There was an eerie atmosphere when the big blue spaceship carrying The Amazing Travelling Space Circus touched down on the red, barren land of Wizwog. Against the very dull, flat landscape of the planet, the spaceship stood out like a sore thumb. Standing on four green, metallic legs sat a bright blue painted sphere, scattered with all sorts of multi-coloured lights. Red lights, purple lights, orange lights, yellow lights. Indeed there were many kinds of coloured lights. Amongst these lights were all sorts of peculiar dials and switches, themselves painted in many kinds of colours. It was fair to say, that the spaceship carrying The Amazing Travelling Space Circus was a very odd object indeed. However, perhaps not as odd as what was to be found inside the spaceship.

For inside the spaceship sat a group of friends so very different from each other, it was hard to believe they could be friends at all. One of them, a little girl called Lara was stood at the window, peering out at this new found planet. She then turned round to face the group. She had black hair, parted and tied up in pig-tails. She wore a pink dress, accompanied by a yellow bag and coloured beads round her neck and wrists.

“Hmm,” she said. “It doesn’t look like there’s anybody here!”

“Nonsense!” replied Mr Scatterbrain, who was a clown and one of the star attractions of the circus. “There must be somebody here!” Mr Scatterbrain was a very kind man, but always thought that he knew everything.

“Let’s have a look, Lara,” said a young boy, slightly older than Lara. He was called Max and he was Lara’s brother. He was wearing a blue zipper top and had brown, spiky hair. A plaster, positioned above his left eye, gave a clue as to his clumsy personality.

“Hmm, there looks like there’s something on the horizon,” he said, looking out.

“What is it?” asked Tiny, a small, purple haired woman who looked like a girl, but was in fact as strong as a twelve foot giant.

“Hmm, looks like lots of little people. But they’re coming here really fast!”

Indeed, what appeared to be a crowd of little grey people, with short legs and arms, were scuttling towards them in huge numbers, the red dust of the ground being kicked up into the air.

“Woolawoop!” shouted Kooloo, the space hamster, who was Max and Lara’s pet.

“Oh I do hope they’re friendly!” said Baked Bean, the kindly green dragon who sat at the back of the space ship.

“See? I told you there’d be somebody here!” exclaimed Mr Scatterbrain. “Let’s go out and meet them! We can dazzle them with our amazing circus!” And with that he rushed to the door in excitement.

“Not so fast Mr Scat-” screamed Max, Lara and Tiny all at once but it was too late. Mr Scatterbrain had already opened the door and ran down the stairs. The rest followed him, Baked Bean at the end of the line.

“Greetings citizens of Wizwog!” Mr Scatterbrain exclaimed to the approaching crowd. “We come to dazzle you with our amazing travelling space circus! Be amazed, be thrilled, be-”

“Silence!” said one of the crowd who was wearing a small gold crown. It was the only thing that was different to him and the rest of the group. They all looked the same.

“We do not want your kind here! You are not like us! Why do you come here?”

“Oh no! I don’t think they’re very friendly at all!” said Baked Bean, tears welling up in his eyes.

This time Max spoke up. “We come to entertain you, to spare us some time while we, eh” he said edging forwards. “While we, eh, show you our circus and-”

CRASH!

Max accidentally bumped into Mr Scatterbrain sending him stumbling backwards, trying to keep his balance. The three red balls he was holding went flying into the air but as he fell backwards he tried to juggle them. He succeeded for only a few seconds before finally falling down. The red balls flew into the air, heading towards Kooloo who - being a very talented footballer - proceeded to try keep the balls up with his two short feet and head. He managed for a few short seconds, before volleying one of the balls towards Tiny, who, as the ball sped past her, leapt towards it, clinching the ball in her right hand and, rather unfortunately, landing straight on Baked Bean’s tail.

Baked Bean jumped upwards, letting out a yelp of pain and, with it, a huge fireball which lit up the whole sky. Realising, after failing for so long, that he’d been able to breathe fire, he gave a shout of joy and done a very impressive tap dance in front of the crowd, before dramatically landing on his knees in front of the watching crowd.

There was a silence around Wizwog as everyone tried to take in these bizarre scenes. The Amazing Travelling Space Circus looked on nervously at the Wizwogs before -

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Laughter filled the air as the Wizwogs crumpled up with laughter. They found it so funny that some of them were beating the ground with their small fists, and some were even crying with laughter.

The Chief Wizwog then approached Max and Lara, and shook both their hands.

“Hilarious! I can’t ever remember being so happy! Of course you can stay!”

“Thank-you!” they both replied.

And so the Wizwogs decided to put on a huge feast for the circus and, after the circus gave a rendition of their performance - which was met with much applause - there was a massive party on the planet. The Wizwogs sat in awe as they heard the many stories from all the different members of The Travelling Circus. For hours they sat enjoying themselves, laughing and telling stories, before it was time to leave.

As they said their goodbyes, the Wizwogs looked disappointed that they were leaving but they all clapped as the circus got back in their spaceship. The Chief Wizwog said to them, “Thank-you! We are sorry for being so unwelcome when you arrived. We were mean. But now we know that we shouldn’t be scared of people from other planets. Thank-you for opening our eyes!” He shook their hands again before beaming up at them as they got into the spaceship.

Together they waved at the spaceship as it lifted in the sky. It hovered in the sky for a moment, its lights flashing impressively, before it suddenly shot off into the air and out of sight. Max and Lara’s Amazing Travelling Space Circus had left.