It is the year 7099 and I am a chimpanzee. How did I become a chimpanzee? I will tell you. This is my story.

Many, many years ago I was a normal human just like you. I had a very normal life until fifty or so dragons beamed down from a very, and I mean very, big spaceship. We think they came because some aliens wanted to take over Earth.

"Yes," I thought when I saw the dragons, "Now I can test out my spaceship." I had built the rocket in the hopes that I would win a competition. I had entered this competition because I thought I was the best rocket builder in history. Nobody agreed. They chose a girl with a little toy rocket that looked like a Quadron Flier from the movie Living Moon. I didn't believe my ears when they announced her name. "Maria Darla," still echoes through my mind at times.

Back to the dragons. I ran into the garage and pulled out my megaphone, my map to Larbo (Larbo is a planet that I discovered and named about two or three years ago) and my keys to the spaceship. I used the megaphone to yell out: "Come to 177 Fallout Lane so that I can take you to a special planet called Larbo! Hurry! The seats fill up fast!" The whole neighbourhood swarmed to my house and I managed to find seats for all of them.

When we lifted off most people cheered and yelled. Some of them looked very homesick already and many were just plain sad. Once we reached Larbo though they looked a little happier. When we got off the ship they got happier and as soon as we had searched our new home they looked delighted.

After many hours we managed to erect a shabby hut that we all stayed in until the morning came. Bit by bit the people built houses and they went to live in them. Until it was just my family and I. We decided to just sharpen the hut up a bit so we wouldn't have to go to all the trouble of building a new home.

Some years later when I was about 30, a bad thing happened. I heard a popping noise and everywhere I looked people were turning into chimps. A chimp over there and a chimp over here, it was mayhem. Soon everyone was a chimp, including me. I yelled to everyone: "I think the reason we are chimps is there is so much radiation on this planet that it has mixed with our genes and transformed us!" Everyone understood and we went back to our daily lives. We may be chimps but we are still�

I hope that you understand me as well as my father. I must tell you that my Dad um, well he was an old chimp and he just had a heart attack so he died. I shall finish his sentence. We may be chimps but we are still humans on the inside.

By Jessica Taurins
Copyright June 2002