Pham Thi Anh Sang
Swinging her feet impatiently, Anh Sang pouted as she stared out the window. When the shuttle had taken off, her face had been practically glued to it, before the shiny newness of being in space wore off. Now she was just kind of bored, waiting to see something actually exciting, basically anything besides this empty expanse of black and lights randomly scattered all over the place. Just where were the shooting stars? The giant black holes? The pretty, glass-covered planets? Anh Sang didn't get it but this was one of the reasons why she definitely wasn't going to be a scientist. Science was boring and full of lies.
"Mommy, Daddy, can I go exploring now?" She pleaded. Her parents, while having been perfectly fine with letting her attend Manta Carlos by herself, had been less than enthusiastic with sending their twelve year-old daughter alone to a whole different star system. It was all just weird to Anh Sang. They even said that it was probably safe so what was the big deal anyways? Maybe it was just a parent thing, the girl had decided. If it was, then she never wanted to have kids.
Her Daddy looked up from his knitting, something he did whenever he was feeling worried about something. Mommy had told her so, so it must have been true. "Hold on, you shouldn't go anywhere by yourself," he said, frowning.
If possible, Anh Sang pouted harder. "I love you guys," she said, with a childish fidget, "but I can't just take you everywhere! Then people will think I'm weird or something!" She wasn't quite at the stage where being seen with her parents was totally embarrassing but after two or so years of living independently, Anh Sang had a certain way of doing things. To be more specific, she did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
Her Mommy just looked at her and raised her eyebrows. She was really cool like that.
Thinking that it was time to really show her seriousness, Anh Sang clasped her hands in front of herself. "Please, Mommy!" She pleaded, "I can take care of myself right now! It's not like I can get kidnapped or lost or anything here! It's too small, right?" It worked for kids in movies so Anh Sang was hoping that this was one of those real life things that would work right then, too.
"Okay, okay, fine," her Daddy relented after sharing a hurried, whispered conversation with his wife. "But stay in public! Don't go anywhere with anybody. And give us a text every minute or so while you're gone."
"Hour?" Anh Sang pressed hopefully. When he shook his head, she tried, "Half an hour?"
Mommy put her foot down there. "Fifteen minutes, give us a text," she said. "Otherwise, we are going to have and get you ourselves."
Oooh. It wasn't like she was a really young kid or anything. If her parents came after her for that, though, then all the other people would think she really was, though!
"Take pictures!" Her Daddy called after her as she left. "Remember to clean your hands after touching anything!"
Anh Sang just sighed. Dads.
There weren't that many people in the observation section where she and her parents had been in, probably because that had been more of a small library than anything. The books in there were pretty lame. She couldn't even read a single word out of any of them so she was hoping that as far as boring things went, that would be way at the top.
To her disappointment however, a few rooms seemed to be for old(er) people and wouldn't let her in. She skipped from door to door, peering in to see if anybody interesting was around but lots of the people she saw were either humans, things she sometimes saw on Earth, or people who were working.
When fifteen minutes had passed, she sent a text to her parents. "Yep, I'm okay!" and decided to leave out the part where she was basically just walking in circles, hoping that stuff would magically become more interesting. On another circuit around that area of the shuttle, she found that a crowd of people had finally cleared out a bit, opening a path to a hallway she hadn't gone through yet. She took a moment to judge it and, finding that it was just public enough, followed it.
That was the jackpot. It was a snack area which, in a child's world, was practically the pinnacle of interest, right next to destroying public property. Better yet, it was filled with a bunch of weird stuff that definitely wasn't from Earth. Anh Sang should know. She had eaten balut once before. That was both weird and gross. This was just weird.
At the table, she eyed a glowing blue cube that looked a lot like jelly but had some bits of stuff inside of it. Is that moving? She blinked. It's definitely moving. The cube blinked back at her and that was when Anh Sang began to slowly edge away. Taking her place was a human-looking member of the shuttle crew who absently grabbed the thing and ate it with a single bit.
Okaaaaay?
Suddenly not hungry anymore, she looked around the room, trying to find something to take her mind off of. Well. That. What she found was (at last!) an alien! Probably. Most likely. Would it be rude to ask the alien if they're an alien? She wondered, frowning as she stared at them from a distance. That's obviously an alien except, wait. Maybe it's not? Should I ask?
Before she was even aware of what was happening, she was suddenly right by the short creature's side, mouth running a mile a minute. "Hi I'm Anh Sang are you an alien where are you from?"