The alien walked once around the tree and looked up into the branches. A small furry creature with a bushy tail sat and watched him, then scuttled along a branch when he moved towards it. He had heard about these creatures; they were called squirrels and ate the things that grew on trees. The alien did not have squirrels on his own planet, nor trees, but he had heard of them too. He wondered about taking a squirrel home as a pet, but dismissed the idea when he realised he could not fit the tree into the space craft. He supposed the creature would need food for the journey.

Food. The alien needed food too. He turned to his command pod and pulled out some of the emergency rations, which he ate quickly, fearful that earth people would arrive; he still did not know if they would be friendly. He was glad that the food had survived the landing, unlike the nose of his craft which had a large dent in the front right section. That would need to be repaired before he took off again, and he had no tools.

The squirrel had come down from the tree and was scampering across the soft, green, ground covering, then with a sudden leap it jumped onto a hanging dong, and swung round and round in the air, scrabbling at something with its front hands. As the alien watched, something fell off the bottom of the dong and a shower of small bits, a bit bigger than sand grains fell down to the ground. The squirrel leaped down on top of them and ate some.

The alien went over to inspect the dong. It did not look like a tree, yet he had learned that squirrels ate things from trees, so he supposed this must be a type of tree. It was about half as long as the alien’s first arm, and hollow, made out of something that he could see through. He put his eye to one end and squinted. He could see all three of his feet standing on the sand bits. It was not as big as the dongs he was used to, but it probably worked the same way. He put it in his spaceship; it would come in useful later, but first he had to make the repairs to the nose cone.

The alien walked farther into the new territory looking for materials. He saw many broken bits of tree on the ground; he supposed that the repair people from this planet would one day come out and fix the tree. He hoped today was not a fixing day; he had no desire to meet the earth people yet.

Moving his third leg through the green ground covering was hard work, and he grunted when his foot hit a heavy object. Bending down and feeling with his first hands he discovered a stone, just like the ones on his planet. It would make a very good tool for the repairs.

Back at the space craft the alien positioned the nose plate and hit it with the stone. A loud crash told him that he had hit it too hard. Some earth people had heard his crashing too, and before he had time to raise his second arms and launch a protective shield a hole opened up in the white box behind him, revealing a large and a small earth person.

The alien stood up tall and tried to look menacing, but his heart pumped wildly inside him.

“Kevin!” a sound boomed from the larger earth person, “what are you doing with my mixing bowl?”

The large earth person came towards him, followed closely by the small one which was making puffing, croaking noises.

“And just look what’s happened to the bird feeder, there are seeds all over the grass!”

The small earth person screeched.

“My boot! Mum, why has Kevin got my boot?”

The small earth creature stepped forward and tugged at his third leg. The alien tried to protect himself and fell over, causing his extra limbs to come off.

“Now look what you’ve done!” he shouted, “you’ve spoiled it all!”