Tangled Yarns: Failures

blinked. He pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.

"Look! Its Elvis!" screamed a girl.

Immediately, everyone in the crowd started screaming and shouting, surging forward to touch the alien. Zorble Two ducked back inside the ship and returned with a gun.

"Get back!" he shouted. The crowd went silent.

"I don't know who this "Elvizz' is" said Zorble Two, "But if he's dangerous I'll kill him!"

"He's dangerous alright!" said an old lady, "Look what he did to a whole generation! Beatniks, mods, rockers, hippies and all the rest of them!"

Zorble Two wondered why the earthling was going through a list of common vegetables, but he didn't have time to ask her because at that very moment the general of the United States Army stepped forward with a big, broad, political smile.

"On behalf of Earth," he said, "I would like to thank you for coming. We appreciate your willingness to share your advanced civilization with us, and we also appreciate the fact mat you have learned to speak fluent American, which will make communication a lot easier!"

Zorble Two was surprised.

"I was going to say how good it was to hear our native Zorbelite spoken here," he said, "Did it take you long to learn it?"

"Only the first six or seven years," said the general, "Most of us have learned it before we leave Kindergarten!"

Zorble One climbed out of the pond and spun his hair dry again. He was thinking about abandoning the visit and trying some other planet. His uniform was wrinkled. He smelled of aquatic bird-life, his ears were clogged with some sort of mud, and he had forgotten the rest of his 'First Contact With The Earthlings' speech. It was a bad rubber day.

"The president would like you and your ''men' to join him for lunch" said the general.

"As long as we don't have to eat fish!"said Zorble One, "We hate it. Horrible, oily stuff. And the bones! Well, you just never know when you're going to get one caught in your fweeble dwicker. Have you ever had that problem? You probably don't have fweeble dwickers, but you're sure to have the equivalent. Anyway, you're half way through the meal and there's this fish-head staring back