Only Alien on the Planet

by Kristen D. Randle

  “Oh my grace,” Caulder said soberly, taking a look around. “It didn't look that big from the front.” There was a deep yard behind the house. Toward the back, the lawn rolled gently down the hill; the tiny lights of the town blazed up beyond and just below through a lacing of trees, cold and twinkling. Hally'd told me her father kept horses in the meadow down below the yard.

  Caulder took a deep breath and blew it all out in a single stream. “Well,” he sighed, tugging at my hair, “come on.”

  We crossed the deck, Smitty trailing along behind us, and passed through the open door into the warmth of Hally's house. I still wasn't ready for the size of that room. We stood uncertainly in the doorway, staring at a massive fireplace that took up one entire wall, the kind of thing you'd have hung with iron pots when they used to roast an entire ox for lunch. All the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and the middle of the room stood empty, ready for dancing. There were chairs and love seats tucked judiciously into shadowy corners, and a whole banquet table full of obviously catered refreshments.

  “Hello-hello-hello! “ Hally said, sweeping us up. She pulled us into the room and introduced us to her brother, who was hovering over the stereo system. Then she dumped us at the refreshment table with an admonition to make ourselves at home and eat a lot.

  Caulder drooped. I wanted to explain that he should be patient and let Hally get things going, but the music was too loud for talking. So I just grinned at him and started filling my plate. The table was like a gastronomic Disneyland—silver trays draped with doilies and mounded with little sandwiches, tarts, bits of fruit, and fancy things that bore only a faint resemblance to food as we know it—tiny pastel rolls, stacked triangles, and layered shapes, stabbed through with surreal, plastic-fletched toothpicks.

  There must have been a hundred people invited to that party. They came in twos and threes and they kept coming—the boys gravitating toward the table or the stereo, the girls very pointedly and cheerfully not noticing them. All of a sudden, for the first time in months, I felt completely comfortable in my skin. When I caught a wink from across the room—a kid I recognized from my chemistry class—I laughed out loud.

  From that moment on, I left Caulder and Smitty on their own; tonight was not my night for babysitting. Hally finally rescued Caulder, who instantly perked right up. Smitty was sitting in a chair across the room from me, tipped back against the chair rail, drinking punch out of a little crystal cup. He was almost faceless in the half-light.

  A couple of girls from our English class came over and talked to me. Every so often, I'd catch somebody from the stereo clutch giving me the eye. The music was great; I was getting a tremendous rush out of it. And there was absolutely nothing weird going on, nothing to fear in the shadows, no limits on what magic might happen. Caulder was still casting the occasional worried look my way; whenever I caught him at it, I gave him a little wave. He shouldn't have worried; that night, there wasn't a boy in that room I couldn't have handled.

  Except one. It happened when I drifted across to the refreshment table, weaving between the dancers, and shifted my focus from the party to the food. I was just ferreting out a few of the little pink and green rolls when somebody close behind me said “hi,” quietly in my ear. I turned around—it was a reflex—and nearly dropped the plate. Pete Zabriski was standing there. Smiling uncertainly at me.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked like an idiot. My eyes must have been huge, and I was hoping my mouth hadn't dropped open. Suddenly I was not at all inclined to eat.

  “I tagged along with my brother,” he said.

  “You did?”

  “I wanted a chance to talk to you,” he said.

  “You did? “

  “Yeah,” he said, laughing. “Why are you so amazed?” He took the plate out of my hands. “Come on,” he said, heading for the chairs. I followed, happened to catch Hally's eye and looked daggers at her. She sent back a look of pure disclaimer.

  “Sit down?” Pete offered, standing by a private and plush little love seat. I sat, suddenly all hands, hips, and teeth. I was beginning to feel a little seasick, actually. I could tell what was coming now. He was going to start to say something, and then I'd interrupt him, and then I'd be talking, saying absolutely vapid things, and not be able to stop, and then I'd start giggling like an idiot—your textbook social nightmare.

  “I think maybe you've been avoiding me,” he said. He really did have wonderful eyes. They were all crinkled up just now, because he was teasing me, because he liked me, I suddenly realized. “You didn't have to do that.”

  “I didn't.”

  “Huh-uh. Unless it was because you don't like me or something.”

  “Ummmm—” shrug. Stupid, shocked little laugh. Freeze up. Oh, wonderful. “How long have you played French horn?” Desperate.

  He laughed. He had such a nice laugh.

  “I'm not as stupid as I sound,” I said, coloring up but trying to get my balance back. “I just didn't expect to see you here.” And with a rush of honesty—"I never would have expected you to talk to me.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Because I humiliated you,” I said.

  He laughed again, and then he kind of blushed. “Actually,” he said. “I thought it was kind of flattering.” Oh, he was too cute.

  “So, I'm serious about the music,” I said. “Is it a passion with you? Or more like a discipline? When I see somebody stick with an instrument, I always wonder about that. With my brother, it's definitely passion—” Suddenly we were talking. Suddenly I was sitting next to a living, breathing person—who kept looking at me. And people were looking at us, and I liked the way it felt. I loved the way it felt. But just about then, something started tugging at me, something in the back of my mind that kept casting fretful shadows.

  Pete asked me to dance. This, I had been waiting for; I love dancing—my whole family loves dancing. Pete, it turned out, didn't dance very well, which was a little disappointing.

  In the fade of that song, in the flickering shadows beside the hearth, Pete took my hand. It was then that my nagging shadow suddenly developed a face.

  I glanced around. Smitty wasn't in the chair anymore. I scanned the rest of the room.

  “What is it?” Pete asked me.

  “I just—” I squinted, peering into the corners. “I can't see Smitty anywhere.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That's right. Somebody told me you and Caulder came in with The Alien.”

  “His name is Smitty Tibbs,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Pete said. “No offense. It's just—he's kind of a spooky guy.”

  “Well, you're right about that,” I said. I'd pulled my hand out of Pete's, not even realizing it. “Excuse me a second,” I said. And then, trying to explain to us both, “I'm kind of responsible for him.”

  “Should I help?” he asked.

  “No. It's okay. I'll be back in a second, okay?” I had presence enough to smile at Pete before I left him. He didn't look exactly pleased—which, to my surprise, I found a little annoying.

  I looked everywhere. I even checked the bathroom—well, I mean I went down the hall, and I saw the bathroom door was open, so I figured he wasn't in there. My nerves were beginning to kick in.

  Finally, I left the house and went out onto the deck. I hadn't realized how loud the music and the energy in the room had been until the door closed behind me and cut them off. A chill breeze had come up, rattling through the leaves over my head. I stood against the rail, shivering, and then I closed my eyes, resting myself in the sudden solitude. Then I slipped silently down onto the driveway. I walked up to the street, a dark fear growing inside me; what if we'd lost him again? What if, this time, something terrible happened to him? I couldn't see him anywhere on the street, so I turned around and followed the drive back into the dark yard, wondering if I ought to go in and get Caulder. It had been a mistake, bringing him. I couldn't figure out why we'd done it.

  I was freezing. I
couldn't imagine anybody voluntarily coming out here for anything, not even for romantic privacy.

  Then I saw him. He was sitting out at the end of the yard, a solitary and dark shape against the distant, frosty lights of the town. I stopped, feeling the heavy beat of my nerves. And suddenly I was washed with a great, warming anger. I walked across the lawn to where he sat, my movement silent below the million tiny thunders of colliding leaves. I could still hear laughter from inside the house, still feel the bass and the beat of the music, muffled and distant—something like the darkness in the backseat of the car. Smitty out here. Almost close enough to the living to be part of it.

  He was sitting on the grass at the far, rolling edge of the yard, and he was staring out into the night. He didn't move at all when I sat down beside him.

  I wondered how long he'd been out here like this—no coat, no gloves—and I wanted to shake him. If this boy could write about Machiavelli, he could sure as heck exercise a little common sense. Obviously he wasn't helpless, he wasn't stupid; he was acting like an idiot, when it was clear he wasn't one. And I was beginning to feel like I had been playing right into whatever the game was. No more. I had had enough.

  “There's a party in there,” I said to him, working to keep my voice quiet. “There are people, talking to each other, touching each other—laughing. Did you see me dancing? Or did you leave before that happened? I love that, Smitty. I love the dancing and the people talking. I love it. I belong there. But you couldn't let me stay, could you? You had to come out here and sit in the wind like an idiot, like there isn't a brain in your head, and why? What are you doing out here? Running away? Feeling sorry for yourself?”

  He sighed and started to get up. My anger surged, and I turned and grabbed a fist full of the front of his sweater, pulling him off balance.

  “Grown up people don't just get up and leave every time things get a little tight,” I snapped. “I'm sick of this, Tibbs. I don't know what your problem really is, but don't you think it's about time you grew up? Don't you think it's about time you stopped using people? It wouldn't hurt you to take a little bit of responsibility for your own life. You can't run away forever—you're not insane. Someday you're going to have to respond to somebody.”

  His face had gone hard, his breathing quick and shallow. He blinked, and he turned his face away from me. I put my hand under his chin and pulled his face back to me.

  “Look at me,” I said fiercely.

  And he did.

  He looked me straight in the face, his eyes full of shock or fear or anger—something. They were alive inside. He was alive inside.

  I saw it, and I did something that took me totally by surprise.

  I kissed him on the mouth. And I kissed him hard. It had been a long time for me, and a lot of passions I couldn't have named went into what I did—a kiss pressed hard against lips that might have been dead. It was too weird.

  And then it got weirder.

  Because the life inside of him suddenly suffused us both. Suddenly I was no longer alone in the kiss, not the only one speaking strange passions. I could feel his hands move across my back, and then his arms went around me—for a moment, as though they were gathering up every bit of me.

  But I couldn't maintain it. When I felt the need inside of him, deep and dark and powerful—as if he were pulling out of me more than I had, trying to fill up the awful void he had been—I wanted to back away. But I couldn't do it; and that scared me the way nothing in my life had scared me. I could not break off.

  He was the one who stopped it. He put me away from him, eyes closed. Both of us were breathing hard. There was anguish in his face.

  “I'm sorry,” I whispered.

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. I couldn't move. I couldn't say anything more.

  “Ginny,” he said. He said it. He spoke.

  “Go.” No more than a hoarse whisper, but the words were distinct.

  “Go now.”

  But I still couldn't move.

  And then, as from his very soul, “Please.”

  I went.

  chapter 10

  What happened? “ Caulder asked. We were back in the hallway by the bathroom, and I couldn't talk to them. They'd seen me come in, Hally and Caulder, and followed me back here, hovering around, wanting to help—but I couldn't talk. To Hally, that wasn't important; she just put her arms around me. But Caulder wouldn't leave me alone.

  “Go on into the bathroom and blow your nose,” Hally told me. “You can have some privacy in there at least. I'll come and check on you in a minute.”

  If Hally'd aimed a hint at Caulder when she mentioned privacy, he missed it completely. He followed me right into the bathroom and shut the door, and then he sat down on the sink counter and folded his arms. I turned around with a wad of paper under my nose and my eyes streaming.

  “Ginny,” he said, “you're scaring me. Did Zabriski try something? Because if he did, I'll kill him.”

  “Oh, Caulder,” I moaned, and I closed the top of the toilet and sat down on it. He started to say something, but I held up one hand, blowing my nose with the other. And then I took a slow, deep breath.

  “I don't know how I can tell you this,” I said, and I meant it. How are you supposed to explain something to somebody else, when you don't even have the words you'd need to explain it to yourself? My heart was banging around inside me so hard, I was nearly dizzy—and now I was supposed to be able to untangle all these dark, weird feelings…

  I made a try at it, just talking about looking for Smitty, and then finding him, and then what had happened, all the time begging him with my eyes not to make it any worse than it was.

  When I finished, he just sat there. I screwed up my courage and looked him in the face. He was staring at me. “How do you do these things?” he said. “I can't believe you do these things.”

  I sighed and sagged against the wall.

  “You got him to talk to you,” he breathed. “You know what I'd give to have him talk to me?”

  I laughed, in spite of myself. “Not the right stuff evidently,” I said.

  But his face, studying mine, was very serious. “I can't believe you actually kissed him. How could you do that?”

  “I wasn't just messing around, if that's what you're afraid of,” I said, and I was angry. “I was sitting with Zabriski, not five minutes before. If I'd wanted kissing, I could've gotten it there. And if I'd wanted to torture Smitty, there are a thousand easier ways.”

  It got very quiet.

  “Don't you think this is a little weird?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. But I was lying. What I had done tonight had separated me from everything normal, even Caulder, and I was very scared. I blew my nose again.

  “So, where is he?”

  And then I realized—gone, probably. Gone again.

  “I left him outside,” I said, feeling like I was caught in a bad dream.

  Caulder left the bathroom on the run. I caught up with him out in the back yard. Of course Smitty wasn't there.

  Caulder swore. I'd never heard him do that before. “Well, we've got to find him,” he said. “Come on.” I waited in the cold while Caulder got our coats. He had Smitty's too. “Pneumonia,” he said to me, holding it up. “Let's go.”

  For the next two solid hours, we searched—every road, every field, Hally's neighborhood, the hillside.

  “I don't know how these things keep happening,” Caulder finally said between his teeth. “Ginny, you make him crazy.”

  “I make him crazy? You're the one who wanted him pushed. You're the one who thought he'd been having it too easy. This should make you very happy. You were right—we pushed him up against the wall, and he finally had to react.” I was crying again. “Isn't that what you wanted?”

  He hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

  After a minute, he said, “Yes. That's what I wanted.” He turned down another street. “I'm sorry.” He went on softly. “Maybe I didn't believe anything
would ever happen.” And then, a moment and another turn later, “And I didn't know how it was with you.” He glanced at me, but I couldn't look him in the face.

  “You think I knew?” I asked him. “You think I know now?”

  “Ginny,” he sighed, “you've got to stop crying. We've got to find him, and you're not going to be able to see a thing if you don't stop.”

  We rode around for another half hour before we decided to go home. It had been so long now, he'd probably gotten home hours ago. And we didn't know what else to do.

  The second we pulled up in front of Caulder's house, his mother came out on the porch, one hand up, shading her eyes against the front light.

  “Oh-oh,” Caulder said. And if it was possible, my stomach did one more ugly twist. Caulder stopped the engine and got out.

  “Park it,” his mother said. “And then you better get in here.”

  He got back into the car, slowly, and we shared an awful look.

  “I guess he got home,” Caulder said, starting the car back up.

  “Let's hope he did,” I said. I could hear blood on the road in Mrs. Pretiger's voice.

  Caulder pulled the car up into the driveway. “You better go home,” he said to me as we got out. “I'll call you when she gets finished with me.”

  “I should come,” I said.

  “Go home,” he told me, “and wash your face.”

  When the phone finally rang, it nearly scared me to death. I'd been curled up in a corner of the couch, chilling and freezing in spite of the quilt I'd wrapped around myself. Miserable. My parents weren't home yet; for once I was glad. The boys were already in bed and the house was still as death.

  “How you doing?” Caulder's voice sounded tired.

  “Not great,” I said. “What happened?”

  “Smitty got home way before we did,” Caulder said. “He nearly froze to death on the way. And by the time he got home, he was really crazy. His mom called over here, thinking I could tell her what was wrong, but, of course, we weren't home yet. She told my mom that Smitty was up in his room, throwing things around. Then, while they were talking, he came down and started pacing around from room to room, waiting for her to get off the phone. Mrs. Tibbs said his hair was standing all up, like he'd been pulling on it or something. She was crying when she called.