> XL Story

XL Story Chapter Menu

Chapter 18 - UFO Identified

In the evening of their first night at Waskesiu, XL and his friend, sister, and mother stayed at their camp site with Saucer1 overhead. They had brought some fold-up chairs down from Saucer1 and unfolded them for sitting. As Anna and Larissa relaxed, Beeba and XL stacked some wood in the fire pit, and they lighted a fire. Very soon all four of them were roasting marshmallows over the fire. The sun had lowered to the horizon, and there was a reddish light in the sky as it set.

In the spring in the north, the sun sets late in the evening, but they still had time to sing a few camp fire songs before bedtime. They sang some old campfire songs that Larissa had sung when she was a kid, including tunes like "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" and "The Quartermaster Store." They also split into two groups to sing in rounds, for "Row, Row, Row your Boat" and "Fire's Burning." This didn't bother any campers, because the nearest sites were empty.

XL began to think of their plans for the next day, and then he realized that the first step to find Susan was to start that evening. "I'm going to turn on the lights on Saucer1," he said.

"Don't do that, it will bother all the campers," said Anna.

"No, not the search lights," said XL. "I will turn on the UFO lights, so that Saucer1 will look like an Unidentified Flying Object."

"You mean like the spaceship in the movie, when it arrived over the farm at night?" asked Beeba.

"Yes," said XL. "It's done with electro-luminescence, and this is the perfect setting for it." He got up from his chair, and walked over to the picnic table where he left his back-pack sitting. XL reached into the pack and rummaged around a bit before pulling out the remote control for Saucer1. He turned it on, so that its little touch screen was illuminated. He touched the setup item on the menu, and made two other touches.

Then, as they all looked up, a dim, glowing green light emanated from the sides and bottom of the airship. On the sides, marking the edges of the saucer, and outlining the windows, were glowing red lines.

"Wow, is that ever cool," said Beeba, as he looked up at Saucer1 with the black sky above it, filled with stars.

"Don't you think some of the campers might notice it, and think it's a real UFO?" asked Beeba. "It's high enough for it to be visible through the trees from most of this campground."

"If it gets reported in the news tomorrow morning, that will fit our plans perfectly," said XL.

"How so," asked Beeba, "aren't we going to search for Susan tomorrow?"

"Yes," answered XL, "we will do that for Florence. But how do you suppose we would find Susan? She lives on a ranch somewhere around here with her family, but they have no address or phone number I can find, nor any social media posts."

"Well, there can't be more than about a thousand people living in this village, and some of them must know her. We could ask at every tourist shop and hotel."

"That might work," said XL, "but it may take a while. Not everyone will know her. Consider Beeba that you and I go to a school with less than a thousand kids, and we don't know all their names. I have a better idea, and it will be fun too."

"So what is your plan?" asked Beeba.

"Remember that Susan and her husband Terry have little children, Dana and Tina," said XL. "Mom and I have arranged an event that will bring many local children into Waskesiu tomorrow. And where little kids go, their parents go too."

"That's right," said Larissa, "I arranged with the town theatre to have a special showing of Mysterious Visitors from Outer Space."

"That's the movie that Saucer1 was built for," explained Anna.

"I know that," said Beeba. "But I thought it was finished in theatres, and already on video and the net."

"True," said XL, "but some more publicity in advance of the sequel won't hurt. Saucer1 will be parked above the theatre. We will give free elevator rides and tours of Saucer1 to the children. And the movie studio has donated special hats for the first two hundred children who show up."

"There are Captain Intrepid hats for the boys and Princess Perfect hats for the girls," said Anna.

"Too bad those hats don't actually work on the little brats," said Beeba. "They become neither intrepid nor perfect."

"What kind of attitude is that!" exclaimed XL.

"I'm just kidding," replied Beeba. "Sure, it will be fun."

"Best of all, each parent has to sign their child in, providing the parent's name, phone number, and e-mail address," said XL.

"Ah, so that's how you will find the Kerchovsky family!" said Beeba.

"If they show up," said XL, "but there is a good chance of it."

They sat and ate their marshmallows, and after a while Anna put out the fire with a bucket of water. Then they took the elevator back to Saucer1. As they went up the elevator, they could see from the elevator windows that some of the campers in sites round about were looking up at the airship.

Once on board, XL, Beeba, Anna, and Larisa laid out their sleeping bags on foam mattresses, and went to bed. It was very peaceful lying on the deck on the bottom of the Saucer, and looking out the large Plexiglas windows at the night sky. Soon they were all asleep.

The next morning, Beeba was the first one to awake. He awoke XL too, but XL didn't mind because he was a "morning person" kind of guy. Beeba grabbed his screen tent, still in its cardboard box, and XL and Beeba went down the elevator to set up.

"You know we really don't need this," said XL, but Beeba wanted to set up the tent anyway. Half an hour later, XL's mom and sister were up, and soon they were all eating breakfast at the picnic table, under the screen tent. They ate cereals of various kinds, with milk.

After breakfast, Larissa turned to the others and said, "We still have a few hours before our publicity event, so what would you like to do?"

"Whatever you want to do will be fine with me," said Beeba.

"You are our guest," said Anna to Beeba, "so tell us what you want."

"Whatever is fine," repeated Beeba.

"You need to be more assertive," said Anna. "You must want to do something, so tell us what it is."

"What do mean by assertive?" asked Beeba.

"Anna is being assertive right now," chimed in XL. "She is pestering you to find out what you want, and she won't let go until she knows."

"You don't understand assertiveness at all," replied Anna. "It only means to express your feelings, so that your wishes will not be misunderstood or ignored."

"O.K., so what I want right now is to have a nice time together," said Beeba. "I am quite flexible about what we might do, but as a suggestion we might go hiking."

Everyone else thought that was a good idea too. So, that morning they hiked through the campground, over to the town beach, and back again. They rested a while at the campsite, and by noon they were eating lunch in Saucer1.

As they were eating, XL set the destination coordinates in Saucer1's computer, to take them over to the movie theatre. "We have to be there by 1 PM," he said. Saucer1 began moving while they were finishing lunch, and soon they were parked over the town theatre. It was a small building that only seats people for one show at a time. A marquee over the front door listed the movie, "Mysterious Visitors from Outer Space," and next to that was a hand-painted placard, "Special Showing, 1:30 PM, Half price."

As XL and the others went down the elevator, they could see that a line-up was already forming in front of the theatre.

When they got off the elevator, they walked to the front window, which was open for ticket sales. A teenage clerk was sitting behind the window, wearing a white and red uniform, which were the colours of the theatre.

"Where is Mr. Flint," asked Larissa. "He was supposed to meet us here. And I thought we were going to do the rides first, and the movie would be at 2:30 PM."

"The boss isn't here yet," said the teen. "He phoned me this morning asking me to open up the theatre. He said he couldn't talk long - he had to rush off to the post office because of some problem."

"Can you start the movie without Mr. Flint," asked Larissa?

"Naw, he's got the movie," he replied. "Unless of course, he lost it. I'll bet that's the problem he was talking about. He is always misplacing stuff, and this is not the regular movie for this week."

They stood waiting for about 15 minutes, as the line got longer in front of the theatre. Finally Larissa decided to look for him at the post office, so she departed with Anna, leaving XL and Beeba at the theatre.

Not more than 3 minutes after that, a man can running around the corner. He was short, and a bit rotund, and he was sweating. He wore a grey suit, and he was carrying a large case in one hand. He ran up to the front window.

"Hey Boss," said the clerk, "shall I let people into the theatre now?" Then, pointing to XL and Beeba he added, "Oh, and these are the publicity people."

"Wait one minute!" he replied, before turning to XL. "I'm David Flint," he said. "I apologize, but we cannot do the rides as we had planned." Then he handed the case to the clerk and said "here, get this to the projection booth, and then let the people in."

XL was shocked. What should he do? His choices are:

Choice A	Demand that things proceed as planned. Be assertive. Tell Mr. Flint what he thinks of him.
Choice B	Ask Mr. Flint to please tell him what the problem is.

Return to Universal Ethics Home Page