Carl sat at the end of the dining room table, glaring at the broccoli casserole her mother served for dinner. Carl did not like broccoli or casseroles, so all in all it was a bad meal. In her highly prejudiced opinion. Her mother loved broccoli casseroles. Carl is a ridiculous name fora girl,” she thought, taking her fork and stabbing it into the casserole. Carl looked out the window, out to her home, Pluto. Pluto was a very sad and cold planet, In her opinion. She figured humans were pretty stupid to not even notice the large cities Pluto had made without any invisibility walls at all. This was also in her opinion. Carl had many opinions, some of which were about food, and others about inventions. Carl thought invisibility walls were a genius idea.Too bad nobody had invented them. Yet. She wondered if Earth had invisibility walls. She hadn’t seen any there. (Although, they are Invisible). Carl had been to Earth last year on a school field trip. She had to transform from a Pluto alien to an Earth human. She didn’t even grow to the human average. She thought the machine was broken. Plutonians are very very Short, by Earth’s standards. The average height for a Plutonian her age (which was 13 and a half) was 4’9”. She was shorter then the average, at 4’3”. Her skin turned from light light purple to a weird peachy brown color. When she realized her neon green hair had turned brown, she was very unhappy. She thought brown was an incredibly ugly color. She saw the cutest Earthling ever there. His name… was Carl Brown. Carl didn’t have any friends with a name like a boy’s. She was jealous of her three best friends” names. Jenny, Sophie, and Erin. Carl even thought Carla was a good name, better then Carl anyway. In fact, on the first day of her 3rd grade year, Carl lied and said there was a typo when her teacher Mrs. Hatts called her name for attendance. Her teacher even believed her, until the next day, when she was busted. Mrs. Hatts apparently saw her mother at the grocery store and was talking about “Dear little Carla.” Carl was yelled at by her teacher, mother, father, and even her little brother that day. Although, her brother had only yelled at her because she refused to play pirate with him. It was not a good day. The day Carl learned she and her class were going to Earth in order to study how humans feel ‘love,’ she was ecstatic. Except for the part where she wasn’t allowed to go because she hadn’t signed the permission slip (the permission slip that was handed out when she was absent and was never mentioned again). Her friend Jenny was trying to comfort her, but she wasn’t doing a very good job. “You know, Earth isn’t that great… the only good parts are the warmth, and the blue sky, and those weird rodent things that love nuts…” Jenny’s eyes glazed over and she started listing everything great about Earth. This didn’t help Carl’s mood at all. While Jenny kept talking, Carl started thinking about sneaking onto the space ship. It was quite hard, however, because space travel was very complex and dangerous. Jenny eventually snapped out it, and patted her friend on the shoulder. But Carl was no longer sad, no, she had a plan to get on that space ship. A plan that included a broccoli casserole. Just then, Carl’s sworn enemy, Abby Green, walked up to them. “I heard you aren’t coming to Earth with us because you were too stupid to sign the permission slip. I would be surprised, but, you know…” she trailed off, walking over to her friends before Carl could respond. The day before the broccoli casserole heist, Carl had asked her mother if they could have just that for dinner. Her mother, happy as could be, agreed immediately and went to make it. Carl sat in her room, playing out what she would do in her head. When her mother called her for dinner (her brother and father were playing sports) , Carl went into the kitchen, and while her mother was pouring drinks for them, pointed her teleportation laser that had been a gift from her best friend Sophie at the casserole. And the food disappeared. Or it would seem that way. Really, it was in Carl’s closet. Yes. Teleportation lasers are a thing on Pluto. Then, Carl took out all the stolen broccoli casseroles that were gathered over the years. She knew they would be helpful someday. She squished them into a convincing shape and threw them on the floor. She called for her mom and guiltily said she had dropped the casserole. Her mom didn’t notice the casserole wasn’t on a plate. She yelled for about 30 seconds and Carl cleaned it up. Her mom then ordered pizza. That was an added bonus, in Carl’s eyes. Carl woke up early in the morning, and carefully placed the stolen broccoli casserole into her bag. The casserole sat comfortably in the huge space that seemed to be twice the size of what the small bag could carry. That’s Plutonian technology for you. Once she arrived at school, everyone was excitedly waiting in line for the bus that
