by Mike Jung
I stopped at the front doors of the school and looked at all the kids milling around.
Look at all those Earthlings.
I trudged into the building and stopped at the trophy case next to the main office. If you stand at just the right angle you can see your reflection in the glass on the side closest to the front door, and I stared at myself. Kids’ faces appeared over my shoulder, some of them looking at me curiously, then were replaced by others. None of those faces looked like mine, of course. None of them ever had. That wasn’t anything new — people were always treating me like I was from outer space, and I’d never looked like everyone else, no matter how I acted or what I wore. Were things actually all that different now?
I lifted my hand, palm facing away, and looked at my Tiger Rabbit ring. My favorite K-pop band. Nobody else in Primrose Heights liked K-pop, but nobody else was Korean. K-pop was all mine. Except now it wasn’t.
Yeah, it was different. I didn’t look like anyone else in town, but I’d still been human. I’d been a Korean human. Now I wasn’t anything.
“Hey!” I heard her voice before her reflection appeared in the glass.
“Hey,” I said, turning around to face Shelley.
“Where were you? I waited for ten minutes!” Shelley wasn’t mad, exactly. It took me a second to figure it out.
Oh great, her feelings are hurt, I thought. That’s just great. Way to go, Space Cadet Cho.
“I’m sorry, I just …” Found out my parents immigrated from another solar system, not from Korea. You know how it is. Nope, couldn’t say that. “… I just had some stuff to do, uh, at the store.”
“What store?” Shelley said, for a second looking confused instead of hurt.
“Dad’s store.”
“Your dad’s store isn’t open this early.” She was getting that hurt look on her face again, but this time it was combined with a mad look. I’d seen Shelley’s hurt/mad look before, but it wasn’t usually aimed at me. The universe was just determined to throw all kinds of new and interesting experiences at me, I guess.
“I went there with him, we had to … It’s complicated. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Is there, like, something wrong?” The hurt/mad look vanished, which was terrible because then I felt guilty, and I almost never feel guilty about anything, which made me realize I was totally lying to my best friend, and was something happening to my brain? Did I have alien microbes in my brain? Or maybe I was just tapping into the family talent for lying.
“It’s, you know, a fish thing,” I said, hoping to throw her off the trail by being vague. “I just had to help my dad because Darren wasn’t picking up his phone.”
The made-up, Darren-related phone detail did the trick.
“Well, you could have at least answered my texts,” Shelley said, but it was her mad-but-forgiving voice. “I have some ideas about the project.”
The project. I hadn’t even thought about the project since before Mom and Dad tried to crush my sanity with stories about our invaders-from-Mars family history. And poof, just like that I didn’t want to work on it anymore.
What a bizarre feeling. I couldn’t remember ever not wanting to work on a project before.
“… when Paris fashions started appearing in Korea, and hellooooo, did you hear anything I just said?”
I twitched and looked at Shelley, blinking, without recognizing her for a second. She stuck her face out so it was just a few inches away from mine.
“Chloe? You there?”
“Sorry, I’m just kind of tired from getting up so early.”
“Did you do your — ”
The bell rang, which surprised us both. Having to run to class after the bell rings is for people who don’t get stuff done, but I guess that was me now, and I was grateful that the bell rescued me from giving Shelley an honest answer to her question, which I knew was going to be Did you do your diplomatic profile? Which I hadn’t.
I hadn’t done an assignment, for the first time in … forever?
We bolted to homeroom, got warned for being late, then couldn’t talk because of announcements and stuff. It was a strange beginning to what turned out to be a very strange day. I couldn’t concentrate on anything — teachers would ask really easy questions, and I’d be, like, the third person to raise my hand! A couple of times I couldn’t even think of the right answer at all, and the worst was in Earth science, when Mr. Wilson asked, “What is the process by which a gas or liquid moves through a living cell wall?” and I actually said “filtering” instead of “osmosis.” I was totally off my game, and it was all Mom and Dad’s fault.
By the time social studies rolled around I didn’t even care, though. When your whole life is a big lie, literally your WHOLE LIFE, who cares about dissecting frogs and figuring out the volume of a cylinder? I dragged myself into the room and parked my sorry, extraterrestrial butt in my chair. Shelley took her seat a few seconds later.
“Hey, Crabby McCrabberson,” she said in a semi-joking voice, still looking tense. “So, about the diplomat profiles — ”
I looked at her, and it felt like I was looking from a million miles away, maybe through a really dirty window or something. I felt unplugged from the world. It wasn’t like I’d been transformed into a bug-eyed monster or something, but that’s what it seemed like.
“I didn’t do mine,” I said, not even trying to sound like I cared. Shelley obviously cared, though. Her eyes got round, she sucked in her breath, and her fists clenched tightly enough to make her knuckles instantly turn white. I didn’t blame her. I hadn’t done an assignment, one that impacted her grade. If we’d traded places I’d probably be ready to yank her heart right out of her chest.
We hadn’t traded places, though, so I just felt guilty instead. Which was awesome, because if there was anything missing from the rotten garbage sandwich of my life it was a nice thick slice of guilt!
“You … you didn’t do it?” Shelley said.
“I had a … talk with my parents last night. It was intense, and I just … I forgot.”
“YOU FORGOT?” Shelley didn’t yell that part, but she said it loud enough to silence the whole room before Ms. Lee even asked for it.
“Shelley, is everything okay?” Ms. Lee said, looking calm. For a second I remembered how awesome she was, because all of our other teachers (except maybe Mr. C) would have looked all frowny and disrespected, but Ms. Lee looked like she actually had an idea who Shelley was and how barking YOU FORGOT like that wasn’t Shelley. Too bad Ms. Lee and I didn’t have anything in common anymore. It was like being on one of those talk shows where some sad lady with a baby finds out the baby’s dad isn’t REALLY the baby’s dad, if the baby’s dad was, like, a Klingon.
“No … I mean, I don’t … yes, I’m fine, I’m fine.” Shelley pressed her lips together, mashed her hands into a ball on her desk, and didn’t look at me.
“Are you sure?” Ms. Lee said, still sounding like she actually cared.
Shelley nodded, but she shot me a how-could-you-do-this-to-me look when Ms. Lee turned away. I kind of shrugged, in apology I guess, but it didn’t seem to help.
Ms. Lee spent most of the period on, surprise, diplomacy, plus related stuff like treaties, sanctions, and so on. And all I could think about was how all the diplomats on my parents’ home planet must be dead. Shelley and I didn’t look at each other even once during the whole class, and I caught Ms. Lee looking at us curiously a couple of times.
Finally class was over, and it was time to hand in our diplomatic profiles. Ms. Lee stood at the front of the class, as usual, and accepted the stack of papers from the person at the front of each row of seats. I heard a papery SMACK from the direction of Shelley’s desk — probably her slapping her assignment on top of her stack. I took my row’s stack of papers without looking behind me and passed it directly into Ms. Lee’s hands. She smiled, but with a little bit of a crinkle in her forehead.
“I think you forgot something, Chloe,” she said lig
htly, but with just a touch of question mark at the end.
“No, I didn’t,” I said, shoveling all of my stuff into my backpack. “Well, yes, I mean, I did. I forgot to do it.”
Ms. Lee frowned.
“Oh. I see. Is there — ”
“Sorry,” I said, and I slid out of my chair, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and walked out with the rest of the riffraff, feeling very weird about the fact that I was being so … I didn’t even know what.
Not Korean, maybe.
Shelley caught up with me halfway to the cafeteria.
“Chloe!” she called from behind me. I didn’t stop walking until she grabbed my shoulder and forced me to.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey?” Shelley put her hands on her hips. “Hey? You do … you do that” — she flapped her hands wildly behind her, kind of in the direction of Ms. Lee’s classroom — “and you just say hey like, oh, everything’s normal? What is going ON?”
I opened my mouth to tell her, then stood there with my mouth open. I talked to Shelley about everything. It was automatic, you know? So why couldn’t I do it now?
“It’s … complicated.”
“Why didn’t you do your diplomat profile?” Shelley put her hands on top of her head. “We talked about it for hours — all you had to do was go through your notes and write it up!”
We had spent hours talking about it. It’d been fun, kind of like creating a character for a role-playing game without all the dice and monster manuals and stuff. We’d gone into serious detail about my Korean diplomat and Shelley’s French diplomat — not just their records working for their governments, but their favorite foods, the clothes they wore, what kind of apartments they lived in, and what they liked and didn’t like about each other. Shelley’s French diplomat had “a strong interest in Korean culture,” which was true about Shelley too.
Neither Shelley nor her fake French diplomat had an interest in aliens from the Tau Ceti solar system. Or in best friends who might be mentally ill. Did they?
“Why are you so into Korean stuff?” I said.
Shelley blinked, obviously taken by surprise.
“What?” Shelley didn’t actually say, “What does that have to do with anything?” but I could hear it in her voice.
“I mean, why are you so interested in that? What if I decide to drop the Korean thing and switch to something else?”
“Did you get hit on the head or something, Chloe? We can’t start the whole project over! We’re already behind now, thanks to you.”
“I don’t mean the project.”
“What does that mean, you don’t mean the project?”
“I mean …” I sighed. “I don’t know what I mean.”
Shelley threw her hands into the air.
“Okay, well, let me know when you figure it out.”
This time it was Shelley’s turn to walk away in a huff. She literally huffed a couple of times, like a buffalo, then stormed off in the direction of the cafeteria. I watched her go, feeling all mixed-up and confused. Then I decided I wasn’t hungry, turned around, and headed for the school library instead.
One of the good things about George Matthew K–8 School is the library, and the fact that the school actually lets us go there and use it. It was the best place in school to take a break from people asking me about sushi or talking in nothing but “ching chong” sounds. It was also where I first read Millicent Min, Girl Genius, the greatest, funniest book ever written. You’re supposed to get an official pass from a teacher and all that stuff, but I was there so much that Ms. Mutch would just wave me in as soon as I appeared in the doorway.
“Hi, Chloe,” Ms. Mutch said from the circulation desk, where she was typing furiously away on a computer. She somehow managed to stare at her screen and flash me a wide smile at the same time. “Don’t tell me you ate lunch in the hallway again?”
We’re not supposed to eat lunch in the hallway, of course, but if you skip the cafeteria and go straight to the library the only other option is to sneak your food into the bathroom and eat it there, and ew, gross. I guess you could also not eat lunch, and there are a ton of girls at school who do, but I don’t understand people who don’t like food. Today I wasn’t hungry at all, though.
“Yeah, I did.” I like Ms. Mutch a lot, but if I wasn’t telling Shelley the truth, I sure wasn’t telling the school librarian, even if she does like fantasy and science fiction.
Oh great. The one adult in town who actually reads books ABOUT aliens from other galaxies, and I couldn’t even tell her.
“Where’s Shelley?” Ms. Mutch asked, shoveling a little more depression onto my head. Of course Ms. Mutch would ask that; Shelley and I always went to the library together.
“She, uh, had a doctor’s appointment,” I said.
“Oh, okay.” Ms. Mutch did one last hyperactive burst of typing, then dramatically pushed a single key — probably “enter,” duh — with her index finger.
“I’m sorry, I was finishing up a post for the school library blog,” she said cheerfully. “Now, what can I help you with?”
“I’m fine, I’m …” I’m an alien from another galaxy but it’s okay, I come in peace! “I’m just … doing some research, but I don’t need any help yet.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. I didn’t need help with school, I just needed it with life in general.
“Okay, just let me know if you run into any trouble.”
I turned away, looking vaguely around the library for a table (they were mostly empty), but then I turned back to Ms. Mutch.
“Actually …”
“What do you need, Chloe?” Ms. Mutch was so cheerful, which almost cheered me up too. Almost.
“I need books about aliens.”
“Ah, you must be studying immigration in social studies.”
“No, not illegal aliens, I mean aliens as in, you know, extraterrestrials.”
“Oh.” Ms. Mutch blinked rapidly and drummed her fingers on her desktop. “Interesting.”
I could tell the question was coming, so I thought fast.
“It’s for” — Think, Cho, think — “Media Studies, we’re doing a project on, uh, urban myths.”
“Ah, I see. Well, there are certainly a lot of books to choose from, but I doubt we have very many of them here — you’ll probably have better luck at the public library.”
Ms. Mutch clattered away at her computer as she spoke. I heard the low kachunk-thud of something being printed.
“Okay, take a look at these.” Ms. Mutch handed me the printout, which had four or five books listed. “That would be a much longer list if I included science-fiction novels, but of course that’s not what you need for research purposes.”
“Thanks.” I took the list and looked at it, then looked back up at Ms. Mutch.
“Ms. Mutch, you like science fiction, right?”
“I sure do. I’ve been reading it my entire life.”
“Can I ask you a question that might sound … weird?”
“I specialize in answering weird questions.”
“Do you know if there are any science-fiction books where the aliens look like Asian people?”
Ms. Mutch sat up really straight and rubbed her lower lip with her thumb.
“Well, Chloe, that is a VERY interesting question. Very, very interesting. I can’t think of any off the top of my head.”
She got up and came around to my side of the circulation desk, then stood facing me with her arms crossed and a huge grin on her face.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?”
I spent the entire lunch hour looking up science-fiction books with Ms. Mutch, who I’d always liked but turned out to be some kind of over-the-top genius about science-fiction novels. She’d even written one, which was SO cool.
“I think it’s terrific that you’re exploring these issues.” Ms. Mutch’s voice was not-quite-but-almost too loud for the library, although nobody else was in there so it’s not like we were bothering the
two people who’d just left. “Science fiction and fantasy aren’t always used in classrooms, but they can be really useful ways to think about things like racial identity.”
She pointed at the cover of the book in my hands.
“Always look at the covers with a critical eye, Chloe. I don’t want you to stop reading these books, because it’s important to read as wide a variety of books as you can, and a book with a problematic cover can still be enjoyed. But you’ll notice — ”
She was interrupted by the bell, which took us both by surprise. Ms. Mutch laughed.
“Well, that was a fast lunch hour, wasn’t it? I’m sorry I took up so much of your time, but you have some good thoughts about this, Chloe! Thank you so much for talking with me!”
“Thank YOU,” I said, really meaning it. I took the books and the even longer list that she’d printed out for me. “I’m gonna check out every one of these.”
Which is what I did. I walked to the public library right after school — why the heck not? After talking to Ms. Mutch I knew the children’s section wouldn’t have too much stuff, so I went straight for the adult science-fiction and fantasy section.
There were tons of alien books there, and I decided to take Ms. Mutch’s advice and focus on covers —specifically, I only checked out books that showed human-looking aliens on the covers. I checked out a couple that only had spaceships or whatever on the covers too, just because I thought they looked fun to read, but just a couple.
Mom wasn’t teaching that day, so I texted her and asked her to pick me up. When she pulled up in front of the library I staggered to the curb with an armload of books, dropping a few on the sidewalk on the way. Mom opened the door for me, taking eight or nine books off the top of the stack.
“Not quite as many as usual, huh?” Mom said as we piled books into the trunk of her car. She picked up one of the books, Tunnel to Oblivion. “And not for school, I see.”
I didn’t feel like saying anything to her, so I didn’t, and Mom had the brainpower not to push it. We got in the car and drove home in silence. Mom finally spoke again as we pulled into the driveway.