Sandpeople.
© Tim Barker
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there ?”
“Kangar.”
“Kangar who ?”
Tom and Joseph laughed together at
the joke, they’d been messing around all afternoon in the bright summer
sunshine, soaking each other with the hose pipe then rolling around in the sand
pit. They were sand people from a far distant planet sent to investigate
whether or not intelligent life existed on Earth. Their conclusion, upon
encountering their Mum, was that life existed all right but that it was hostile
and not open to negotiations. As the shadows grew longer and tea time
approached they compiled a report which they gave to the head Sandman, their
Dad, for inspection. It read :
To the
Sandpeople High Command,
We, the
elite scout force, sent to Earth to make friends with the inhabitants, have
decided that they are a stupid and very angry bunch of people. We recommend
that the small blue-green planet is avoided in the Sandpeople's attempts to
share our advanced knowledge with the Universe. If they knew all of our secrets
we think that they would be even more dangerous and cause trouble with their
neighbours.
Yours
sincerely,
Tom
and Joseph
Their Dad read the report then burst
out laughing but, luckily for them, decided not to share the joke with their
Mum. Tea was horrible, as usual, especially the Brussel Sprouts. Tom, being the
older of the two brothers, had grown to like the peculiar green vegetable but
Joseph still hadn’t bypassed his taste buds and found them really, really
horrible. However, his Dad insisted that he at least try one, “they’re good for
you” and “they’ll turn you into a big strong Man” was his usual argument.
Joseph though couldn’t see how they were good for you if they made you feel
like being sick and as far as being a big strong Man, well, he still had plenty
of time left to be a small weak boy. In the end he nibbled on the small round
yuk ball and was allowed to leave the table.
With the Sandmen mission over, for
today at least, and a whole homework-free evening lying ahead the two boys
wondered what mischief they could get up to. They’d recently had an Internet
connection set up on their computer so they decided to go and surf for a while.
Tom sat at the computer and Joseph pulled up a stool at his side. They started
with a search for ‘Sandmen’ from Yahooligans which returned lots and lots of
results so they began to go to each of the pages, looking for something
interesting. Most of them were about the comic strip or other obscure
Sandpeople such as the one’s that had appeared in the TV show of Flash Gordon.
It seemed that none of them were anything to do with what they imagined them to
be like.
“What do you think of making our own
web-site Tom ?” Asked Joseph.
“You mean about our version of the
Sandpeople ?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, we could scan in photos of us
as the Scouts, exploring the back
garden and Mum as the unfriendly Earth creature then the Sand Pit as our
natural habitat.” Added Joseph.
“Yeah, sounds cool. We could have
our reports on the Earth people up there too and a description of our home planet.”
Said Tom, excitedly.
“We’d have to get Dad to help us
out, let’s go ask him !” Joseph said, running out of the room.
Their Dad, being on the Sand people
high command, agreed to help them build the Internet home of their unique
people. Over the next week they took photos of the Sand Pit, themselves covered
in sand (of course), their Mum, the garden, their bedroom and their computer.
They wrote out everything that anybody was ever likely to want to know about
Sandpeople on lots of bits of paper and even made a papier maché model of the
Space Ship they’d used on their mission to Earth and photographed that. Their
Dad then took everything they gave him and fed it into the computer then made
the Internet pages. They thought the result was awesome. The Internet home of
the Sandpeople.
Tom and Joseph told all of their
friends about the Sandpeople. They all thought the two brothers were completely
mad but were impressed with the Sandpeople’s Internet pages. As word got around
they began to get emails from people that they’d never even met asking for more
information about the Sandpeople. Tom and Joseph were more than willing to make
up facts about the popular race of extra terrestrials and started spinning the
most outrageous tales ! One school in California based an extended project on
the Sandpeople including facts about their home world, what they ate (grubs and
beetles) and the kind of secrets which they could tell Earthlings such as how
to make pocket money last longer, where to get the latest Nike sneakers and how
to make your own blaster.
The Sandpeople had grown to be
international stars and were booked to appear on TV shows which proved a little
embarrassing for Tom and Joseph’s Mum and Dad not to mention all the sand which
would get everywhere in the car. Eventually, the Sandpeople High Command held a
secret meeting and decided that their presence was no longer needed on Earth.
One morning Tom and Joseph awoke to find that the Sandpeople’s Internet pages
had been erased and all their notes and photographs destroyed. Outside, in the
back garden, the Sand Pit had been dug up and replaced with an ornamental pond
complete with reeds, fountain and gold fish. The two brothers were extremely
upset and couldn’t understand what they’d done wrong. Their Dad explained that
the High Command had thought that Earth was an insignificant planet and that
the Sandpeople had no further use for it so their mission had been terminated.
Tom and Joseph sat by the side of
the pool, staring at the water and thinking about the Sandpeople and the fun
they’d had. It was all over. Then they looked at each other and said together:
“Fishpeople !”