We ran downstairs after her until we were all standing on the front porch, where she was looking up into the sky, frantically turning this way and that and screaming, “UFO!” We looked up with her, but none of us could see anything except the night sky filled with stars and moon.

“Out my bedroom window!” said Sina, panting. “Out my window! I was sitting in bed reading when I heard a noise, looked up, and saw through the window over my bed something covered in lights, mostly blue lights, and it stopped right outside my window, that is, on the other side of the three pine trees there. And it just stood still. At first I thought it must be military. A military helicopter, because what other kind of aircraft could stay still like that? I sat there peering through the trees and wondering why in God’s name it was parked right out my window and then I noticed it was really large. Large and completely stationary and I kept thinking, Why is it covered in Christmas lights? And then, from staying totally still, it took off at the speed of light. I’ve never seen anything move so fast. It was gone in a tic. Nothing of this earth could travel like that, from stillness to thousands of miles an hour.”

“What’s a UFO?” asked Zebediah.

“Unidentified flying object,” said Winifred.

“Complete nonsense,” said Old Tom. “No such thing.”

“Well, I didn’t think so before tonight either!” said Sina with exasperation. “But you can’t argue with what you’ve seen with your own two eyes! Are you saying I didn’t see a UFO?”

“I’m sure you saw something,” said Old Tom, scratching his chin. “Some trick of light. Probably was a military helicopter. You said it was on the other side of the pine trees and you could only see it through the branches. Probably confused the issue.”

“Don’t be daft. No helicopter could move that fast,” said Sina.

“Did it sound like a helicopter?” asked Old Tom.

“It sounded like something. I could hear it—that’s what made me look up from my book. But it didn’t sound like a helicopter.”

“What did it sound like?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Sina. “It wasn’t as loud as a helicopter.”

“Come indoors and stop frightening the children,” said Old Tom.

“I’m not frightened,” said Zebediah.

“Me neither,” said Wilfred.

“Maybe it was Flying Bob checking up on us,” said Zebediah.

“No, Zebediah. Daddy doesn’t actually fly. He just does maintenance,” said Winifred.

“He could fly if he wanted to,” said Zebediah. “He told me so.”

“Yes, yes, let’s all go indoors,” said Old Tom.

We trooped back in, but I could see Sina didn’t want to. When she saw the UFO I must have been absorbed in my mermaid story, typing away, because I hadn’t seen or heard anything.

“I think we should all go back to bed. You tell us if any more Martians start spying on you,” said Old Tom, chuckling.