Southend U3A

August 2023

The Family Next Door - Marie Day

It’s August. It’s 3am. A lot of people would be sound asleep in bed but I’m in my garden lying on the ground in a sleeping bag gazing at the sky. My name is Patricia Moore and the reason for this unusual behaviour is that I’m an astronomer. Amateur but enthusiastic. I live in a cottage in the countryside. August is a time of year if the skies are clear the Pleiades, a meteor shower, is seen coursing across the heavens. I find the best way to view this spectacle and avoid a stiff neck is to lie flat on my back looking straight up at the glittering show above me. Tonight, I’ve struck lucky. The sky is alight with the criss-crossing of bright space rock the illuminated tails stretched out behind like a bride’s train.

As I lay there, my mind wanders back to last August. Same time, same position, same . . . but nothing else was the same. The meteor shower was in full space travel mode. I lay there waiting for each to make its entrance. Most of the meteors are very small but suddenly a much bigger and more brilliant light soared past with a fiery tail glowing like flames. I pulled out a notebook and wrote a short description and the time I’d seen it. At the time all I thought I’d do is check with some of my astronomical friends to ask if they’d seen it too.

I live, as I’ve said, in a cottage but it isn’t the only one nearby. Directly next door is another cottage. No one actually lives there. It’s one of those places that are rented out when people want somewhere to stay as a stop over to wait before they move on to somewhere else. Just lately it has been very quiet so I just thought everyone had obviously got to where they’d moved on to. I decided to hop over to my garden table (still in the sleeping bag) and have a cup of tea from the flask I’d left there. Just as I started to pour my tea I was startled by a whooshing sound and next door’s garden, just for a moment, glowed. Having spilt half my tea on the lawn I put the cup down and stood for a second or two unsure if I’d actually seen or heard anything or whether I’d wake up in a minute lying on the damp grass having nodded off.

I try not to be a nosy neighbour but when I realised I was wide awake, decided it would do no harm if I took a little look over the fence. So, I shuffled over to the fence and trying, not entirely successfully, not to tread on my fuchsia bush. I clung to the top and pushed myself up as high as I could. Oh, how I wished I’d been more willing to climb the ropes in P.E. when I was young. Too late for regrets I grasped the wooden slats and clung on for dear life. I peered over, trying to stare through the darkness, as the glow had now moved to the garden shed at the far end, away from the flower beds and lawn. The glow was accompanied by a humming sound, like a band of contented bees dreaming of honey. I twisted precariously and noticed the back door was now open and voices drifted out into the night. My arms were now telling me they’d had enough of this form of exercise when suddenly I heard another noise like a ‘woofruff, woofruff’ which was coming from the mouth of an enormous dog – I say dog for want of a better description – which loped over towards me. I was so startled, my arms decided they’d finally had enough and let go. I fell flat on my back. I looked up and this time I saw not stars but the ‘dog animal’ propped up on the fence. It had huge paws and it proceeded to woofruff at me whilst also making a whipping sound which I found out later was him wagging his tail in the ecstasy of thinking he’d found a new toy to play with.

So there we were, staring at each other, when another face appeared at the top of the fence. He seemed to have no trouble holding on; perhaps he paid attention in P.E. He grinned a very wide grin. By this time, I’d struggled to my feet. A large hand reached up to his ear and gave it a twist. He listened for a second and then the hand reached out as if on a long piece of elastic. I shook it and it felt soft and warm. It filled me with what I can only describe as a feeling of wellbeing. Then he spoke. His voice was pleasant but afterwards I felt almost as if he’d learned a foreign language and was trying it out, he spoke so clearly and precisely.

‘Hello. Please let me introduce myself. My name is Sirius Moon. Don’t mind Canis, he always gets excited after a land . . . er . . . when we visit somewhere new on our journey.’

I introduced myself and explained that I was surprised to see anyone move in at such an early hour.

‘Is it early?’ Sirius looked upwards and twisted his ear again. He nodded with a sort of satisfied smile as if he’d learnt something new and had packed it away to use later. Just then a muffled voice called from the direction of the back door. Both Sirius and Canis turned.

‘That’ll be the wife, Ariadne. Refreshings must be ready. Need to get settled for the short time we’re here. At least I hope we’ll be on our way soon. The ship needs a few adjustments.’

With that, the two of them of them turned and, to my mind, just sort of glided to the back door, went inside and the door closed with a click. I put it down to lack of sleep that I accepted this and didn’t question why he’d called his vehicle a ship. We were miles from the sea or even a river! And what were refreshings? I obviously needed to rest and I slept deeply until about 10am when I was awoken by sounds coming from the direction of next door’s garden.

I got up and pulled back my curtains. It was a beautiful day. The sun shone brightly but strangely, next door, there seemed to be a mist clinging to the garden about a foot above the ground. There were two children playing with a shiny ball which made a gurgling sound when thrown and caught but if they dropped it made a sort of sound like a loud burp. The two children were very alike, both girls, I think. Then Sirius appeared on the doorstep and called out to them. I didn’t catch what he said but the children both stopped, twisted one ear towards him and then continued to play. I could now hear every word they said. The wind must have changed direction I thought. I decided to go and offer any neighbourly help they might need.

When I arrived in the garden Sirius had gone to the shed and I could hear banging, crashing and several indecipherable words. The humming had stopped and there was no glow, not even a twinkle. With a final unintelligible expletive Sirius came out of the shed, slammed the door and looking up waved at me.

‘Good mornings, Patricia. Just making sure the old ship is ready for departure.’

‘You sound as if you might need help. There’s a very good garage in the next village. Shall I give them a call?’

‘No, that’s fine, Patricia – don’t go shouting at anyone for us. I’ll have Andromeda ready for lift . . . er . . . leaving in no time. You haven’t met the childers have you? Luna and Phoebe come and say hello.’

By this time the ‘childers’ had been joined by Canis. They all seemed to grin like Sirius and then began to play with their ball again.

‘No sign of your wife. Is she settling in OK?’

‘Oh yes, Ariadne’s fine,’ replied Sirius, ‘She’s just a little bit shy of strange . . . er . . . strangers.’

The gurgling and burping sounds, interspersed now with woofruffs from Canis, began again.

‘That’s a very unusual toy your children are playing with,’ I ventured.

‘Just something we picked up on our travels,’ Sirius replied.

Over the next few days I saw the Moons fairly often, except for the very shy Ariadne. Always friendly, always smiling, always looking at the sky especially in the evenings. Then, after they’d been in the cottage for about three days, I was in the kitchen just after darkness fell, when I saw movement in my fuchsia bush. I saw that there was a man trying to look over my fence into next door’s garden. When he stood up, I could see he had a camera. I grabbed the nearest ‘weapon’ (I use the term loosely (it was a very wet tea towel!) and crept out of my back door to greet my uninvited guest. He was so absorbed with spying on my neighbours he didn’t know what hit him when the wet cloth knocked the camera out of his hand.

‘What do you think you’re doing in my garden, David Bailey?’ I whispered hoarsely.

Without a word my unwelcome guest dragged himself up from the flower bed, grabbed his rather dented camera and was out of my back gate and down the road in the same amount of time it took for Sirius to join me in the darkness. About 5 seconds flat!

‘What happened?’ asked a very shaky Sirius.

‘For some reason a man was trying to take photographs over my fence at your cottage. Can’t think why though, can you?’

Sirius’ usually happy face looked distinctly worried; shaking his head he said goodnight before hurrying indoors.

In the middle of the night, I thought I heard the noise of my letterbox but just turned over and thought it was an odd time to be delivering junk mail. In the morning I rose and went down to the garden. There was no sound of gurgle or burp, not even a friendly woofruff. Next door was completely silent. The shed door was open but there was no sign of life. Sadly, I went back inside and noticed on the door mat there was a piece of folded paper. I picked it up and it began to glow. I read it as I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. I read:

Dearest Patricia,
We are so sorry we couldn’t say farewell before we continued our journey. You are by far the nicest being we have met on our travels. If we had been able to stay, even Ariadne said she would have twisted her ear language control so that she could speak to you. Good luck with your star gazing. Who knows we might pass this way again. That man with the camera was too close – we’ve met his kind before!
Universal good wishes,
Sirius, Ariadne, Luna and Phoebe Moon
plus a huge woofruff from Canis.
P.S. There is a present behind the future bush; that’s what you called it isn’t it? Luna and Phoebe thought you might like it.

A few days later I heard from the chairperson or should that be chair-being of the ‘Amateur Astronomer’s Society’, Bryony Cox, who had been harassed by a local reporter about there being the possibility of alien life in our village! I laughed when she said he was walking with a limp and had a nasty bruise on his cheek. When she asked him about it, he said he’d been following the alien story and was attacked in the dark by something wet and slimy. He said he didn’t hang around for long and this thing owed him a new camera!

And that brings me back to my garden, laying on my back in my sleeping bag looking at the Pleiades skimming across the universe. I hope the Moons finally arrived at their destination and that Andromeda lasted the journey without any further mishaps. There’s no one in the cottage next door at the moment so I pick up my present from the fuchsia or is it future?

‘Here Canis,’ I call.

Out from my cottage runs my newest friend. He’s a small terrier called Canis Minor from the rescue centre down the road. He and I will have a game of ‘gurgle-burp ball’ until the next shower crosses the sky.