Take Me To Your Reader: An Otherworld Anthology (12 page)

Third, they only hovered about in little groups of Fructoids, but they
'd say nearly nothing. My high school got 128 new students in the town's population influx — we had started at 400 — and yet the lunchroom got quieter. They'd be quiet and then people would be quieter, probably just to stare.

Fourth . . .

"Fenton, stop." Dana's voice. She'd had enough. (I'd been explaining this to her, my second attempt to make a case for aliens when she came in for her Blizzard. With things getting busy, she'd come right when it was time to close up shop, keep me company while I cleaned, avoid the line of weirdly pretty people staring at her while she ate.) "Tell me this is a lamely detailed April Fools' joke."

"
You don't believe me," I said.

"
Of course I don't believe you, you insane little fool. But I see a flaw in your theory," she said.

I sighed, rolled my eyes. With air quotes, I said,
"Aliens don't exist."

"
No, not that. That you don't believe anymore. And it's subjective. I see an actual hole in your logic." She licked soft serve off the spoon. I idly wondered, if she'd been anyone else, would I have found that hot?

"
I'm listening."

"
It sounds like you're suggesting that they're playing some kind of mind voodoo on everyone. Like you think that's why no one cares what they're doing, or asks who they are. Right?"

"
Right."

"
Well, why isn't it working on you?" she said.

I hadn
't thought about it. I'd been awake too long and thinking too hard, and somehow, I hadn't figured out my own strength against them.

A corner of that obnoxious smile of hers turned up, and she started to laugh.
"You don't have an answer for that one."

"
Maybe it's because I saw them first. When Blonde Bombshell—"

"
Are we still calling her that?" Dana huffed.

I ignored her.
"When Blonde Bombshell came here that night. I was probably the first person they spoke to here."

"
So, what, that made you immune? Wouldn't that, by logic, mean that you were the first infected? Wouldn't that mean you were the most under their spell?"

"
It's not a spell," I said. "You're thinking of the wrong kind of—"

"
Mythical creature." She cut me off again. "Look, Fenton. You've always been weird. And you've always been my friend. So I'm telling you, as your friend, to let this go."

I crossed my arms, and stared at her.
"Then what's your explanation? Fifty new families. A hundred plus new kids at school. Sugar bust?"

She looked me dead in the eye and said,
"I don't need one."

"
You don't understand."

"
Stop being such a freak," she said. She got to her feet, not even halfway done with her ice cream, and she left.

That night I walked home since Dana had left me to fend for myself. When I got to the house it was dark - save for the glow of a TV coming from the family room, where my mom was undoubtedly asleep in a recliner.

When I rounded the corner of the house to come in the kitchen door, like I always did, Blonde Bombshell was standing there. Stiffly.

"Whoa," I said out loud, before I could stop myself. She was dressed like a sexed-up superhero sidekick in a comic book movie. Maybe like Scarlett-Johansen-as-Black-Widow-in-The-Avengers. Black bodysuit sort of thing. The same thigh-high boots. Hair big and all over the place. Red lips, dark eyes.

"
Fenton Marsh," she said. Stiffer than the Siri robo-speak. It was so odd to hear her talk. You so rarely heard their voices.

"
Yeah . . .?"

"
Pleasantries suggest you should greet me with one of the acceptable phrases. And you should call me by my name, like I called you by yours."

"
I never got your name," I said, which was true.

"
Clarice," she said. Silence of the Lambs, I thought. She tilted her head to the side, like she had the night we met. A jerky movement. A robotic function.

"
Hello, Clarice. What are you doing here?" I asked. My palms were sweaty. My hair stuck to my forehead.

"
Do you like your profession at the Dairy Queen?" she asked.

"
I wouldn't exactly call it my profession," I said. Surely I'd break out of the damn Dairy Queen. Surely this was my high school job, not my maximum potential.

"
You do it for work, do you not? Professional denotes payment for service, a job. Am I incorrect in my linguistic understanding of the word, 'profession'?" she asked.

"
No, you're right, it's just that . . ."

"
What is just what?" she asked.

"
Why are you talking to me about Dairy Queen?"

"
We like it. It is a good source of food for us. Perhaps you will be useful for us, when the time comes."

My heart was beating out of my chest. When the time comes. Aliens! Invasion! Holy crap!

"Say aloud what you are thinking," she said, at my silence.

"
What if I don't want to be useful?" I asked.

"
Then we would have to take different measures with you," she said.

"
Such as?"

"
To start, we would need you to forget all that you think you have deduced about our existence," she said. "We only offered a select few that privilege. We would, of course, revoke it immediately."

As in: I was one of only a few whose perception wasn
't being controlled by them. I was one of the few who had a chance to do something about it.

And though I
'd never actually help them — though what were they seriously thinking I'd do, make them sundaes on a space ship for the rest of my life? — I knew better than to turn down the bit of wisdom I'd gained with them.

So I needed to play along.
"Then I'm happy to be useful in whatever way you need." I put out my hand toward Clarice, to shake on it.

She stared at my hand and then back up at me.
"I cannot place my palm in yours as is customary in your societal tradition. We try not to touch people. The salt in their sweat can hurt our epidermal layers. Your hand appears to be coated in residue of dried perspiration."

I looked at my hand and then back up at her.
"Of course, I understand."

"
Thank you for your compliance, Fenton Marsh. I will now inform the others it is safe to speak to you. They will likely choose not to speak, but if one speaks to you, speak back."

"
Of course," I said.

She turned on her heels, like a German soldier, and she headed mechanically back toward the house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

"Hey, wait!" I called.

She stopped.
"Wait on what?"

"
Can I tell my friend? Dana?"

Head-flinch, as if a glitch in machinery.
"No. You may tell no one."

"
Oh. Okay," I said. Defeated. She'd still think I was crazy. I'd still be alone.

"
That saddens you," she said.

"
It's hard having no one," I said.

"
You need a," she paused, "friend. That will be arranged. Good night, Fenton Marsh."

As I unlocked the house, wondering if I was dreaming, I realized she gave me the most valuable piece of information yet: Sugar was sustenance; salt was a weapon. And she was to deliver on the promise of friend? She
'd just given me one of them.

The next morning, a Fructoid stood at my locker. He was my height, about my skinny build. He had jet-black hair and ice-blue eyes to my sandy blond and brown. He had on a t-shirt and hoodie and Vans, just like I did. Most of them were a head taller than I was, with athletic bodies and everything else girls drooled over. But this one was just as forgettable, as short and small and normal as I was. They didn't just find me a friend. They found me a friend like me.

"
Uh . . . can I help you?"

"
Fenton Marsh," he said. The first Fructoid voice I'd heard other than Clarice's. "My name is Travis. I am your friend."

I laughed kind of. Looked around. A few kids looked at me, but not like I
'd thought they would. No one noticed me. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.

"
Nice to meet you, Travis. So she told you what's going on?"

"
You make ice cream," he said. "And you'll be useful. And you need someone to talk to."

I slung my backpack over my shoulder, weighted down with my history and math books. Travis followed closely.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"
I'm going with you," he said.

"
They aren't your classes."

"
That won't present a problem," he said.

"
Going to use your Jedi-mind tricks on them?" I said.

"
I appreciate your Star Wars reference. It amuses me," he said.

I stopped and looked at him.
"You know Star Wars?"

"
We are assigned to study people. Culture. Colloquialisms. We are assigned to . . . fit in," he said.

"
I see." He was so much more normal than Clarice. It irked me. Only I kind of liked it.

I got to my first period Trig class, and Mrs. Knots looked up with a furrowed brow when she saw Travis. He smiled back. Mechanically but warmly. Then she smiled back and looked back at her desk.

I took a seat, and he sat next to me. "Jedi," he whispered. He reached out a fist as if to fist bump me.

"
What about the salt worries?"

He left his fist hanging there.
"I sense no excess perspiration," he said. And in his most human-sounding voice, he whispered, "Clarice's strict. The rest of us are more . . . chill."

Chill. If they were supposed to be studying colloquialisms, he was doing a damn good job. I smiled, and fist-bumped. 

It was nicer having a friend than I expected. I mean, I didn
't know if Travis was really my friend, and I still felt a little weird being in with them — never mind how weird it felt that there was in fact a them -- but it was nice. Between classes, at lunch, after school, and even at the DQ, Travis was there. I asked a million questions. He answered some of them. I kept thinking it would get annoying, but it didn't. Which means I didn't know how lonely I had been until then.

Dana had more or less disappeared. She only showed up for Blizzards every few days, and she never spoke to Travis. She looked over her shoulder at him with a particular breed of bitchy disdain, and then she looked at me with about half as much. One night, when she came in, she managed to have an entire conversation with me while Travis hovered, and she never so much as looked his direction. When she walked out, he looked at me and said,
"Does she like you or hate you?"

"
Hate," I said. "Or something."

"
I thought they were often one in the same," he said.

I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Do you . . . like girls, Travis? Normal girls? Human girls?"

"
Girls are girls, Fenton friend. I do not make a habit of analyzing DNA before checking one out."

Touché.

"Any particular type of girl?" I said.

He looked out to Dana as she stuffed herself into her tiny Civic.
"Ones that might have an interest in talking to me," he said.

"
No one talks to you," I countered.

"
That doesn't mean I don't wish they could, you know?" he said. I did know. "Good thing I have you."

I nodded.
"Good thing."

Even though things were starting to get interesting in my world, things were getting the wrong kind of interesting with the overarching Fructoid agenda. The next week, six teachers quit at school, and within a day or two, they were replaced by Fructoids. My Aunt Bonnie was a teacher at the elementary school, and I remember how long it took them to hire her into the system, go through the district paperwork, and all that. So six Fructoid teachers in a week told me their influence — mind-meld — was growing rapidly. It also seemed like their troops were mobilizing. But for what?

All of a sudden, kids started getting in trouble and were assigned to morning detentions. We
'd never really had morning detention before, so that was particularly odd. Then I started noticing: kids who got in trouble started getting quiet. And after a morning in detention, they'd be silent, just like the Fructoids.