Each day Mummy’s tummy seemed bigger. It was like a balloon was ready to pop.

She even told me I had magical powers to make the ‘alien’ inside her move. I would press my tiny hand against her ginormous tummy and whatever was in there would press back against me.

I used to have nightmares, that the alien was sucking out the energy from Mummy and making her ill. When she was sleeping, I even thought that the alien would unzip themselves from her tummy and do naughty things, like stealing my biscuits and hiding my toys. No
matter where I was or what I was doing, this thing would steal away Mummy and Daddy’s attention, especially at night and they would always favor it.

Sometimes I tried to mark the evidence; snacks would mysteriously disappear; the movable machine’s keys would go missing and lots of my toys would randomly make a mess. Even after blaming the alien, somehow, I was always found out.

I don’t understand how they knew. I mean sometimes after sneaking downstairs to have a few biscuits, I might have “accidentally” woken them up, to show them the evidence, it’s not like they would have been able to catch this alien on their own, they needed some
guidance.

Even after all of that, for whatever reason, they would still laugh pat me on the head and talk about ‘my role as a great big sister’ and that it was coming soon. But each morning when I would wait by the letterbox the postman would pop through letters and no parcels’
that came would contain this so-called “crying baby thing” and no storks came flying through the back door. So, they must be lying.

Over time more and more stuff filled up the rooms, dummies, cribs, rattly things, nappies, wipes, and small items of clothes seemed to just appear. The only place safe from all this junk was my room, or so I thought. I was sat down and told that all this junk had to be moved into my room for a few days while they painted the alien’s room. I was not happy this thing managed to take over the house, it better not take any of my Barbie dolls.

A little while after when things seemed a bit more normal, Mummy disappeared and so did Daddy, Nanny came over to play with me and “keep me busy.” Later, that day it snowed. It wasn’t Christmas and I wasn’t living with penguins, so things seemed a bit strange. Nanny was being “extra nice” and seemed very happy. She told me it was time to get ready and helped to put on my super fluffy jumper and puffy trousers with my green Winnie the Pooh wellie boots.

We got in the movable machine and seemed to be going for a while, passing the park, ice cream shop, and my learning place it seemed like we were going somewhere important.

Nanny eventually stopped outside this super big building and helped lift me out of my seat. She held on tight to my hand and we started trampling our boots through the snow, heading towards the funky-looking mechanical doors.

It seemed like ages we walked for a long time, through the same white hallways and weird-smelling places. Lots of people in weird blue clothes were rushing about some people were in beds and others were being wheeled out. I wanted to try out one of the wheelie
things, but Nanny said no.

Finally, we stopped at the café, Nanny sat me down at a tall table and told me to stay there. She went off and came back with some ham and cheese sandwiches and even some chocolate brownie apparently it was an “extra special treat.” We watched Bob the Builder
and played with some toys she brought for me, and then Grandpa came. He was super happy and excited, hugged Nanny, and told me that I had some new people to meet.

I grabbed each of their hands and they swung me along as we rushed through the hallways finally getting what they said was a private room. My Grandad left us and told us to wait for Daddy. Nanny kept swinging me about and then Daddy came out to see us. A grin
filled up his whole face and he came over and gave me an extremely big hug, “Are you ready to come inside and find out the surprise?” I didn’t get what he was talking about, I thought he meant that they finally caught the alien that had been ‘stealing’ all of my cookies; we
walked through the door and I saw Mummy lying on the bed, her big tummy shrunk and she smiled and opened her arms up for a cuddle.

“Look over there,” she pointed at the two containers in the corner of the room. “They are your new baby brother and baby sister!”

I moved my head towards the mystery containers and saw one blue and one pink blanket with two babies, not that ‘alien looking’, lying fast asleep.

Frowning, I looked up at Mummy and said, “I think we are going to need a lot more cookies!”

This was written by our contributing writer, Shanai Besst.