The Navy Blue Hat

            “Whoever is there had better come out now!” Mrs. McFlugen yelled as Alan became more and more flustered.

            Alan noticed that the branch of a tree almost touched one side of the balcony, but the trunk of the tree was on the other side of the neighbor’s fence.  If he climbed into that tree, the only way down was into the neighbor’s yard!  He had to think quickly.

            Mrs. McFlugen was almost to the back yard.  He saw no other way out.  He climbed into the neighbor’s tree and tried to hide behind the trunk.  Mrs. McFlugen came around the house and saw the ladder.  She looked up to the balcony.  She knew someone had climbed up there.

            “I’m going to call the police!” Mrs. McFlugen declared.

            Alan started to climb down the tree so she couldn’t see him, but he lost his footing and fell the rest of the way.  He hit the ground with a THUD!  There was a fence in between him and Mrs. McFlugen, but he could hear her footsteps coming toward him.

            “I heard that!” Mrs. McFlugen growled.  “I’ll break this fence down!  Come back over here and face me, you coward!”

            BANG! CRASH! CRACK!

            She was breaking the fence down from the other side.  Now he was really in trouble.  He was terrified and started backing away from the fence as the boards starting to break.  He started backing away faster.  Then he tripped over something and fell to the ground!

            When he looked, he saw that it was the small space ship-like thing that he had tripped over.  He noticed the space ship growing bigger!  Then, he realized something..  It wasn’t getting bigger.  He was getting smaller!

            He quickly shrunk down to a very small size.  The small door in the spaceship-like thing looked normal size.  It was also opening!  Suddenly, with a deafening CRASH, part of the fence broke down!  There stood giant Mrs McFlugen!

            Alan thought the weird metal space ship thing was pretty scary, but right now a giant angry Mrs. McFlugen was even scarier.  He ran into the open door of the metal ship to hide.  It was dark in there.  It got even darker a moment later, though.  The door had opened by itself before.  Once Alan was inside, the door closed by itself!  It was pitch black.

            A few seconds later, the lights turned on. He was in a bare room.  The walls were all made of metal.  He could see the door he came in and another door on the other side of the room.  He tried to open both doors, but neither of them would open.  Then, he heard a voice come from nowhere.

            “HELLO AND WELCOME” The voice said.

            Alan was about to answer, but the voice kept talking.

            “HALLO UND WILKOMMEN.  HOLA Y BIENVENIDO...”

            The voice kept talking, but Alan couldn’t understand any of it after the first thing.  He got tired of listening and decided to try talking back.

            “Hello?!”  Alan shouted.

            “YOUR LANGUAGE IS RECOGNIZED AS ENGLISH.” said the voice.  “IS THIS CORRECT?”

            “Yes, I speak English!” exclaimed Alan.  “Who are you?”

            “I AM THE SHIP’S COMPUTER.” replied the voice.  “WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

            “My name is Alan Staves.”

            “YOUR NAME HAS BEEN NOTED.  PLEASE CONTINUE FORWARD.”

            The other door suddenly opened.  He could see that there was a hallway on the other side.  He slowly walked through the door and noticed something lying on the floor of the hall.  He bent down and picked it up as the door shut behind him.  It was a navy blue hat.  He didn’t put it on because it was obviously meant for a girl.

            Alan slowly walked down the hall as he clutched the hat.  There were several doors but all of them were closed and would not open.  He kept walking until he came to one door that was open.  He looked inside and saw a lot of children about his same age!

            All of the children looked very different from each other.  Some had dark skin and some had light skin.  Some had curly hair, some straight.  Their clothes were also very different.

            He hurried inside and all the children turned to look at him.  Alan was so glad to see some other people here.  Maybe he could find out more about this place.  A small boy with blond hair walked up to him.

            “Wie geht’s?” said the boy.

            “What??” asked Alan, confused.

            “Welche Sprache sprichst Du?” asked the boy.

            “I don’t understand you.” sighed Alan.

            The boy looked disappointed and walked away.  Alan tried to talk to four or five others of the children, but he couldn’t understand any of them.  He took his pretty blue hat and stood by a wall to try to think.  What had he done?  He knew he was always just a bit too curious.  He just had to know everything about everything.  This time, it had really gotten him into trouble.

            He stared at the hat as he turned it over and over in his hands.  He was so involved in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice anything around him.  He was very surprised when he looked up and there was a girl standing right in front of him.

            “Nay moja!” she declared, pointing at the hat.

            “I’m sorry.” Alan said sadly. “I can’t understand any of you.”

            “Ah, you talk English.” said the girl in a strange accent.

            “And so do you!” Alan exclaimed.  “Boy, am I glad to see you!”