Marla Alexander

[Unna Hi Chaanu]

As Marla gazed out of the window of "Fido," she realized she was far enough outside of Los Angeles to see stars. While she could not see her favorite constellation from her seat in the car, she silently spoke to it, "I hope they are watching me. I'd like to come home soon."

[Unna Hi Chaanu]

The following story was written by 8 year old Marla Alexander. It won first prize in her school's creative writing contest:

When God made the Heavens, he made the stars. The stars were there so people would never be bored if they couldn't sleep at night. They were like games of connect the dots. The pictures that are made out of the dots are called constellations. The constellations were alive, but the people couldn't see them move. That's because they slept at night and worked and played in the day time just like people on Earth. There were people and animals and other things like dippers in the sky.

One of the constellations was triplets. Then one day one of the triplets got in trouble. God didn't know what to do, because a constellation never got in trouble before. He asked the aliens what to do and they said she should be grounded. God said there was ground on Earth. Then the aliens took the stars and turned them into a girl. They took her to Earth and dropped her on the ground. She hit her head and forgot what it was like to live in the sky. She looked at the sky and then three sisters turned into two.

Then two people found her on the ground. They said they were her mommy and daddy. They were very nice people and she went to live with them and they took good care of her. They bought her a trampoline for her birthday and it was her favorite toy.

Then the aliens came back and took her back to the stars when she wasn't grounded anymore. They turned her back into stars and put all of the stars back with her sisters. They were together again and played and lived happily ever after. She missed her trampoline, but she was happy to have sisters again.