Chuck stayed with us all evening, helping me take care of poor, sick Meh.

We offered her water, wiped her fur with a wet washcloth, covered her with warm blankets, and turned the lights off in my bedroom. I played her one of my best ukulele lullabies, and she drifted off to sleep.

The problem was that we have no idea what diseases affect alien creatures. Maybe they are similar ones to ours, but maybe not.

“Maybe we should go to the library and look up animal diseases,” Chuck suggested. “Since Meh looks a bit like a pig, maybe she could have some kind of pig infection.”

That was a good idea, but I couldn’t stand leaving Meh alone in this sad state. Chuck agreed to stay at my place to “babysit” while I went on my errand.

Ms. Swoop wasn’t at the library today; instead, it was the horrible Mr. Gumstrap, the other librarian.

So I didn’t ask for help. Instead I looked on the computer for books about animal diseases. There weren’t any. There were lots of books like this:

Hmmm, yeah. Maybe the adult section would be more help. I love to go there. It’s quiet and it makes me feel all grown up.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything useful to me in that section either. The only book about diseases was this:

I’m pretty certain Meh’s not a plant.

I went back home and found Chuck reading comic books on the couch.

Here are some of the frightening entries that we got:

Okay, that’s not exactly what I was looking for.

“Hmm,” I said.

Maybe a normal vet would do the trick. I looked at Meh, who was snoring in her trash can. If she’s still sick tomorrow, I’ll take her to the vet.