Squidge Attack. Audio story narrated in British English.

Everyone knows that the history of our planet changed forever some time after the Beijing Olympic Games. The world's coasts and seas filled up with a very dangerous and polluting species of creature, which looked like a squid, but was called a "Squidge".

The squidges were everywhere, and impossible to catch. But the worst aspect of it was that they were filling up the seas with oil, tins, paper, and all kinds of rubbish. It was a terrible situation; the whole planet was quickly contaminated, and advanced investigation teams and hunting expeditions were set up to try to deal with this new plague. But no one could even get close to catching a squidge.

Finally, the first person to manage it was a boy called Caesar Tiddler. Caesar lived in a small fishing village, and when he held up his squidge at a press conference, he became the most famous boy in the world. That small fishing village was overrun by scientists and government investigators, who came from all over the planet to study the species. Everything was prepared for a post mortem to be done on the squidge, an operation that would be watched on live television around the world.

So imagine the amazement when, on cutting the squidge open, a tiny space ship the size of a shoe was found inside, and inside that space ship were some Martians. Now, these Martians turned out to be quite charming, amusing, and clever little chaps. Before long, they were busy talking to governments, who were all very angry at the way the Martians had been messing up the planet. The governments expected some kind of explanation for the Martians having behaved in such an uncivilised fashion...

-"We came from a planet that was going to be destroyed,"

the Martians began to explain.

-"We liked the Earth so much that we spent many days spying on how you human beings behave. We thought that would help us to blend in if we came here, and it would help us all get along happily together. That's why, after seeing you dump tins, paper, and oil, we invented some expensive machines to do just that. We hid them inside the disguise of a squid, and we tried to live happily there, in peace. Are you all happy? Can we stay here? Finallllyyyyy?"

The Martian Squidge-men waited for an answer. But no one uttered a word.

Everyone, including the billions watching on TV, were red with embarrassment, remembering the last time they had thrown away a piece of paper, or their car had leaked some oil on the road.

And all of us who saw it, we still remember how a few unsuspecting little Martians made us realise how little we care for our planet.