Ferney Lee J&I School

For years people in Todmorden had seen strange lights up on Stoodley Pike, white lights that sometimes turned pink and sometimes green. Most people thought they were UFOs, unidentified flying objects, but sometimes those UFOs proved to be nothing more than local residents out on a Saturday night.
Tom, his best friend Liam, and Liam’s sister Kate would watch for UFOs from their windows in the evening. One night they saw strange, bright, flickering lights up on Stoodley Pike, coloured brilliant white and pink. They were followed by a silent explosion of light, becoming densely greener, then slowly turning a sickly yellow.
“Something’s happened,” Tom said to Liam. “We should go up there and see.”

As the three of them made their way up the hill to the top of Stoodley Pike they heard an odd groaning noise. At first it seemed like a wounded animal, but as they drew closer it became obvious this was no animal. There was something, they didn’t know what, huddled beside a bush, shivering and cradling its ankle. “It’s an alien,” whispered Kate fearfully. “Do you think so?” asked Tom, putting on his bravest voice. “Without a doubt,” Liam said. “Look at them big eyes.”

But it wasn’t an alien at all. It was Footsteps, Fungus Footsteps, the local tramp. He’d acquired the name because no one was quite sure if the growth on his face was fungus or a beard, and because his footsteps would follow each other in a single, straight line. Everyone laughed at him as he walked around with a large bag collecting rubbish. They asked Fungus what he was doing up on Stoodley Pike. “Looking for the lights,” he told them.
“You saw them too?” they asked, glad they hadn’t been the only ones.
“Of course,” he answered. “They’re aliens, in’t they?”
Tom and Liam looked at Fungus as if they were seeing him for the very first time. His eyes were bright and quick. He didn’t seem mad at all. So the four of the follow the glow on the hill.

“It’s a spaceship!” Liam cried as they neared the light. And sure enough, there was the strangest craft they’d ever seen. It was shaped like a pine cone, but the size of a large van. Where the scales almost touched, there was a sickly greenish glow. From beside it came a moaning voice – and this time it was definitely an alien.
They could tell by its huge dark eyes, the smooth skin and the three fingers on the end of its hands. The creature had no lips, simply a hole where its mouth was, opening and closing quietly in pain.
“We’ll help you,” Kate offered, suddenly feeling so sorry for this tiny being that was no larger than a small child. The alien jabbered in words they couldn’t understand, but they could tell it was scared of them – it tried to crawl away.

“We won’t hurt you,” said Tom gently. The three little fingers moved a dial in its chest, and slowly, like tuning in a radio, the voice became intelligible. “Hurt,” it said brokenly. “No good memories from here. Hurt. Can’t get home.” “What does that mean?” Liam wondered. Fungus picked up the alien, cradled it close to his chest and carried it to the spaceship. “Maybe I can fix it,” he mused. “I used to be an engineer a long, long time ago.”
“An engineer?” the children asked. It was hard to believe Fungus had ever had a life before he was a tramp.
Fungus examined the ship, but he’d never seen anything like it and shook his head sadly.
“Did you like being an engineer?” Kate asked tentatively.“I loved it,” he replied wistfully. “I loved the feel of the tools, and the way I could fix something…make it better, you know?” As he talked, he smiled. And as he smiled Tom noticed that the alien began to glow pink. He started to get an idea.
“Tell us something good,” Tom said quickly. “Tell us something good that you remember.”
So Fungus reminisced, telling them of his experiences, and the alien’s light glowed brighter and brighter, and so did the lights of the ship. Then Fungus said, “But all the changed when my Mary died.” He explained how Mary had died of TB, a disease that had been once been deadly. His face grew grim, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
“Look,” said Tom. He pointed at the ship, which was turning green again. “It’s memories. It’s not tools we need to fix the ship, it’s good memories!”
The alien seemed to understand.
“Yes,” he said. “Good memories. Good things. Crashed…”
They built a fire and wrapped the alien up warm in a blanket, swaddling him like an infant. Then they began to speak of their favourite things, the most wonderful Christmases, the best birthdays, and the more they talked, the stronger the alien grew until it was glowing bright white.
“Thank you,” it said. “Now let me show you something.”
It drew a circle in the air and touched it. It was beautiful, green and blue.
“That was my home planet,” it said softly, and continued to watch as the image turned into a dead, glowing ball. “But this is what we did to it. Now I roam across the galaxy.” It looked into their faces. “Look after your world, look after your memories.”
With that, the alien waved, entered his ship and suddenly, without warning or goodbye, he was gone.

“You used to be an engineer,” said Tom to Fungus in wonder. To him that was more amazing than meeting an alien.
“Yes I was, and I was a flipping good one.”
They made their way back to Todmorden. And if in the future people talked of aliens, well, the children and Fungus knew the truth. And they knew an even greater secret, about Fungus; he wasn't Fungus Footsteps.

He was Fergus the Engineer.