The following is a true story that I’ve just made up for a young man who for some reason didn’t believe a perfectly sane excuse and instead requested one with ninjas.

Like on most sunny Sunday afternoons in suburban Kent, you just don’t expect ninjas. I’d been investigating the hole in my decking that used to constitute a fish pond. Now it’s just a hole. I’d made the mistake of jumping in to clean it last summer, and torn the lining. It’s an easy mistake if you’ve never had a fish pond before.

My intention was to fill the pond with rubble and thus make an arid garden of it with some palms and cacti, but as I emptied the first wheelbarrow full of rocks in, something caught my eye. From within the torn lining of the pond, there was a faint green glow. I checked to make sure I’d not left on the old pond lights, but they weren’t plugged in.

I jumped into the pond, now knowing I could do it no more damage and tore away some of the thick black plastic to see what it was. The lining appeared to have been set in a dark green glass bowl that went all the way round and to the base of the pond. "That’s odd", I mused aloud. Why and how would the pond’s curators and the previous occupants of my house have filled the hole with glass before lining it? It didn’t make sense at all. What if the green glass-stone had been there before? What could have caused it? Perhaps an object of excessive temperature had melted the rock and reformed it into this crystalline structure? There was only one thing in the universe that I could think of that would cause such an anomaly. The glow started to pulsate more rapidly as the earth shook beneath me and the thought that my mind had been daring back into the shadows forced it’s way past my lips: "Space ninjas!"

I leapt out of the impacted craft’s pond base as it exploded with razor-shards of crystal death. I dragged the now-empty wheelbarrow over my head to protect me but could feel the heat of the blast through the steel. The sound faded and the ground stabilised as an eerie silence mounted. I timidly peered out from behind my barricade and down into the opened pit below.

I could see dull metal on the edges of the hole - the entrance to a ship. Should I risk having a closer look? I summoned my courage, still shielding myself with the wheelbarrow as I moved closer. As I came within a foot of the opening, a black-clad tentacle slapped against the outside of the hole. My wheelbarrow and I jumped back sharply as three more tentacles joined it and a head… then torso… then more tentacles charged out of the ship and into the sunlight.

It was a Queen Space Ninja. I never thought I’d see one in our solar system. Legend has it that they live on the edge of the system of our nearest neighbour, Alpha Centaurti, where they breed the ninjas that eventually find their way to Earth. This one way around 8ft tall and dressed in the ninja’s signature colour of black. The dark material swept over her head barely concealed her two inch fangs and a hint of green skin. She was supported by her four ambulatory tentacles, with a further two brandishing scimitars. Her arms were folded in front of her as she cast her eyes over me, tossed her head back and beamed her thoughts directly into my head.

The words echoed in my head, piercing my conciousness like a pneumatic drill. I made a dive for cover as a tentacle struck in my direction, smashing the garden bench behind me. I picked up the old fishing pole and deflected two strikes of the swords to the side before a third slash rent the wooden stick in two. Leaping up as the Queen launched a volley of bo-shuriken from concealed somewhere in her garb, I grabbed the structure above me, ripping my way through the green netting originally designed to keep birds away from the pond. The iron stakes thunked into the soft wood beneath me as I precariously teetered along the wooden beams above the ninja’s head, diving off of the raised area to slide down the washing line as a to the main house. Letting go too early, my hands burnt from the rope, I span into the garden table and landed with my back to the house on the floor. Looking up toward the shed, I caught the space ninja’s eye. Something there, in that instant told me she’d realised a mistake. Her mistake. I launched my body upwards, seizing the washing line with my blistered hands and yanking down with all my force. The wooden structure attached to the line collapsed on top of the Queen ninja, trapping her for long enough for me to seize a splintered spike of wooden garden table and charge up the steps to stand above her giant fallen form. I raised the stake high above my head, pausing only for a quick smirk. Before he died, the Queen ninja realised she had been betrayed by her own telepathy, this being the last thing read from my mind before I pierced her eyes and drove the stake into her brain - a ninja’s only weak spot.