Mary Had a Little Dagnaserub
by Kalifer Deil
Copyright 2010 Kalifer Deil
The characters and their portrayal are products of the author’s imagination. The events are wholly fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
This story is suitable for young audiences
Second Edition, Revised 11/15/2012
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Mary Johnson, a pretty blond girl of seven years was on her way home from school when she noticed some rustling under the leaves in Mrs. Crenshaw's front-yard. She knelt carefully, not to soil her dress, to pick up a large moving leaf. Underneath she saw a rust-colored fluffy mouse-sized creature that stared at her with his oversized eyes. The little creature was frozen with fear and Mary picked him up carefully with both hands. As he was being elevated to Mary's face, the little creature was sure that Mary was going to eat him but was too frightened to move. Feeling the vibrating body of the creature she guessed that he was frightened and lowered it away from her face.
“There, there, little one. Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you,” she comforted it and noted that the vibration ceased. “Would you like to go into my nice warm pocket?” she asked rhetorically as she opened her dress pocket with her left hand and pointed the creature nose down into the pocket with her right hand. The creature dove into the pocket, righted itself and peeked over the edge. Mary satisfied that it would stay there, completed the remaining two blocks to her home, retrieved the key from the flowerpot on the porch and entered the house.
“What will I do with you?” she mumbled to herself. “Grandma won't allow me to have any pets. When Carol Gilmore gave me a kitten, grandma brought it to the animal shelter. I don't think that's a good place for a kitten,” she muttered under her breath. She opened the refrigerator and removed a small snack plate that her grandmother prepared for her and went into her bedroom. She carefully removed the creature from her pocket and put him on the bed then offered him a little piece of carrot. He sat on the bed and took the carrot piece in its tiny hands and started gnawing on it. He had nothing to eat for three days and drinking from a lawn sprinkler is not all that easy either. After eating some carrot and cheese and mastering eating a grape, he was content that he had found a friend. Maybe she could help him find his spaceship.
He decided it was time to try to communicate. After getting her attention, he pointed to himself and with a tiny voice said, “Dagnaserub!” then he pointed to her. She looked at him dumbfounded. He repeated this several more times and suddenly the light went on, that's his name. She pointed to herself and said, “Mary, Mary Johnson. Hi Dag, Dag Naserb.” 'It almost sounds like a swearword,' she thought smiling.
He immediately understood that Mary was responding with her name, not her species, but here was a start. “Hi Mary,” he responded while making a little wave with his hand to duplicate the movement she made.
At the beginning of the school year they got a transfer student in the second grade from Mexico who knew no English and the class was helping him learn by picking up and identifying objects. She decided to do the same for Dag and he was learning English very quickly. Then her grandmother came home from work and called, “Mary, you here?”
She answered, “Yes grandma, in the bedroom.” She then turned quickly to Dag, “I need to hide you with the stuffed animals. Just be very still and pretend to be one of them.”
Moments later grandma entered the bedroom and said, You should eat in the kitchen, not the bedroom. You know that's the rule. She grabbed the plate and left the room. Mary muffled a laugh with her hands over her mouth.
Dag then spoke, “Grandma love you.”
Mary was at first startled by this first full sentence then said, “I know. I shouldn't laugh but this room is warm and the kitchen is cold.”
Hearing pots and pans clanging in the kitchen she knew grandma would be busy preparing dinner so she decided to show Dag some catalogs. She put Dag next to her on the bed and starting thumbing through one of the catalogs showing Dag the pictures. Then she came to a page that showed a picture of a key ring with the starship Enterprise hanging on it in a field of stars. “What that?” Dag jumped on the page. “It's a key ring,” she said not realizing that the ring was not what he was excited about. “Not that,” he wiped the ring with his finger, then pointed to the starship, “That!”
“Oh that's just a spaceship,” she dismissed his interest and started turning the page.
“No! I need spaceship!” he pleaded.
“It's just a toy. I don't think there is a real one like that,” she puzzled.
“Yes! Yes! I have one. Gone now.” Dag looked down at his toes with his eyelids lowered, “I don't think I find it.”
“How can you lose something big like that?” Mary was thinking of something the size of the jumbo jet airplane she was on to get to grandma's house. It was really big and had more people in it than she ever saw in one place.
“Spaceship your size,” Dag pointed at Mary.
“Who was driving?” Mary wasn't quite understanding thinking it might be some sort of model airplane he was put in.
“I drive,” he quickly answered.
“You couldn't be old enough to drive,” she responded with a bit of a sneer.
“I old like grandma. Little not mean young!” he proclaimed.
Mary took some time to absorb this surprising piece of news. “Where are you from?” she finally asked.
Dag pointed up and simply said, “The stars.”
“Wow!” was all she could say for a while. Finally, she added, “Do you know where you landed?
“Close, where you found me, on lawn.” Dag voice saddened, “Boy take spaceship away.”
“It was probably Tommy. He's in outer space most of the time.” She pointed to her head to indicate it was mental outer space. “That's what our teacher says, anyway.”
“I draw picture,” Dag brightened.
Mary scurried to get a pad of paper and a wooden pencil, then realized Dag couldn’t handle a pencil. She broke off the tip and handed it to him. Just then her grandmother called her to dinner so she left him on the bed with the pad and the lead.
“Mary, please slow down. You're going to choke on your food and it's not polite to eat so fast,” grandma implored.
Mary slowed just enough to not call attention to her hurry to get back to her room.
Grandma then asked, “What did you learn at school today.”
“Tom doesn't know his multiplication tables. I know mine up to thirteen.” Mary said proudly.
“Well boys have their minds on other things at this age. They catch up later.” Grandma always tried to equalize things and that irritated Mary a little. She didn't see that Tom would ever catch up and besides she didn't want him to.
“My teacher says he's in outer space. All he talks about are spaceships and horrible aliens and laser beams and stuff like that.”
Grandma then said, “He will probably become an astronaut someday.”
An astronaut visited their school with a space suit at the beginning of the school year and she saw that he was a fairly large, strong, well-spoken man, nothing as she envisioned Tom ever becoming. She remained silent until she finished her raspberry Jell-O. “May I be excused?”
Grandma nodded and Mary returned to her room to see Dag hard at work drawing. “Dag, you draw really well.”
Dag looked up then pointed to each figure, “That top view and that side view. I do front view now.”
Mary knelt next to the bed and watched. “I wish I could go in that spaceship. I would never fit, huh?”
Dag looked at her sadly, “Mary, mother ship big, no big for you.”
Mary: “W
hy did you come down here? My grandma say there are a lot of bad people and dangerous cars around.”
Dag: “I had to pee.”
Mary giggled.
Dag added, “When I left spaceship, boy took away.”
Mary thought the boy might live in the neighborhood so asked, “What did he look like?”
Dag thought a bit, “Yellow hair, blue eyes, white skin, blue jacket, red backpack, blue-white pants, jeans I think, black shoes.”
Mary got very excited, “It WAS Tommy! I knew it! I will talk to him tomorrow. I'll get your spaceship back.”
Mary spent the rest of the evening asking a thousand questions about Dag's planet and Dag's life until it was clear that Dag was having trouble keeping his large sympathetic eyes open. They slept peacefully together until the next morning when her grandmother called in to her room, “It's time to get up.”
She downed a toaster waffle with strawberry jam and two slices of bacon and a glass of orange juice in record time and readied herself for school. “Dag you're going with me to school, You may get discovered by grandma if I leave you here. There's room on top of my lunch in my backpack and I won't tie the flap down so you'll get plenty of air.”
Dag: “Walk slow, I get motion sick.”
Mary looked surprised, “You fly spaceships and you get motion sick?”
Dag: “No get sick when I drive.”
Mary walked slowly and carefully to school stopping periodically to ask whether Dag was all right. She didn't want him to throw up on her lunch. She arrived at the classroom door just as the bell rang so she brought her backpack to her seat. Mrs. Bainbridge, her homeroom teacher, immediately started show-and-tell. “Tommy, you have something you're eager to show the class.”
Tommy got up proudly walked to the coatroom and came back with the exact spaceship that Dag drew the image of. A yard in diameter, metallic gray with many curious looking protrusions, Tommy walked with the spaceship pretending it was flying and making wind-like hissing sounds. “I found this on the street and it's a really neat spaceship.”
Mary immediately stood and said, “You did not find it on the street! You found it on Mrs. Crenshaw's front lawn and it belongs to Dag Naserb. He is here to take it home.”
Tommy's face turned red with instant anger. “I found it and it's mine! Finders keepers, losers weepers!”
Mrs. Bainbridge motioned to Tommy to carefully put the ship on her desk then said to Mary, “I don't see a Mr. Dag Nasser, or whatever his name is, in the room.”
Mary reached into her backpack and pulled out the sheet Dag drew then picked up Dag and marched to the front of the class. She set Dag down next to the ship and addressed the class. This is the drawing Dag made for me to find the spaceship. Tommy thinks this is a toy. It isn't! Now I want to introduce you to Dag the pilot. Where did he go?”
Just then the ship took off and made circles at the top of the room barely missing the hanging light fixtures. Mary then realized that Dag had gotten into the craft, so she ran, opened the door to the hall and the ship slid through. At the other end of the hall was the front door of the building and the principal was there talking to one of the mothers. Mary thought, 'Boy am I going to be in trouble,' but she ran for the front door anyway. The principal grabbed her but she quickly pulled loose and opened the door and the craft tilted on edge and breezed through the door. She stood in front of the building as the craft circled above her and she waved, “good-bye Dag! Visit me again someday!”
The craft, tilted in acknowledgement then shot straight up and out of sight. The principal, the parent and now Mrs. Bainbridge were dumbstruck at the front door.
Mary then strutted back into the building saying, “I'm going to become an astronaut! There are worlds to see and wonderful little people to visit.”
Mary walked back into her class and saw Tommy crying. Some boys were laughing at him and Mary thought that was cruel and went up to Tommy. “Tommy, you couldn't know it was a real spaceship. Dag, that little brown fuzzy guy, was a space creature and that was his ship. Someday, you and I will visit his planet but we have to become astronauts first. Are you with me?”
Tommy's face brightened, “Yes! We will become astronauts!”
Mrs. Bainbridge overheard the conversation and said, “To become an astronaut you have to learn lots of things so let’s get started.”
Mary wondered why neither the Principal nor Mrs. Bainbridge ever brought up the incident again but was glad they didn't because she really didn't like getting into trouble. She also noted that grandma was right about Tommy. He learned his multiplication tables up to 16. Of course, she had to do the same.
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About The Author
Kalifer Deil’s day job is as a computer hardware designer, programmer and engineering manager in Silicon Valley. He writes true stories, poetry, fantasy, science fiction and science fact. His brand of science fiction is firmly science based generally free of senseless technobabble. To learn more about the author visit his website at https://www.kaliferdeil.com and the Speculative Science Publishing website https://www.speculativescience.com. and his blog https://www.kaliferdeil.wordpress.com Also join him on Facebook and Twitter.
Transcendent Epoch - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/27028
End Times - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26878
The Possessor - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/24949
Editor’s Notebook - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/28825