Stuck on Earth

by David Klass

She stands up from the sofa and slowly walks off the porch. The screen door swings shut behind her. I know she was trying to be helpful by warning me not to turn out like my father, but her words had an unintended effect. They opened the closet door and released the creature.

  29

  It is two in the morning. The house is silent. My mother has finally stopped pacing and gone to sleep.

  I am sitting at Tom Filber’s desk, feverishly scanning Web site after Web site. Occasionally I pause for a sip of water and I glance out at Michelle Peabody’s dark window. She has no doubt also gone to sleep. The entire town of Barrisford is snoring away. I am the only one who is awake, the only one who is different. Or am I?

  “Fool. Don’t you know you are home?” Mr. Stringfellow demanded. Could he be right?

  “You can’t pretend some wonderful bolt from the blue is suddenly going to strike that will turn everything around,” my mother said. “That’s a fool’s escape.” Is that what I’m trying to do?

  “Sometimes when we’re threatened, we make up a little story about ourselves that makes us feel better and safer and stronger,” Miss Schroeder said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. As long as we know deep down that it’s just a story.” Could she know me better than I know myself? Is it possible that I really am Tom Filber, a miserable boy, unappreciated and abused at home and picked on at school, who dreamed up a fantasy to make myself feel better?

  On one level, I know this can’t be true. I am absolutely certain that I am Ketchvar III from Sandoval. I have a lifetime’s worth of memories to prove it. As I sit here at Tom Filber’s desk, I can picture hundreds of worlds that I visited on different missions. I can recall my happy childhood on Sandoval, and retrace my GC training from entry-level cadet to level-five evaluator. And I can remember the exact second when I left my safe shell behind and slithered out across the floor of the spaceship to take possession of Tom Filber’s body.

  But here’s the thing that worries me. This is the conundrum that is keeping me up long into the night, twisting my stomach tighter and tighter. Behold the monster, finally let out of the closet and now flapping around Tom Filber’s bedroom with dark wings and blazing eyes: I can’t prove any of it.

  My ship will not answer me. Of course there are several completely logical explanations for this, involving complications to the mission or an accident in space. But all of those possibilities presuppose the reality of my mission. To put it in plain English—the simplest explanation for why the spaceship won’t answer my wibble is that it doesn’t exist. It never existed. It’s all in my mind.

  I spent the past few hours scouring the Internet for information about empowerment fantasies and the ability of the human mind to protect itself by creative invention. There are many remarkable accounts of people who have constructed fantasy identities to lessen the pain of their real lives. Some of them even developed multiple personalities. I have tried to review this information with the dispassionate and critical eye of a Level-Five GC Evaluator. The more I have read, the more fearful I have become. I must admit that my circumstances fit the model perfectly.

  It seemed very bad luck that aliens seeking a random human experience happened to select a boy from such an atypically unhappy home.

  It is far more likely that a boy from such a background, pushed to desperation by bullying and abuse, should have sought refuge in a fantasy that allowed him to think he would have life or death powers over his tormentors.

  I remember Ketchvar’s first moments on Planet Earth. Tom Filber’s mother was attacking with a broom. An alien would have to be extremely unfortunate to get beamed down to Earth and stumble right away into such a situation. On the other hand, parental abuse is a well-known trigger for young humans to retreat into fantasies.

  And what were the odds that an alien would have sailed over the many towns and cities of New Jersey in a spaceship and randomly selected a fourteen-year-old boy who had been taunted as an alien by his peers?

  I tremble to admit it, but it makes far more sense that such a beleaguered young Earthling would have taken the taunts hurled against him and used them to construct, in his mind, a kind of suit of armor: “I am not like you. You cannot really harm me. You call me ‘alien,’ so I will become a powerful alien. I will evaluate you and pass judgment upon you and then go back to my safe world.”

  It is two in the morning in a small room in a decrepit old house on Beech Avenue, and I cannot prove this or discount it. Every argument cuts both ways.

  And what of Tom Filber? Is his consciousness and will really locked up in a Ragwellian Bubble? Or am I, Ketchvar III, really part of Tom Filber, a defense mechanism of his that has taken control for a while?

  Of course, there is one way I could settle this. I could reverse the Thromborg Technique, separate from his brain, and slither back out his nose. That would prove I am a Sandovinian. But since there is no spaceship to beam me up, I would then be trapped on Earth, without even a shell, a slow-moving and defenseless gastropod.

  So, at least for the time being, I am stuck here, trapped in the terrible limbo of not knowing the truth about my own identity. Or, to put it another way, I’m nearly positive that I am Ketchvar, but I can’t prove it. And I also can’t stop my mind from returning to the alternative, which is so frightening it literally knocks me off my feet.

  I stand up from the desk and wrap my hands around my body. My knees feel weak and nausea hits. I double over and make retching sounds, but I have nothing to throw up.

  I end up on the floor, curled in a fetal position.

  What if I am really Tom Filber? What if I am a member of this foolish species—the laughingstock of the universe? Not only that, but I would then be the laughingstock of the laughingstock. Humans are a pathetic race, but a human who has to pretend he’s an alien is the lowest of the low.

  Suppose there is no spaceship to rescue me, and no Galactic Confederation to impose order on chaos. In other words, suppose this is my only real life and I’m stuck with it! I’m stuck with my mother and father, I’m stuck with my horrible sister, and most of all, I’m stuck with myself!

  I crawl to the desk and slowly climb back up to the chair. I tilt my chin toward the sugar doughnut and whisper, “Come in, Preceptor. This is Ketchvar. I really need help. I fear prolonged exposure to humans is making me lose my sanity.”

  There is no answer from the wibbler. But in the reflection of the window I see a fourteen-year-old boy pleading his case to a stale doughnut wrapped in tinfoil, and I have to admit he looks ridiculous.

  30

  This is how it feels to be an endangered species.

  Little kids on their way to elementary school pop out from behind hedges and aim finger ray guns at me. “Hey, Alien. Got you!”

  If I was a piping plover I might soar into the sky or fly out over the surf.

  Since I cannot take wing, I hurry up the hill and dart into Winthrop P. Muller High School. As soon as I walk past the security guard I can feel that things have changed for the worse.

  The entire student body has now had a chance to read and digest my messages to the Preceptors. I have become a school celebrity, but in a very bad way. I keep my head down and hurry through the hallways, trying to pretend I don’t hear their taunts and jibes.

  “Yo, Snaily,” a big football player shouts as I pass. “You try to crawl in through my nostril and I’ll hawk you right back out and flush you.”

  His friends laugh. I veer away and run into a crowd of older girls who block my path. “Here’s what I don’t get,” their blond leader says. “Why cross the whole galaxy just to take over the body of such a loser?”

  I try to dodge around them, but they dissolve into a mist of highlighted hair and polished nails and reform again right in front of me. If I were a northern bog turtle I could pull my head into my shell and wait for them to lose interest and disperse, but a boy has no such easy escape.

  “It could be part of his plan,” a tall girl speculates with a laugh. “Those braces co
uld be a secret antenna.”

  “Let’s see if we can get him to power up.” They pull out cell phones with built-in cameras and start flashing away at me. “Turn on your braces, Alien!”

  “Send a message.”

  “Try to fly.”

  I break through the center of their pack, but I manage to take only a few steps before strong arms grab me. It’s Jason Harbishaw, who has also apparently read my private messages. He throws me up against a locker. “So you felt good about hitting me with that acorn, huh?”

  “I regret throwing it at you,” I tell him honestly. “I am an evaluator and I shouldn’t have interfered. My sister is a mean girl and she deserves what she gets.”

  He whispers, “You’re the one who climbed our fence and scared my mom the other night, right? Do you have any idea what happens to people who mess with my family?”

  A friend of his hisses, “Teacher!”

  “You’ll get yours,” he promises, and pushes me away.

  I back up fast and slam into a heavyset female teacher carrying a coffee mug. She stumbles and goes down. I would like to help her and make sure she didn’t scald herself, but instead I take advantage of the shrieks and general confusion to sprint away.

  Somehow I manage to make it through the gauntlet of dangers, survive the first three periods, and stagger into the trailer for English class just a few minutes late. Mrs. Hilderlee stands at the front, enthusiastically waving a copy of Hamlet as if she is trying to swat a wasp with it. She turns and begins writing something about “thine own self “ on the board. I dart in from the doorway while her back is turned and tiptoe to my desk.

  Michelle Peabody does not even glance at me as I slip into the seat next to her. She is wearing a V-necked blue sweater and her blond hair is tied with a red ribbon and falls over one shoulder. She has never looked lovelier.

  I am tempted to whisper a few apologetic words to her. I would like her to know that I did not sleep a wink all night, and that I am truly sorry for any trouble I have caused her. She has a right to be angry—I see now that I should not have written about our kiss, even to the Preceptors. It was a private matter, and not GC business.

  Scott sees the direction of my glance. “Careful, Romeo,” he hisses.

  We have both momentarily forgotten Mrs. Hilderlee, who has walked quietly up the row of desks and now stands right behind us, smiling. “No, not Romeo,” she says. “Wrong play. This is Hamlet, and today we’re going to look at some advice that Polonius gives his son, Laertes, who is about to leave Denmark to study in England. Of course in those days, such an ocean voyage was perilous, so Polonius didn’t know if he was ever going to see his son again. He tries to condense all his worldly knowledge into a few pithy lines.”

  Her words make me think of my own father on Sandoval, and his recent goodbye to me. He knew I was going off on a dangerous space mission to Earth and he was not in the best of health. Sandovinians are not given to fancy speeches like Polonius, so he did not dispense advice and we did not exchange any terms of endearment.

  I wonder now what was left unsaid. When he told me I might have to come home soon and run the Ketchvar burrow, was he hinting at more than his own infirmity? Was he very gently chiding me for becoming too caught up in the Galactic Confederation? Was it his way of suggesting I pay more attention to my own family?

  I also think of Graham Filber walking home from the bar with me, and how our steps rose and fell in unison. I recall that on my first night on Planet Earth, when I crawled through the attic balcony, he suggested that I blamed him for marrying my mother and creating an unhappy home. He admitted that we weren’t close, and took responsibility for it. He was clearly a lonely, disappointed but good-hearted man who needed a friendlier and more forgiving son.

  For a moment the two fathers merge in my mind. They were both smart and gentle, both hid their pain, and now both have sunk out of sight without a word of farewell.

  Mrs. Hilderlee has walked to the blackboard at the front of the room. “First Polonius tells Laertes not to dress too fancily, and not to borrow money,” she explains. “Then he finishes up with the most famous fatherly advice in all of English literature.” Her eyes catch mine. “Tom, please read the last three lines.”

  I start to read, but the speech unexpectedly takes on such great personal relevance that I have trouble finishing it: “ ‘This above all: to thine own self be true.’ “ My voice quivers. I notice that Michelle Peabody has turned her head and is staring at me. “ ‘And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’ “

  “Very good,” Mrs. Hilderlee says. “Can you tell us what those words mean?”

  I answer softly, “The most important thing in life is knowing who you really are. If you can just figure that out, everything else will fall into place.” I do not add that right now I am not sure if I am a fourteen-year-old Earthling or a gastropod from a nebula. If I’m a human, my heart is on the left side of my body. If I’m a gastropod, I have an open circulatory system with a single-auricle pump located near my head. How can I be true to myself when I’m not sure about such basic things as my own heart? And how can anyone—especially a nice girl in a blue sweater—ever trust me?

  “Bravo,” Mrs. Hilderlee says. “That’s a fine way of putting it. Now, I want everyone to write down ten ‘To thine own self be true’ moments.”

  The class groans, and Scott mutters, “If Shakespeare was here, I’d kick him in the gonads.”

  31

  Somehow I manage to slink from class to class and hallway to hallway.

  After gym I forgo showering and change clothes right by the locker room door, ready to call out for help if I am bullied. The large gray trash can that I was stuffed into stands nearby, a grim and stinky reminder of how bad things can get if I lower my guard.

  By the time biology rolls around, I am exhausted but liberation is in sight. I just have to make it through whatever Mr. Karnovsky has in store for us, coast through last period, and then I will be out the door. I have no intention of going to any after-school activities. There is no point in discussing ways to help endangered species when you are clinging to existence by your own splintering fingernails.

  We walk in the door of the science classroom and take our seats. Mr. Karnovsky steps out of the supply room in his usual white lab jacket, but he does not begin a lesson. He just stands there, looking at us. There is an unexpected sadness in his gray eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “but I don’t think I can teach today. I’ve just found something out that . . . knocked me for a loop. He was a very special man and . . . I don’t . . .”

  He breaks off and focuses his eyes on some test tubes on a rack by the window. “When I first came to this school, twenty years ago, I was afraid of public speaking,” he confesses. For a moment, everyone has forgotten that there is an alien in their midst. The class is watching Mr. Karnovsky, trying to figure out what is wrong with him. “The idea of standing up in front of a room of students filled me with terror,” he admits. “Luckily, there was a wise and generous older science teacher here, who took me under his wing.”

  Mr. Karnovsky smiles at the memory. “He was very vigorous in those days. He and his wife had just come back from a trip to Australia, with pictures of the Great Barrier Reef. They had gone swimming with the sharks. When you meet someone who is that full of life, you think they will live forever.”

  I start to get a hunch where Mr. Karnovsky may be going with this. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

  “As he got older and his health started to break down, he never lost his love for nature, and his concern for this planet,” Mr. Karnovsky continues. “It was so like him that even in his last days, instead of thinking about himself, he founded a club at this school focused on the future and the need to save the world.”

  Mr. Karnovsky takes off his eyeglasses and polishes them on his lab coat. He blinks out at us and looks ten years younger. “I know he wasn’t teaching much at the end, so I d
oubt that many of you had much contact with him. But Arthur Stringfellow was a wonderful presence at this school for four decades, and his death this morning has just . . . Well . . . I simply can’t teach today. So I want to show you some videos he shot, and ask you in his memory to go out and plant a tree or throw out some trash or try to make the earth a little better place.”

  He wheels out a monitor and bends to plug it in.

  “Home movies!” Scott whispers. “Get the popcorn.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. This is definitely going to be PG,” Zitface grumbles.

  We are soon watching old videos of a trek through a rain forest. The camera picks out birds and monkeys, and verdant trees and flowers. The viewpoint unexpectedly shifts as the camera is passed to someone else, and the lens is trained on a middle-aged Arthur Stringfellow paddling a kayak through a flooded rain forest. His wife sits behind him, and they look happier than any humans I have encountered.

  I sit there watching them and remembering the weak but fearless old man who sucked oxygen and demanded that we all do our part to save the earth.

  When I told him that I couldn’t worry about the Hoosaguchee River because I needed to take care of myself, he replied that he had a few problems, too. Now I realize that he was dying, and he probably knew it, and I feel ashamed.

  My feeling of shame builds steadily. I make it out of school alive and head home, keeping to the shadows and dodging my way toward Beech Avenue. When I’m halfway home, I hear kids’ loud voices and dive into some roadside shrubs. I peek out from the leafy cover and watch a few of my schoolmates walk past. They’re laughing and having fun, and they couldn’t have cared less whether I was there or not. I untangle my left leg from a vine and pull a few thorns out of my wrist. For a moment I imagine Mr. Stringfellow looking down at me, frowning, as if to ask: “How can you live this way?”

  I hurry up to my room and shut my door. There is still no word from the spaceship. I sit for several hours, playing Galactic Warrior and hiding out in my locked bedroom. Finally I switch off the computer.