Children's Story 8

Aristotle the Alien - A tale of mischief and poppy seed buns

by Angus Von Stulpnagel Jnr.

Once upon a time there was an alien called Aristotle the third. He was called 'the third' because he was quite mischievous and his parents had to have him dismantled and rebuilt twice. He was not a bad boy, even his big brother Rocky 7 was not bad; it is just that some aliens can rebuild their children if they need to, with a different mixture of mischief and common sense.

Aristotle and his family lived on Bardennoch Hill, and often went down to the Dalwhat water, which is where his parents last decided to have him rebuilt. That was because he had eaten 50,000 midges before his tea, despite having been told a hundred times not to eat midges, because they give him a tummy ache.

Early one morning Aristotle and his family were down at the Dalwhat Water when his mum Matilda the second (well no one is perfect) saw Aristotle raise his head, as if he was looking at a small cloud of midges, she took a step forward. Aristotle stood up and raised his head some more until his nose was high in the air. Matilda took another step forward. Then to Matilda's surprise Aristotle turned and walked downstream towards Moniaive, Matilda, of course, turned and followed him. They walked right down the glen, over the Dunreggan Bridge and stopped in the middle of the village, where Matilda suddenly realised what it was that made Aristotle act so strange.

Today was the day the ladies in Moniaive do their baking. There was the most wonderful smell of fresh baking through the whole village. Aristotle looked in the windows of one of the wee cottages and his huge green eyes almost popped out of his head. His funny alien nose started to twitch so fast it was nearly just a blur. Then his eyes fixed on a tray of poppy seed baps. Aristotle had never seen poppy seed baps in his life before, but knew they were good. The lady, who's cottage it was, had never seen an alien before, but, having lived in Moniaive for a good while, was used to seeing all sorts of different people pass her window, could tell Aristotle was a good little alien, so she invited Aristotle, and Matilda in to her kitchen, and gave them a warm bap each. Aristotle was squeaking and dancing a wee jig with delight, which made the lady laugh so much she said he could come back any day she was baking, and she would give him something from her baking tray. Well Aristotle was so happy that he never any midges again. He was a regular visitor to several of the ladies in Moniaive, as there are quite a lot of good bakers in the village. They all baked something different for him, some made baps, some made cakes, and one lady even had lovely buns (but he was far too polite to say what he liked the best).

I think Aristotle will not give us any more trouble said his mum.

What a relief said his father, Louis (the 14th)!

And they lived happily ever after.

The End