Arabella's POV

I was up in the store with Henry and Gooch, and Gooch was using a crane to move a very heavy space rock that we found.

Henry picked up potted plant and Gooch stopped him. "No, no. Move all those things to the side."

"All right. All right." Henry says. "Bella, help."

"Kk." I say and help Henry move the table to the side.

"Hey, you guys." I heard Charlotte say as she entered the store. I turn and see she had bought corndogs from the Corn Doggery.

"Yo." I greet and smile at her.

"Hey." Henry greets.

"You are late for work." Gooch tells her.

"It's not my fault. There was a line at the Corn Doggery." Charlotte reasons.

"You got us corndogs?" Henry asks and I smile.

"Yeah, dude." Charlotte grins.

"Thanks, Charlotte." I smile and Henry and I take a corn dog.

"This is not corn dog time." Gooch interrupts us.

"It's always corn dog time." I protest and Henry and Charlotte nod.

Gooch gave in. "Okay, give me a corndog."

Charlotte hands Gooch a corndog and he grins happily.

"So, what is all this?" Charlotte questions, gesturing to the space rock.

"That is a big rock." Henry points to the rock in the air.

"From outer space." Gooch adds.

"No, I mean what's this crane for." Charlotte gestures to the crane behind us.

"To move the rock." I inform her and take a bite of my corndog.

"It weighs over seven thousand pounds." Henry explains, biting a piece of his corndog.

"Wow." Charlotte says with shock and turns to Gooch. "Can I borrow this crane to move my big uncle Rosco? Because he's been on our couch since Christmas."

Gooch was struggling with the controls and couldn't handle it well. "Darn it." The crane moved the rock from side to side. "Which one of these controls makes the-"

The crane opened and the rock fell right in front of us, causing all of us to jump back in shock. The rock smashed through the floor and all of us gasped and jumped as it smashed through all the floors below us.

"You dropped the rock." Henry points out.

"Wow, that thing's gonna fall all the way down to the Man Cave." Charlotte mentions and this alarms us.

"Dad!" I gasp and rush over to my phone to call him.

My dad answers and I hear music. "Hey, Cookie, I can't talk. I'm Hula-sizing with Laylani."

"Dad! There's a seven thousand pound space rock on its way down there!" I warn him.

"There's a what on its way down where?" He questions with confusion and it became silent.

"Dad? You there?" I looked at Henry and Charlotte and they seemed concerned.

"What happened?" Charlotte asks and I shrug.

"I don't know." I reply. "Dad, a very heavy rock is about to crash through the ceiling!"

"Yeah!" I heard a groan. "Thanks for the heads up!"

I end the call and shrug at my friends.

——

The following day, something bad happened. When the rock crashed into the Man Cave, it opened and something crawled out of it leaving a trial of purple slime.

Now, Gooch, my dad, and I were searching for it. I saw the bug and it looked creepy, it was red and had had spikes all over it.

"Ray, Bella! What's wrong!" Henry exclaims as he and Charlotte leave the elevator.

"Shh!" We all shush him.

"How come you guys are-"

"Shh!" Henry shushes Charlotte.

"Why are you shushing me?" Charlotte asks him.

"I don't know. They started it." He shrugs.

"Will you two shut up." I whisper yell at then.

"We have a situation." Gooch tells them.

"What's going on?" Henry asks us.

My dad set down his weapon and begins to do the dumbest demonstration of what happened. It was funny, but useless.

"Okay, you're going to have to use your words." Charlotte remarks, not understanding the gestures.

"Look at the space rock." My dad points to the space rock that was now split in half.

"What the jack happened?" Charlotte asks.

"It hatched." Gooch says.

"What do you mean hatched?" Henry gasps. "It's a rock! Rocks don't hatch! Do rocks hatch?"

"No. Eggs hatch." Charlotte informs him.

"So... the space rock was really a space egg?" Henry questions and I nod.

"Yeah." I nod. "And last night, it hatched and some thing crawled out of it."

"Well, where'd it go?" Henry asked.

"We don't know." Gooch shivers with fear.

"But it left that purple slime trail." My dad gestures to the purple slime trail.

"So, you're saying that some creature from outer space crawled out of that egg rock and now it's somewhere around here, but you don't know where it is?" Charlotte confirms and I nod.

"Yep, that summarizes our situation." I agreed.

"That's right." Gooch nods with fear.

"Okay then." Charlotte pulls out her remote, picks up her backpack and heads for the tubes. She presses a button and is encased by a tube. "Up the tube."

"So, she's gone." Henry mentions once Charlotte was gone.

Squeak!

"I hear it!" I gasp, gripping my baseball and look around frantically.

"Gooch, turn off all non-essential equipment." My father instructs Gooch.

"Right." Gooch nods and he turns off the equipment, causing the lights to turn off.

"Oh my god! Something's squeezing me!" My dad panics in distress.

Gooch turns the lights back on and Henry was missing.

"And Henry is gone!" I gasp.

"I'm right here!" I turn and see that Henry had climbed onto my dad's back. I giggle as I watch my dad try to get Henry off his back and Henry glares at him when he does.

"Alright! This is stupid!" My dad huffs. "We don't need to be afraid."

"Easy for you to say." Gooch protests.

"Yeah, you're indestructible." Henry agrees. "No creature is going to hurt you!"

"Oh yeah?" My dad protests. "What if it crawls up my leg? I don't need some alien thing all up in there!"

I shake my head, dropping my day. "So, what do we do?"

"I think if we just calmly search the Man Cave-"

Squeak!

All of us began to freak out and scream in fear, running around like maniacs. Henry, my dad, and I ran over to the tubes and I grabbed onto Henry as the tubes encased us. Henry held me tightly as we looked up with fear.

"Up the tube!" The three of us shouted and we got shot up, leaving the place that had the alien creature inside it.

——

The creature ended up crawling into Henry's backpack and it ended up at his house. My dad went over there to kill the creature, but it got on Piper's face and he had to shoot the creature of her face manually. He killed it, but Piper wasn't okay.

But she's never okay.

——

These short chapters are killing me, but they are easy to write and I can just speed through them. I finished three chapters in one day, I feel accomplished y'all😂