Moon People on Mother’s Day

In honor of Mother’s Day in America — and for new friends and followers of my blog I want to take this opportunity to re-publish a piece of writing I did when I was 12 years old! 

I give thanks to my mother and father for giving me a room with a view in which to write to my heart’s content.

Moon People – Friday 25 February 1977

When moon people grow old, they do not die. They just vanish into thin air, like smoke – and talking of smoke, I must tell you about their diet, which is precisely the same for everyone. When they feel hungry, they light a fire and roast some frogs on it – for there are lots of these creatures flying around in the air. Then while the frogs are roasting, they draw up chairs around the fire, as if it were a sort of dining-room table, and gobble up the smoke.

That is all they ever eat. And to quench their thirst they just squeeze some air into a glass and drink that: the liquid produced is rather like dew.

Bald men are considered very handsome on the moon, and long hair is thought absolutely revolting. But on young stars like the comets, which have not yet lost their hair, it is just the other way round. Or so I was told by a comet-dweller who was having a holiday on the moon when I was there.

I forgot to mention that they wear their beards a little above the knee; and they have not any toenails, for the very good reason that they have not any toes. What they have got, however, is a large cabbage growing just above the buttocks like a tail. It is always in flower, and never gets broken, even if they fall on their backs.

When they blow their noses, what comes out is extremely sour honey, and when they have been working hard or taking strenuous exercise, they swear milk at every pore. Occasionally, they turn it into cheese, by adding a few drops of the honey. They also make olive oil out of onions, and the resulting fluid is extremely rich and has a very delicate perfume.

They have any number of vines, which produce not wine but water, for the grapes are made of ice; and there, in my view, you have the scientific explanation of hail storms, which occur whenever the wind is strong enough to blow the fruit off the vines.

They use their stomachs as handbags for carrying things around in, for they can open and shut them at will. If you look inside one, there is nothing to be seen in the way of digestive organs, but the whole interior is lined with fur so that it can also be used as a centrally-heated pram for babies in cold weather.

The upper class people wear clothes made of flexible glass, but the material is rather expensive, so most people have to be content with copper textiles. For there is any amount of copper in the soil, which becomes as soft as wool when soaked in water.

I hardly like to tell you about their eyes, for fear you should think I’m exaggerating, because it really does sound incredible. Still, I might as well risk it, so goes: their eyes are detachable!!

As for ears, they have to be satisfied with a couple of plane-tree leaves.

I must just mention one other thing I saw in the King’s Palace on the moon. It was a large mirror suspended over a fairly shallow tank. If you got into the tank you could hear everything that was being said on Earth, and if you looked in the mirror, you could see what was going on anywhere in the world, as clearly as if you were actually there yourself.

I had a look at all the people I knew at home, but whether they me saw me or not I cannot really say.