Encounters

by Rich Scribes

  “Mom, isn’t there a patient and doctor confidentiality? I’m going to have to talk to the doc about that.” Saige sighed. He knew that his mother was only worried about him, but this was getting old. He was now in his sophomore year of high school and he was almost halfway done with the year already.

  “What? You know I wouldn’t do that.”

  “So, what did she tell you?”

  “You caught me.” She said as she stood over the casserole on the kitchen counter, “She said that you were taking Astronomy, and that you have a crazy teacher.”

  “Yep, but she is harmless. Way creepy, but harmless.”

  “Well, I want you to stop taking the class.” His mother said.

  “That is my favorite class, and you want me to stop taking it? Do I get to ask why?” Saige usually did what his mother told him because it was in his best interest to do so, but this time he couldn’t see his best interest. If he dropped Astronomy he would have to take a stupid science class, and he loathed science.

  “That class will not help with your future. You have to take courses that will look good on your college applications.” His mom advised.

  “Mom, I’m a sophomore. I’m basically going to take one college math course next year, and that’s only my junior year. How is one dumb Astronomy class going to effect my college applications?”

  “Discussion over! You are dropping the class and you will take another.” His mother ordered.

  “You don’t always know what is best for me!” Saige shouted and stormed off into his room. He sat down in front of his computer and just started to search for things that he was interested in. Then it popped into his head: aliens. He typed in Area 51. All he found were some fan sites about theories of aliens and if they existed or not. Then he clicked the second page of the search engine and then something caught his eye. His eyes scanned the third link down, he clicked it and it took a second or two to load. Saige scanned the web site, and found it interesting. It read that a professor by the name of Frank Polaroski states that aliens would not look green and ugly, but just like human beings. However they are more advanced than the human race, and have some type of powers. It also advised that the professor has been trying to locate them and that the aliens’ bodies must radiate some type of heat or be cooler than the normal body temperature of a human. Saige scanned the page to see if he could find when this was published. After searching a few moments he found that it was published in 2009, and it was currently 2013. Saige backed out of the page and then typed in Frank Polaroski into the search engine. The results popped up quickly. Saige doubled clicked the first link he saw. It was a schools news paper article from a near by college. Saige scanned the article. Professor Polaroski was fired from the college in 2010 after he claimed that he knew, for a fact that aliens were living amongst humans. While the article was vague, it did hint that the professor’s dismissal was due to mental fatigue. Saige figured that was a nice way of saying the old man had gone nutty. A sharp knock on his door made him jump slightly. For some reason he didn’t want his mom seeing what he was looking at, so he exited out before attending to what his mother wanted.

  “Listen, hun, I’m sorry about our disagreement. I just want the best for you, that is all. Astronomy isn’t going to get you anywhere in life.”

  “How do you know? Ever heard of a place called NASA?”

  “You want to be an astronaut now? You know they don’t really send people to the moon anymore.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to encourage me? Like tell me to follow my heart or something? Instead of discourage me?” he moved over to his bed and sat down.

  “I will encourage you and be behind you all the way on anything else that you want to pursue, but not this. Okay? Trust me on this one.” His mom said gently. He didn’t understand why she was so worried about a stupid class. He really enjoyed the class. However, his mother’s disapproval with the subject had also peaked his interest.

  “Is it because of dad? Is that what he liked? Is that what he did?” Saige watched his mother carefully. She remained silent a moment then tears welled up in her eyes.

  Slowly nodding her head she murmured, “Yes, dear. Showing interest in space is just bringing back all those bad memories.” She wiped tears off her cheek, but for some odd reason Saige knew she was lying. He could sense her emotions. Why would his mother lie to him about his dead beat of a father? But instead of questioning the lie, he went along with it.

  “If it bothers you that much, mom, I will drop the class tomorrow and take a stupid science class where I can dissect a pig or something.” He smiled and played the part of the good son.

  “Good. I’m glad.” She smiled. “Well dinner is done. Come down when you’re ready.” She left Saige alone to his thoughts. What an odd day. So many weird things had happened. The crazy teacher, the doc showing interest in his school schedule, his mother wanting him to drop Astronomy, the doc breaching the confidentiality guidelines of patient and doctor… and the professor Polaroski seemed to be hanging out in his head as well. Why was that? He had no desire to indulge the crazy people of the world and their theories on aliens.

  Saige went down stairs to have dinner with his mother, though they ate in silence. He’d given the impression of obedience but he was annoyed that she wanted him to drop his favorite course of the year. Every other course was just a drag. He went to his room, locked the door, and went out his window to sit on his roof. Loose, barely there memories played at the comer of his brain when he gazed up at the inky black night dotted with stars. There was something in the recesses but every time he reached out to grasp it… poof. It was gone. Maybe that was why he loved Astronomy so much. Maybe that is why he was so intrigued with the firing of the professor at the Arizona College. He was tired of thinking and tried to get lost in the dark space above him, but that failed because all he could think about was if humans were alone on this planet. No, there couldn’t be. He didn’t even know why he was even thinking about it. Since he really couldn’t let his mind go blank, he went into his room, unlocked the door and went to bed.

  Saige awoke to the sound of his mother calling him from the kitchen downstairs. He rubbed his eyes to get the grogginess out of them and stood up to see what his mother wanted.

  “Remember to drop that class today,” were the words that greeted him as he walked into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator. She was in a hurry to get to work, but couldn’t find her keys.

  “The keys are on the dining room table,” Saige muttered as he took a sip of orange juice from the container.

  “How did you… oh, never mind. Thanks.”

  Saige nodded at her before going upstairs to get ready. He heard his mom make another comment about the class. He rolled his eyes.

  Saige enjoyed walking to school. It was just around a mile between school and his house. What he didn’t enjoy was how the sidewalks were polluted with the students that he went to school with. He wasn’t really overly social with the student body. It didn’t help that he moved there around a year ago. If he could only remember his previous school, or, at least, if he had had any friends. There were a few scattered images in his mind, but they were too abstract to make any real sense. He had trouble remembering anything and with each passing day it became more and more frustrating. His visits with the doctor weren’t helping. He didn’t trust her. A honk brought him to his senses. He found himself looking at a car, and of course it was the jock and his girlfriend. He could see the jock was annoyed, while Felicia just stared. Saige quickly finished walking across the street and into the school.

  School mornings were always crowded with kids trying to get to their lockers, and cliques wasting time before homeroom.

  “Stop it! Come on leave me alone, man.” Saige heard a kid say behind him. There was a freshman being bothered by two juniors.

  “You got me a ‘C’ on this stupid history paper,” the bigger of the two kids said. Saige recognized him as one of the kids on the varsity basketball team.
“I needed a B- to keep me on the team, and this isn’t going to cut it.”

  “Yeah, so a ‘C’ isn’t going to cut it,” The second junior interjected. Saige rolled his eyes.

  “Well, I really didn’t have time to work on your paper and keep up with my own work,” The freshmen attempted to explain.

  “Is that so? Keep up with this,” The Junior with the ‘C’ said, and before the freshman saw it coming a punch landed square in his stomach, and he was doubled over. There was quite a crowd gathering around. Everyone was gawking and a few were even giggling at the poor kid. However, no one was helping. Saige’s conscious nudged him. He rolled his eyes and walked over to the scene.

  “You keep hitting freshmen like that and your jump shot will be ruined.” Saige said as he stepped in between the two juniors and the freshman.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have to ruin it if this piece of crap would have gotten me a B-“ The junior growled.

  “I can see why you’d need someone to write your paper for you.” Saige smirked. “You okay?” he turned towards the freshman who merely groaned at the response.

  “What did you say, punk?” The junior questioned. Saige felt a hand land on his shoulder that spun him around, and now he was facing the two juniors again.

  “Yeah, what did you say?” The other junior questioned.

  “What I was trying to say to you and your parrot, is that maybe if you weren’t so stupid you could have done the assignment yourself.” Saige retorted. A bunch of ‘oh’s’ filled the air as more and more kids started to join the scene to see what the commotion was. Strangely enough there weren’t any teachers around. Saige noticed Felicia among the crowd. “But on that note, I’m going to help this kid get to homeroom.” Saige said as he didn’t want to bring any more attention to him. He turned around, which was a big mistake. The junior that received the ‘C’ tried to go in for a punch, but Saige was a little to quick to his surprise and blocked the punch, but that left him open for the other junior to punch Saige in the stomach. Saige joined the freshman on the ground.

  “Hey! What is going on here?” Saige heard a familiar voice. The imposing figure came through the crowded hall way and was now part of the situation.

  “Tyler what is going on here?” The principal directed the question to the bigger junior.

  “This kid right here tried to punch me.”

  “You lie,” Saige groaned angrily. He could sense some odd energy surrounding him, and he wanted to pounce.

  “That is a lie right there!” A soothing voice penetrated through Saiges anger, and as he looked up he saw who it was; Felicia.

  “Felicia stay out of this. Get to homeroom. All of you get to homeroom.”

  “But…” Felicia tried to say.

  “Go,” Principal Anderson commanded.

  “Tyler and Chris, you two go to homeroom, as well. As for you Mr. Solars, you are coming with me to my office, Mr. Kilowoski can join us.” Mr. Anderson said as he started to help the freshman up.

  “Here is the system at work: the two kids that have been beat up are the ones getting in trouble,” Saige mumbled. The freshman chuckled.

  “What was that?” Principal Anderson questioned.

  “Nothing, sir, just looking forward to a wonderful lecture.”

  “You will get more than a lecture,” he warned Saige and the freshman and with that both students started to follow the principal to his office. Once they reached the office, the principal asked the freshman to go into his office while Saige remained outside sitting in a chair. While waiting Saige kept thinking about his reflexes, and how he blocked the one punch from the junior. He couldn’t be that good since he couldn’t avoid the other punch, but still this was something he didn’t know he had. Were quick reflexes one of the memories he couldn’t remember? Was he into sports in the other schools that he attended?

  Only a few minutes went by when the freshman came out of the office. He stopped in front of Saige, “Thank you. Sorry to get you into trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Saige smirked. The freshman walked out of the office.

  “Mr. Solars, come in please.” The principal called out. Saige came into the sterile looking office and sat.

  “So, yesterday I catch you late for class, and today you’re fighting in the hallways…”

  “I’m heading for student of the year.”

  “That’s not going to happen with me giving you detention,” Principal Anderson stated.

  “I don’t know why. I saw a problem, and I tried to fix it. I know the teaching staff has to protect their athletes, but at least don’t make it look so obvious.”

  “Watch your tone, young man,” Principal Anderson advised heatedly. “I know you’re still fairly new to this school, transferring…” the principal stopped a moment and opened a file; it had to be Saige’s records. The principal raised an eyebrow.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “What school did you go to before this one?”

  “Isn’t it in my file?” Saige asked hoping that he could get anything that could link him to his past.

  “No, it doesn’t. You have no previous history anywhere. No grades. There is nothing in your file about where you went before here.” The principal stated. “Only a notion. This is highly irregular.”

  Saige’s heart dropped just a little knowing that his school records weren’t going to help him at all to pursue his past.

  “Sorry, sir, I don’t know what to tell you,” Saige sounded defeated to his own ears.

  “Well, don’t worry about that. You and I will have a chance to catch up because I’m going to be running detention tomorrow.” Principal Anderson closed the file. The principal gave Saige a hall pass so that he wouldn’t get into trouble for being late for his next class and dismissed him.

  Again his mood had gone from alright to down right miserable. The last two days of school had been horrible. He was about to go to his locker when the freshman that he tried to save earlier that morning came up to him.

  “Hey, I’m really thankful for you stepping in like that.”

  “Listen, uh…”

  “Marvin,” The freshman said.

  “Listen, Marvin, this doesn’t mean I wanted to be friends. Someone had to stick up for you against those jocks.” Saige replied as he was messing with his combination lock to open his locker. He sensed that Marvin was dejected. Saige let out a sigh, “Okay you are welcome. Sorry. I got detention with the stupid principal tomorrow. It just pissed me off.”

  “He let me slide on that.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Yeah. He said it was my warning, but next time he wouldn’t be so nice about it.” Marvin shrugged.

  “Nice guy, huh?” Saige commented as he took out his Astronomy book and put it in his book bag.

  “Oh, you’re taking that new Astronomy class? How is it?” Marvin sounded excited.

  “It could be better, but it could be way worse, I guess.” Saige gently closed his locker and started to make his way towards class.

  “I love that stuff. I hope next year I can take that class if my schedule opens up,” Marvin said as he continued to follow Saige.

  “Really? You like planets and black holes and stuff?”

  “Yeah, what is not to like about it?” Marvin replied. Maybe the kid would grow on him.

  “I like the way you put that. Well, I gotta get going. We’ll catch up later or something.” Saige said. The two students went their separate ways.

  The rest of the day went by okay. No commotion and no beatings. Saige walked into Astronomy class with no intentions of dropping the course. He would just have to lie to his mother about it, the same way she lied to him last night for her reasoning on dropping the course.

  “Okay, class, I know I acted a little crazy yesterday…”

  “How about a lot.” A student mumbled from the last row. The class burst into laughter.

  “Good one, Mr. Alkerson.” Ms. Golta smiled. “I know this class isn�
�t what some of you had hoped it will be. Some of you just want to take it for an easy ‘A’, but I’m not that type of teacher. However this is what I will do: You guys do the work and you will get your ‘A’. If, however, the participation is zero then you will be earning a zero. That’s as easy as I can make it. Effort earns an ‘A’. Lack of effort earns an ‘F’. “ She smiled at the class as her words sunk in. “Since we got that out of the way, today we are going to talk about alien life. Maybe if you guys can see that this class is more than just planets and solar systems you will actually like the course.”

  “Ms. Golta, you mean the green slimy things that we see on TV.” A girl in the middle of the classroom blurted out. The class chuckled.

  “Relax Ms. Goodwin, you see, I believe that if we did have alien life on this planet they would look just like you and me.” Ms. Golta paced in front of the class.

  “If they looked like us wouldn’t they just be called human beings?” Another student asked from the back of the room.

  “Great observation, Denton. They might look like us and eat like us. Yet, they would be more powerful than us and infinitely more intelligent: it is also likely that their technology would be life times ahead of ours,” Ms. Golta continued, and from there the whole class continued to talk about alien life forms. As the bell was ringing she assigned a paper due the next day about various theories regarding the existence of aliens. For the first time the class didn’t moan and groan. Rather it seemed that they would enjoy the homework assignment. Saige already knew he was going to write about the professor that he’d accidently stumbled onto yesterday.

  “Mr. Solars, a word, please,” Ms. Golta said as Saige went to walk by.

  “Sure…”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you? For what?”

  “Well, for giving me some insight on how to teach the class. Your perspective and insight was spot on. Aliens aren’t particularly under the heading of Astronomy, but I think I can use them as a starting point to the subject.”