Zigby's First Day at The Academy



© 2011 Sylvia Liu

Thank you to all for helping create this story, as part of “Food Fight: Zesty Onomatopoeia Slinging.” Here is the whole story, in one piece.


            Zigby groaned. Two of his hearts sank to where his three stomachs began. Great. First day at Aliens A-1 Academy and he was already odd alien out. Not that he looked so different from the other kids in the lunch room. Other Martians like himself balanced trays, books, and drinks with multiple hands. Venutians slithered to and fro on slimy tentacles. Earthlings slouched together acting sullen and too cool to be seen with the gassy Jovians.



            No. What set him apart was his food. He had gotten his food from the same cafeteria lizard-lady that everyone else had. But his looked different than everyone else’s.

          His portions were undistinguished gray-looking blobs, like every other lunch he’d ever had at any school in any planetary system. The other kids, however, had food that glowed. And moved. Some hovered and shot electric green sparks. The kid next to him had creepy looking cauliflower. He could have sworn evil eyes blinked slowly at him.

            What had the kids done? Was there a secret sauce that activated the food? Did the other kids have secret powers? Did they actually eat the stuff?

            A Venutian girl next to Zigby nudged him. “Hey, kid,” she said. “You must be new here. We’re about to start the annual Food Fight.” She narrowed her eyes as she looked at his inert blobs of food. “You need to weaponize your food.”

            “What? How do I do that?” Zigby asked.

            An Earthling sniggered as she said to a friend, “Newbie alert. Let’s welcome him to the Academy.”

            “Watch out!” the Venutian girl yelled. She grabbed a glowing carrot with her powerful third tentacle.

       The Venutian might have been quick to catch the glowing carrot, but a flickering flimmelfleck soared past her and BOINK, hit Zigby square on the forehead. "Please, tell me how to weaponize my food!" he yelled above the din that was rising in the cafeteria.

      "Can't now, newbie!" she yelled, as she spat out 3 zimmelwiggers in quick succession - TOONG, TOONG, TOONG!!!

       While Venutian was busy battling more flimmelfleck, Zigby picked up his grey blob and gave it a shake. He poked it searching for hidden buttons. Then he had a great idea... 

     I'll ask cafeteria lizard-lady how this works!

      But out of nowhere, SHWUMP! SHWUMP! SHWUMP!

      Lizard-lady held up another three jumping-nuggets to hurl at Zigby.

     Zigby ducked, but he needn't have as a cute Martian had stepped smartly in front of him deflecting all three jumping-nuggets, who squealed so loud they almost jumped out of their batter. 

     "Here," said the Martian, handing Zigby some of her radiating radish. Zigby grabbed two, aimed and ZING, ZING, he zapped two Earthlings in the butt!

     "Yes!" he yelled. His celebration ended when two hairy Plutochs shot spaghetti snakes at him which hissed when they hit his skin. "Smoosh those snakes, Newbie!" the Martian girl ordered.

     "But how?? How do I weaponize my food???" Zigby stammered as he and his companion rolled out of the Plutochs' range. But as the Martian began to answer, those two Earthlings had recovered and began hurling radio-active hot dogs, SHWING SHWING SHWING!

     The sound of the hurling hot dogs almost sounded like singing. "Maybe, I have to sing to my food," Zigby thought. He started singing the only song he knew, "Yoodle-ZIP and Doodie-Dip I want to take an asteroid trip..." SLOOOP! A glob of mashed plutos hit him the face.

     "OOH! Worse than a Wurst," Zigby cried. Spying an apple, he flinged it towards a human darting near his table. It WOOSHED and was squooshed, spattering into a billion bits, be-cider.

      Elated, Zigby picked up his gray blob of food and flung it at a Jovian. "To heck with weaponizing," he cried. ZZZLOOOOPTHT! The Jovian let out a loud, gassy fart as the blob hit him right in the stomach.

     "I'll get you for that Newbie," said the Jovian as he reached into his skin pouch. "Take that you twit!" A spluttering, splattering sofflewocket came whizzing through the air right at him!

     Zigby's eyes widened. He'd never seen anything like it. If that sofflewocket hit him. "DUCK, Newbie" just in the nick of time his Martian cohort grabbed a tentacle and pulled him to safety as it whizzed past one of his ears.

     As milk shakes and zomplewhifs ZUNG above their heads, Zigby begged, "Quick, tell me how to weaponize my food!"

     "It's easy," the Martian said, "All you have to do is take..." 

     BUNKARUNKADUNG,  a giant smitzlegrub bounced off the top of the Martians head, knocking him to the floor. 

     "Quick," he said while lying on his back, "this is what you must do..." 

     SCLIZZLETOFFINK  a half dozen chicken fried trickletips pounded Zigby on the head, his arms, chest, and stomach. They knocked him across the room. Somehow he managed to catch two of the chicken fried trickletips, but before he could throw them back they jumped out of his hand and pelted his Martian friend. "Sorry," Ziggby said, "I didn't do that."

     "That's okay." The Martian pulled Zigby behind some chairs, and they sat panting next to to the Venutian girl. "By the way, I'm Zandra," she said.

     "And I'm Aleneyi," said the Venutian. "You're doing great, especially for someone with inert food." 

      "I'm Zigby, and can you PLEASE tell me how to weaponize my food?"

      Zandra and Aleneyi looked at each other and grinned. Aleneyi said, "See that mystery gravy? Nobody ever touched it, until one day, someone plopped some onto his mashed potatoes and accidentally sneezed on it. Before he knew it, it started to glow and hover."

     "Pretty soon," Zandra continued, "We figured out that the gravy, plus some spit, activates the food. It affects different foods differently and different species' spits also react differently."

     "Here." Zandra passed out battered cheese sticks and glopped some gravy on them. They each spit onto the sticks. Aleneyi's grew angry eyes and long legs. Zandra's and Zigby's both puffed twice their size and sprouted cheesy wings. 

     "On your mark, get set, THROW!" The three stood up and hurled their cheesy missiles at a pair of humans coming their way. THWAP! Aleneyi's cheese stick grabbed one's nose. BLAP! SHNAPP! The Martians' cheese sticks got tangled in their targets' hair.

     The three whooped and gave each other tentacle-appendage bumps.

     "Welcome to the Academy, Zigby." Zandra said with a grin.




A big thanks to all these awesome contributors: Donna SaddJulie Rowan-Zoch,Joanna MarpleLauri MeyersMamma DHannah HoltPatricia NozellTeresa RobesonDonna Louise Robb Terranova