The Feature Article from The Alien Herald

While I was in Germany this summer I tutored kids in English. Each morning I taught the same two kids two lessons, and each afternoon the students in the program would break up into different clubs. Each club had a specific theme, like sports, dance, board games, baking or video production. I helped out with the newspaper club. As a group we decided to call our newspaper The Alien Herald because our camp had an outer space theme.

There were four students in the newspaper club. I gravitated toward (no pun intended) a young man who I’ll call “Wayne.” Wayne was a really smart kid. His English skills were among the most advanced of any of the children at the camp. But when it came time to participate in the club activities he tended to act out rather than go along with what we were doing. The truth was he was bored. I finally realized that what Wayne needed was a challenge, something that he’d have to put a lot of time and effort toward, and something he could brag about when he finished. And I knew just what would pique his interest. I asked Wayne to write our front-page article.

I sat down with Wayne and explained what I wanted from him. He was very interested, but wasn’t sure how to decide what to write about. I talked with Franz, the leader of our club, and he suggested using a photo as a starting point. From there Wayne could write a fictional story about that scene. And Franz had a great picture for Wayne to use.

One night earlier my teammate Lauren had almost been hit by a bicyclist on her way home from our evening debrief. This was a pretty common occurrence for all of us; the bikers in Germany have the right of way much of the time and won’t slow down for an ignorant American. We had all started to get used to keeping our eyes open for them, but on this particular night Lauren had received a bouquet of roses from her boyfriend (now fiancé) back home, so understandably her mind may have been elsewhere.

Another teammate with her at the time of the near-accident commented that she could see the headlines about an American with roses being hit late at night by a German biker. In a moment of pure awesome Lauren decided to stage that scene. Three shots were taken, and one of those was used as Wayne’s inspiration.

Woman Gets Hit by Alien

It was a dark evening in Berlin. Lauren V. was back from English Camp and only wanted to sleep in her hotel. She wanted to ride on her bike.

After she rode a few minutes she heard a lot of strange noises. At first she thought that it was only an animal. But she was wrong. The sound came closer every second. As she turned around to see what it was, all she saw was a big strong light. She heard a sound like from a big angry pig. After that, it became so loud that she could barely hear anything else and she felt something hit her on her head. “I was so scared at the sight that I could not make out what happened,” she said after she recovered from the shock. “It looked like a burning golf ball, though.”

Franz L. saw the whole incident and was able to describe it. “It was an alien orbiter that was the size and shape of a pear. The woman fell from her bike and lay on the ground for a long time. The orbiter crashed and was destroyed.”

The next morning, Lauren V. woke up and had a big bump on her head. But otherwise she was unhurt.

Obviously I’m biased, but I think Wayne’s article is great. It’s one thing to be able to write in a foreign language and another thing entirely to write something funny in a foreign language. Wayne’s article makes me laugh, in part because I know all the people involved, but I think he’s done a great job even if you’re coming at it from an outside perspective. I’m really proud of him.