Whispered Magics (7 page)

“Right after school,” I said. “Want to help me pick them out?”

By then more kids had gathered, and several of them laughed.

Jason glared. “Look, everyone else had to do real work, and
your teacher’s pet baby brother gets away with fairy tales, just cause he skips
grades.”

“Fred does his work, and the teacher knows it,” I said. “So
just put your nose back in your own business.”

Jason knew he was wrong, but of course he just had to push it,
because half the class was watching. “Maybe it’s time to see if you’re as tough
as you talk,” Jason snarled, punching my arm.

Or he tried to, anyway. I sidestepped easily, and put my hand
on his wrist. Using his own muscle and force, I pulled him off-balance so he
fell sprawling in the dust where he’d tried to make Fred fall minutes ago.

“So you like rough stuff?” he yelled.

“I hate it,” I said. “But nobody pushes me around. Or my
family. Or my friends. Okay?” I made my voice even on the last word, and held
out a hand to pull him up.

He ignored it, scrambling to his feet and glaring over his
shoulder at me as he walked away. The crowd of kids broke up.

“Come on, let’s play some volleyball,” I said to Kelly and
Marissa.

o0o

On the bus home after school, Fred was quiet and gloomy.

When we settled into our bus seats, I said, over usual howls
and screeches, “You okay?”

We both ducked some flying gym socks.

“I guess,” he said. And then, quickly, “No one believes me.
Not even the teacher. I got a B, and a comment ‘wonderful imagination’. And I
had field notes, and everything.” He looked up at me, his brown eyes huge
behind his glasses. “Do you believe me, Lisa?”

“It might have been some kind of mistake,” I said.

“A mistake?” He looked really upset. “You think I faked it,
too?”

“Oh, I believe you saw something,” I said. “But maybe it was a
blimp, or some kind of secret military test, or something. You gotta remember
that I wasn’t there,” I said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I really wanted to get proof, and on my own,” he said. “Like
Aunt Pearl. I mean, no one else in the family seems to believe in life on other
planets like I do, so when I saw the ship . . .”

“So what about your proof?” I asked.

“Well, the things I tried obviously didn’t work, but the
report was due today, so I did the best I could. But I’m not giving up,” he
said quickly. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Promise,” I said.

“I’ve set up a radio receiver on as wide a band as I can get,”
he said, grinning. “And the vidcam. So far the visits have all been on Fridays,
so they should come tonight. Want to stay up with me and watch?”

“Sure,” I said. “Sounds cool.”

He blurted, “Thanks for sticking up for me today.”

“No problem. I know you’d do the same for me.”

“Except I never have,” he said, his round face earnest. “It’s
always you protecting me, either here at school, or at the playground, or on
the street.” He stuck out a skinny arm, frowning at it. “I don’t think I could
protect a kitten,” he finished morosely. “I wish you’d show me what you learned
at that foster home. Then I could smash that Jason a good one.”

“Maybe some day,” I said.

“They taught
you
cool stuff.” He made a fist. “All I ever learned was how to read before kindergarten.
I
feel
like I’m an alien,” he burst
out.

I laughed. “I think we all do. I know I did when Pearl and
David first adopted me, and the kids at school made fun of my red hair.”

“I don’t think it’s weird.” Fred looked critically at me. “I
think it’s nice,” he added, with his shy smile. “In fact, I liked it when you
came. And it was a
lot
redder then.”

I grinned back at him. “Sometimes I think I’ll dye it green,”
I said, which made him grin. “You could, too, and I bet Pearl and David would
love to do theirs as well. Then we could really be an alien family.”

Fred laughed, his real laugh, and I knew he was all right
again.

Then he surprised me, asking shyly, “Uncle David and Aunt
Pearl said I shouldn’t ask, unless you wanted to talk about it. But I keep wondering.
What was it like? Your foster home?”

Before they brought me home, Pearl and David told me about
Fred. Though I was the oldest, Fred had been their kid first. His mom, Aunt
Pearl’s sister, and his dad had been volcanologists, and they’d been filming a
volcano when it erupted and killed them. So Fred came to live with them, and he
was so unhappy they decided to adopt him a brother or sister close to his age,
or in his grade, whichever happened first.

We’d all liked each other right away. He almost never talks
about his former life,

Pearl had said, “We think it best if you let him bring it up
if he wants to.” They’d obviously said the same to him.

“I was in several, actually,” I said. “The best one was the
one where I got to study martial arts. They had a bunch of foster kids. All we
seemed to talk about was getting a family, and what kind of family we’d pick if
we could. I got exactly what I hoped for,” I added, and Fred smiled happily.

I waited for him to talk about his old life, but he just
sighed, and settled back in the seat. “We do have an alien family,” he said,
sounding content.

“You mean you and me, because we’re orphans?”

“And David draws cartoons all night, and Pearl chases bad
guys.” He sighed. “Or maybe Jason and his gang are the aliens. I don’t know. I
just don’t fit in at school.”

“Do you really want to fit in with them?” I asked. “I mean,
wouldn’t you rather they learn to be your kind of normal, than you dumb down
and act like them?”

The bus lurched to a stop, and we grabbed our stuff and got
out.

“Yeah. But that’ll happen when pigs fly out of my nose,” Fred
grumped, settling his books with one hand and his glasses with the other. “I
think I’ll go to the library before dinner, and see if the books on
astrophysics that I requested are in yet.”

“Okay,” I said, leading the way to the apartment. “I guess
I’ll just get started on my homework. And tonight, we’ll listen for aliens.”

Fred seemed pretty cheerful again as we went inside. David had
a snack in the oven. As he got out the oven mitts, I thought about how wrong
Jason and the rest were about Fred, who was trying to teach himself calculus
and reading every book on space physics that he could find.

How normal is being
mean?
I wondered. Before I’d come into this family I’d assumed that mean
kids were only in fosterage because of terrible things that had happened to
their families. Until I got to this nice school in this nice neighborhood, and
discovered the Jasons and Ashleys, who had nice parents and nice homes and nice
things. And yet they were still mean.

As Uncle David served hot chocolate and fresh brownies, and
cracked jokes to cheer Fred up, I wondered how normal this behavior was. If it
wasn’t it should be, I thought.

o0o

“So how’d that mysterious report go?” Aunt Pearl asked at
dinner.

“Okay,” Fred said. “My problem was, I didn’t convince anyone.”
He said determinedly, “I’m still tracking my proof, and when I have my info,
I’ll show it to you.”

Aunt Pearl grinned back. “That’s what a good detective does,”
she said, looking pleased. Fred beamed.

He didn’t say anything more though, and at bed time, he just
went into his room like usual.

Pearl went to sleep even earlier than we did, as she had to be
up early the next morning. David shut himself into his study and put on his
headphones, which meant he was out of this world.

Still, I waited until ten-thirty, then got out of bed and went
to Fred’s room without turning on any lights.

The moonlight was clear and strong. Fred sat on his bed in his
PJs, his glasses winking as he adjusted something that had faintly glowing
dials.

“Hi,” I whispered. “All ready?”

“I’m just testing my vid setup,” he said. “Want to see?”

I nodded, and he flicked on his little flashlight and shined
it proudly over the wires and components that he’d rigged to his computer, a really
old radio, and an old cellphone with an electronics kit.

“. . . so I’m testing for radio waves on the
shortwave, EM, and I hope this spy set really does check infrared. It said it
would when I ordered it off the Internet, but it was kinda cheap,” Fred said
doubtfully. “Anyway, they must use some kind of radio waves if they are sending
communications at all,” he was saying. “And they must be, don’t you think? I
mean, why else would one ship just appear like that, and hang around? They have
to be communicating with someone.”

“Makes sense to me,” I said, sitting on the other end of his
bed.

He had his window wide open, and cold air drifted in. Despite
being so skinny, Fred didn’t seem to notice, but I’m sensitive to chilly wind,
and my feet and fingers and ears were cold. I pulled my hair close to my face
to keep my ears from hurting, and tucked my feet under me.

“There,” Fred said, moving to the window. “I know the vidcam
is working.” He pointed to his computer terminal. This time I won’t mess up.”

“What will you do if you capture something?” I asked.

“The first thing is, I’ll show those scumbags at school,” Fred
said fiercely. “And then . . . I don’t know. A TV show? Or maybe call the
college and talk to the astrophysics department. Except who’ll listen to a
kid?” he finished bitterly. “Maybe I’ll just try to communicate with them
myself.”

“That might be fun,” I said. “What would you tell them?”

“What it’s like to be a kid on Earth.” He grinned, flicking
his flashlight off. “I don’t know anything else!”

“You’re learning about space,” I reminded him.

“But they’d already know that stuff, or they wouldn’t be
here,” he said, sounding impatient. He ducked his head. “Sorry, Lisa. I’m
trying to be logical about these things.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I think this is real exciting, and my
mind keeps filling with questions.”

He sat down on the bed, hugging his knees close to his
stomach. “Me, too,” he said. “Like, what if I contact them, and they threaten
to take over the earth, and no one believes me?”

“That kind of alien would probably fire first and give demands
later,” I said soothingly. “And they’d take over a radio station or something,
or beam the message off of satellites.
And
they wouldn’t try to take over a planet with just one ship. You didn’t see a
fleet, did you?”

“No, just one.”

“But . . . what if they’re nice, but their
natural form is really disgusting,” I asked. “Like a bucket of snot?”

“Eccch,” he said. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t shake hands,
though.”

We both laughed.

Then he said, “I guess I didn’t tell anyone about the first
one because I didn’t really believe it myself. And then after the second time,
I kept hoping they’d take me away.” He got up again and circled around his
room, touching wires and things.

“You wouldn’t miss us?”

“Sure,” he said quickly. “But they’d bring me back. At least,
that’s what I thought in my mind. You never know, of course. That’s what’s so
exciting! Another world . . . different
people . . .
anything
can happen. But I just don’t want their first contact to be with someone like
Jason.”

“Well, on a planet with like four billion people, the chances
are awfully good they’ll get a bozo for their first contact,” I said, “if they
are left to random choices. The thing to do is be the first, someone they would
want
to meet.”

“I know,” Fred admitted. “That bothers me, too. But how to be
first, when you don’t know where they will land?”

“Well, either that, or try to help the world cut down on its
bozoness and be more like something space visitors wouldn’t put in one of their
horror movies,” I said. “So wherever they land, they find friends.”

Fred snorted. “Yeah, sure. I mean, it sounds great, but
there’s no way one person can cure the world of bozoness.”

“Gandhi didn’t think so,” I said. “Or the Buddha, or St.
Francis. And then there’s always the bad guys, like Hitler or Ghengis Khan, who
wanted the world to be made into what
they
wanted. If someone told them one person couldn’t make a difference, they sure
didn’t listen.”

“Okay, okay,” Fred said with a laugh. “Hey. It’s nearly
eleven. We’d better be quiet.”

He stopped at the window, his profile lifted skyward.

I got up and joined him, my hands over my ears in the frosty
night air.

For a long time we watched the sky. Some ghostly white clouds
drifted by, but otherwise the stars twinkled peacefully.

Fred whispered after a time, “How would you cure the bozos?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered back. “You’re the smart one. How
would you do it?”

Fred shrugged, his eyes ranging back and forth across the sky.
Fifteen minutes passed . . . twenty . . . half an
hour. Fred yawned once, then twice.

Finally he said out loud, “I guess it’s no good. They’re not
coming.”

“Maybe we ought to get some sleep,” I said. “We can always try
again, can’t we?”

“You do believe me, don’t you, Lisa?” He grabbed my arm, his
fingers icy cold.

“You’ve never lied to me, Fred,” I said. “I believe you.”

He sighed, then turned to shut his window and climb into bed.

I went out, but instead of going to my room, I waited outside
of his, listening. After just a few minutes his breathing changed into the
deep, regular breathing of sleep.

So I went to my room and opened my own window, looking up at
the peaceful night sky.

I thought about what a tremendous task it would be, to change
a big, confusing, frightening, exciting, wonderful world like Earth, to find
some way to help human beings be ready to take their place among the worlds of
the universe.