The Day the Earth Went Black
By Jessica Taurins

One day, Jenny was sitting watching her favourite show: Sesame Street, and talking to her sister Kimberley, when suddenly it started to storm. Then everything blacked out! Even the sky!

Kimberley is 9 and the older sister. She has long blonde hair like her Mum and blue eyes like her Dad. Jenny is 6, and has short red hair like her Dad and brown eyes like her Mum. Their Mum has long blonde hair and brown eyes. Their Dad has blue eyes and short red hair.

Kimberley and Jenny both got so scared when the lights went out that they bumped heads. Owchie! That must have hurt! 'What do you think happened?' asked Jenny in a wavy voice. 'I don�t know,' said Kimberley. 'Why don�t we go outside and see.' 'Will we take a torch?' asked Jenny. 'Yes, we will,' said Kimberley.

Everyone else for as far as they could see was outside, too holding torches, candles and kerosene lanterns. Kimberley had a talk to their neighbour. 'What do you think happened?' she asked. 'I don�t know. All I saw and heard was a big storm, then it went dark and all the electricity went out,' said their neighbour.

Then they went back inside. After they had calmed down their Mum had a talk to them. 'It�s alright, sweeties. It won�t last for much longer. Get your books and have a read with your special book light that you both got for your birthdays, or play one of your board games.' Instead they had a chat then played Mouse Trap.

Everybody�s really worried that the storm won�t stop and the lights won�t come back on. They helped Mum find more candles and batteries for the torches while they listened to the radio. ' All natural light gone. Long lasting storm. May block electricity for a few days. Stay tuned for more updates,' said the radio announcer. 'A few days!' exclaimed Kimberley. 'We won�t be able to watch any TV.'

The girls decided to visit their friend Natalie, who lived a few houses away. Their parents decided to go as well. They remembered to take their torches. Natalie�s parents were worried and wondered what had happened, too. So they talked with Kimberley and Jenny�s parents to see if they knew anything about where the daylight had gone. Kimberley and Jenny�s Dad said, 'The storm�s probably knocked the electricity out, but I can�t explain why it�s pitch black outside.' Jenny and Natalie were sad because the storm had come right in the middle of Sesame Street, their favourite show, and they would miss Play School as well.

Kimberley didn�t watch Sesame Street or Play School, she watched Hi Five and Blue�s Clue�s. She thought Steve, on Blue�s Clue�s was really funny. She also thought Jup Jup on Hi Five was cool. Jenny thought that Simon on Play School was the best. Natalie thought that Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street was the grumpiest character on the show.

The girls could hear their parents� voices through the door, and Kimberley thought of her telescope. The one she looked at the sky through every night before she went to bed. 'I know what I am going to do,' she said to Jenny and Natalie. 'Come with me.' The girls raced home, Kimberley looked through her telescope and realised that there was something blocking the Sun. She had a closer look at the thing covering up the Sun, then she looked it up in her �Dictionary of all Strange Things Living in Space�. She went to the letter �a� and found a picture of an alien spaceship. It looked exactly like the thing that was covering up the sun.

'Uh-Oh, a spaceship is covering up the Sun,' she thought. Then, in a wavy voice, she said. 'Jenny, there�s an alien spaceship covering up the Sun.' 'An alien spaceship covering up the Sun!' exclaimed Jenny and Natalie. 'Oh-no!' they both said in a wavy voice.

'I wonder why they�re there?' said Kimberley. 'I know!' said Kimberley suddenly. 'We�ll talk to them telepathically. I have a special telepathic machine that lets us send telepathic messages to whoever we want. We just hook ourselves up and think of what we want to say to whomever we are sending it to and then, it�s there. 'Aliens, what do you need?' Kimberley asked telepathically. They sent back a telepathic message. 'We need onion odour to fuel up our ship. It broke down in front of your so-called Sun.'

'Okay,' said Kimberley telepathically. So later that day she organised people to bring crates of onions to her house. The aliens beamed everybody and the crates of onions up into their ship. They shovelled the onions into the special booster engine to extract the odour. Then the aliens thanked everybody, particularly Kimberley, Jenny and Natalie. Then the aliens asked everybody if they would like to come and have a look at Planet Popo. Some people said yes and as the spaceship flew away from the Sun, the storm stopped and all light, electricity and colour was returned to Planet Earth.

And what was Planet Popo like� well, that�s another story.