Ms. Ratisha O’Neil didn’t live on planet Earth. She
lived far away from it, so far you couldn’t smell her smell or taste the air
that she breathed, and maybe that was better. Let’s just say Ratisha was an
uncommon girl.
Now, before you begin to judge Ratisha unkindly, you
need to know something about her, or perhaps, the place in which she lived that
made her the way she was.
Rat not only lived far away but on a planet that was
so charming – so perfect – that everyone wanted to visit. One person had finally
found his way there fifty years previous, only to find that he was not able to
leave it.
Before I continue too far with the story, you need to
know that when Rat was born, she looked like every other child born on the
planet Charmed. She had darling curly hair, bright eyes, and a smile with
dimples on both cheeks. She had smooth skin, tiny feet, and hands, and plenty
of love to give.
No, she didn’t even cry, for no baby cried on the
planet Charmed. Yes, she did all of the other bodily functions, but she was
easy to clean up and didn’t require long nights walking the nursery floor.
But one day, something terrible happened – so terrible
I didn’t at first want to tell you what it was. But then I figured, if one day,
you decided to travel like the young man who was now old to the planet Charmed,
you’d know what to expect.
One day, when the young man was walking the streets
searching for a way home to planet Earth – something no one could understand
because they were perfectly happy where they were – he stumbled upon Ratisha
O’Neil. And so you don’t misunderstand, when I say, stumbled, I literally mean he
tripped.
No one had stumbled before on planet Charmed. No one
had said a heated word. No one had said anything but kind words since the
beginning of time.
But this day, everything changed.
“Ouch!” Rat said.
“My foot!” shouted the man whose name was Glen. Glen
was a common name and he hated it for his last name was Smith and his shoe size
was a common ten and a half, and for a man that was pretty common.
Rat looked up. At first, all Glen could see was mud.
It covered everything. Hair. Face. Shoulders. Legs. Even toes.
“Quick! The hose!”
“What are you doing?” asked Glen, mortified, for he
hadn’t seen a dirty, unkept creature for many years. He hadn’t even remembered
that dirt could make such a horrible, frightful mess.
The garden hose was a typical green. He lifted it and
handed it to the mud-covered thing.
“The water, the water!”
In the back of his mind, Glen remembered where the
turn-on valve was located – on the house. He reached for it and turned the knob
to the left. In a whoosh, water spurted forth.
“Turn it down!”
Glen turned the knob to the right. “How’s this?” he
asked.
“Better. But now it’s going to take me longer to dry,”
said the girl, for suddenly Glen could see that it was a girl. She had long
hair and was wearing a dress that was quickly turning a bright and sunny yellow.
She wore no shoes or socks.
“I’m going to be in so much trouble! Just yesterday Mother
caught me picking my nose. She told me I could not return to school if I
continued to pick it.”
Glen laughed. He watched as the once dirty girl became
cleaner, though it was obvious she had wallowed in the mud for some time; there
were patches of dirt that appeared ground-in on her mostly-cleaned dress.
She turned, dripping before him.
“How is it that your mother lets you play in the
dirt?” he asked, trying to remain calm. His heart pounded like a great
thunderstorm and it was all he could do to act casual. Never, in all of the
years he’d been trapped on this planet, had he seen anything to rival the
appearance of this girl.
“What is your name?” he asked.
Mud squeezed through her toes as she turned off the
water.
“Have you seen my shoes?” she asked.
“No.”
“After I dry, I’ll have to go inside. I’ll have to
wash my dress the rest of the way without Mother seeing me.”
“How will you do that?”
“I have no idea, but maybe I can get away with it.
I’ve gone in with dirty clothes before. Mother doesn’t like it much, but she is
getting used to it. I’m Ratisha O’Neil but you can call me Rat.”
A sudden thought struck Glen. He’d known of rats once.
He’d had one as a pet, and then it had escaped and Mother had never bought him
another one.
“Who named you?” he couldn’t help asking, for he
couldn’t see how such a perfect society as this one would know of such a name.
“My mother is wont to grow radishes.”
“But that’s rad,” he said, “not rat. Do you mean
Radisha?”
“No. It’s Ratisha. My father re-named me. He’s an
astronaut of sorts...”
If you've read down this far you are probably thinking, that's not the end, is it? No, it's not the end. What do you think? Is it a children's book, or something like a pre-teen story? I know it's science/fantasy, but that's as far as I've gone with the genre.
