Alien Time: The final extract

By DONNA MALANE, Illustrator RICHARD HORT

So. Wednesday night. X-Files. Scored a humungous bowl of popcorn and a piece of very suss-looking cheescake which I located stuck down the back of the freezer behind the dog sausage. I admit it looked extremely dubious, but cheesecake is cheesecake so I reckoned it was worth the risk of food poisoning. And I scored Coco a slice of dog sausage while I was at it. Coco is my dog so you don't have to go worrying that I'm feeding my little sister dog sausage, though if I had a little sister it's quite possible I would, I guess.

Joanne was in her room reading or something, which also meant that I could watch the X-Files without her telling me every five minutes that it would give me nightmares. That's a really weird thing I've noticed about adults. They tell you all the time that they were kids too, but it's pretty hard to believe sometimes, right? I mean, if it's true, then what happened to them? Do they just forget about being a kid? Like Joanne always comes in when I'm watching stuff like Beverly Hillbillies or Gilligan's Island (which, by the way, in case you're worried, I think is really stink) and she goes all gooey and says, "Oh, I remember watching this episode when I was your age,' and I look at her and think, "Yeah right! How come you can remember watching this very same episode and any minute now you're going to tell me to go outside and get some fresh air, or remind me of my homework or something?"

Publisher: Reed Publishing, $14.95