guy tells her he’s an alien, and now Nick believe it? She didn’t even know if the person was fourteen years old. And now, more likely than not, she’d just let a virus into her computer.

This so-called alien was floating over Earth, and none of NASA’s satellites detected it? How was that even possible.

Then the part about death. And going to McDonalds. What the hell was that supposed to be about? She had taken the death as a joke, but it occurred to Nick that it may possibly be very real. Was she really going to go to McDonalds alone, to be kidnapped or murdered?

The answer came to her easily.

Yes. Yes she was.

“YES! YES!”

Box rolled over to Exflibberaguil. “Good news, sir?”

Exflibberaguil was about to answer when Countdown cut in.

“Eight. Ty. One.” she boomed.

“Oh, shut her up,” Exflibberaguil groaned, “I don’t care how boring she is. Shut. Her. Up.”

“I can’t. Your ferret did something to her.”

“That’s it!” Exflibberaguil yelled. “Ferret. If you don’t stop that galacticdamn countdown, I’ll cut down your food by half!”

“Because you don’t have enough anyway.” Box added unhelpfully.

“Shut up!” Exflibberaguil shouted, “I forgot why I was so happy!”

“You aren’t anymore.”

“I know!”

“Well,” Box said in a reasonable voice, “still, Countdown’s right. We should be landing in the next eighty-one hours.”

“That’s right!” Exflibberaguil exclaimed. Box was so surprised to hear his employer agree with it, Box wheeled away in surprised.

“You mean, I’m right?” Box asked?

“No, you boxhead. You’re never right. I said ‘that’s right’ because I remember why I was happy!”

“Oh.”

“Nick agreed to my terms and conditions, and he said we he would be free anytime the next two days.”

“That’s great, sir!” Box exclaimed.

“I know! That’s why I was happy!”

As they spoke, a single, odd-shaped screw became loose on the ship, and it started to fall to earth.

REMEMBER THAT DRESSMAKER HUMMING THAT STRANGE TUNE THAT SOUNDED EERILY LIKE WIND BETWEEN TREE HOLLOWS, WAKING UP SQUIRRELS WHO SCREAMED AGITATEDLY AND CURSED THE WIND, AND THEN GETTING EATEN BY AN OWL?

Well, so it turned out, one of the squirrels had been eating a particularly odd nut with a high level of a strange acidic substance and a warped shape, so much so that one with a slightly higher level of intelligence would have easily and correctly identified that the thing that the squirrel ate was not a nut at all, but something unidentifiable and should not be eaten or, in that matter, touched in any way.

I am, of course, talking about dolphins being the ones with slightly higher intelligence.

It is not that humans aren’t intelligent, compared to the primitive squirrels, but simply that as stated earlier, they easily drift from the correct first assumption. This nut had been in the middle of a well-traveled sidewalk and no less than seven humans have come across it. Their thought processes were remarkably alike, going on the lines of:

“That is a strange object. Almost alien-like. Why would it be in the center of a sidewalk? It certainly doesn’t look like any acorn I’ve ever seen. But then again, how much do I know about acorns exactly? I suppose it’s just a deformed acorn. Nothing weird. Nothing worth picking up.”

Their actions varied slightly. The first person stopped and stared at it. The second person cursed at it for it almost made that person fall. The third person stepped on it. The fourth person walked over it. The fifth person spit on it. The sixth person tied their laces next to it. The seventh person kicked it all the way to that person’s driveway. Then the object was promptly eaten by the squirrel.

This whole time, this object was thinking very hard along the lines of:

“Ow. That really hurt. Ow. That really hurt. Ow. That really hurt.”

The squirrel, after being eaten by an owl and regurgitated, attracted the nose of the dressmaker’s cat. The cat went to sniff it, became repulsed, and stalked back to her master. The dressmaker patted his cat affectionately, touched the pin he was pinning, and pricked himself.

His finger was badly infected from the regurgitated nut-object-acid-substance, and he had to wake up his doctor, who was feeling extremely cross for he had to cure a case of tapeworms in the morning, and was mistaken for a vet in the afternoon, and now in the evening, a dressmaker was coming to him with a pricked finger.

It’s a really small world.