Our Child of the Stars

by Stephen Cox

  Molly, cross and amused at Cory’s independence, tried a smile. ‘He loves to smell things.’

  ‘Looks like he wants to eat it,’ the doctor said, smirking.

  ‘He ate a worm because it reminded him of something on his home world. Then he threw up on the couch. So now he listens to us about what’s good to eat.’ Gene had made a joke yesterday about eating snails and Cory couldn’t drop the subject. She’d just kept saying they were a different type, not like those in the garden: a special French snail. People in America weren’t keen to try them.

  Molly got a red towel, big enough to wrap him in. She’d give him five more minutes.

  As she and Jarman watched Cory play, he said, ‘Pfeiffer doesn’t realise he’s telling me way more than he thinks. I just need to figure out where to do the work. I mean, it looks like Cory’s immune system is where it has to be: strong enough to keep him alive, but not so strong that he gets a massive allergy to every new thing he runs into.’

  She must tell Jarman about Cory’s extraordinary hiding, and that the shared dreams really did mean something. There were so many things they didn’t know about his world, a world where violence was an illness, and rare.

  In the garden, Cory held a second snail on one hand, his tentacles hovering a fraction of an inch from their shells while his other hand shielded them from the rain, which was growing harder.

  Molly whistled him in for his check-up, which they did upstairs so if the FBI did burst in, Cory would have time to hide.

  Dr Jarman turned at the door and handed her an envelope full of green notes. ‘The Research Fund can cover some expenses,’ he said with a smile.

  Her mother’s interminable strictures about taking charity nagged, but Molly batted them aside and took the money. After all, it wasn’t as if she could work. ‘Thank you. And I really do want to help with the research,’ she added.

  She went out first, just to check the coast was clear, and after she’d waved the doctor off, she helped Cory make a little snail hotel, a clear glass cookie-jar full of tasty leaves. When Gene came home, the Myers ate tuna casserole, light on the cheese, while Cory watched his six snails try to figure out their little snail lives, now they were surrounded by walls they couldn’t see.

  Cory frowned, took paper and pens and started to draw. It took a while for him to start; he scribbled over his first try, got angry, then scribbled again. ‘Not-right not-right not-right!’

  Molly peered down at the drawing. They were snails too, of sorts, little black ones, and big red and white ones, and green and brown ones. The shells were pointier and there were a lot of eyes on stalks for each snail.

  He held his hands out. ‘This big,’ he said, moving them apart; snails the size of a cat. ‘Up trees.’ His eyes were always moist; it didn’t mean anything, but she could read him. He was as open as the sky. He got into Gene’s lap, shivering, the shiver of remembering, and said, ‘Tasty treat. Mom liked. Silly baby memory. Silly Cory.’

  Oh Cory. ‘None of your memories of your mother are silly,’ Molly said, rushing to his side. Gene was holding him tighter now. ‘She was brave and clever and she loved you hotter than the sun and I wish she was standing here now. She’d have to move in because I’d never let you go, but that’s fine, we’d share you.’

  ‘How can remembering love be silly?’ said Gene.

  ‘New Mom-Dad pleeese,’ Cory said, eyes darting from one to another.

  ‘Well, that would suit us fine,’ Gene said, and Molly couldn’t say anything at all; she wanted to embrace the two of them for ever. Instead she got up and rattled plates into the sink.

  *

  Molly knew this wasn’t real. Cory’s dreams always seemed so solid. This was Cory’s nightmare, snapshots from a hell with no up or down, no start or finish. Dead creatures like Cory floated down green corridors filled with writhing flashes of silver metal. There was a screaming wind beyond anything she could understand, and metal voices chanting an alarm.

  How frightened he and his mother were. His mother helped him into the familiar space-suit, but he didn’t understand. So many dead. Cory could feel each one who died in his throat and his chest and his bowels, and now Molly felt the pain too.

  Blue fire and white metal poured like liquid through a wall.

  Then the world shook and Gene was calling her up out of the dream into the bedroom. The bedside light was on and Cory was twisting in the bed next to her.

  ‘Wow, that was a strong one,’ Gene said. ‘It’s okay, Cory, we’re here.’

  Cory mumbled, ‘Many-many dead.’ But his eyes didn’t open and his breathing grew calm again.

  Molly wished she could take his pain from him, even if she had to take it into herself.

  Next morning, it took eight calls to the city before she found a deli that would post them some canned snails. The price made her cough, so she just took a note of the details for a special occasion.

  Gene said, ‘I better write another song. How about, “Would You Eat Snails from Outer Space? (Even to Save The Human Race?)”.’

  ‘You get them, I’ll cook them,’ she said. ‘We could try fresh oysters, I guess.’ She was still working out what Cory needed, so she fed him every type of food she could think of.

  CHAPTER 14

  The week school broke up

  Cory swims up through his dreams, the cool dark layer that tells him none of his people dream alongside him. Such a strange feeling, to find this place that should be full of people, light and colour so utterly silent and alone. He’s the most solo-solo ever.

  He tries to remember playing by the river, watching mud-skippers. His lodge-group . . . his laughing mother . . . Then a dark hole opens in the dream because his mother is dead. Sweet, loving Flute-Voice, the Healer, who was his mother’s friend, and Black Ground-fruit, her child, were lost too. All the Pioneers on their journey to build a new world but their star-ship died in fire, so many lodges dead in the vast nightmare of screaming, this star-ship bigger than Amber Grove. So many sixteen-squareds of dead.

  Cory shivers. The icy ocean of sadness will come out of the hole and swallow him, but he must be strong and swim away. Dreams are the rich sea of being; there are no people for him to join, but he can look for the human dreams, for all they are flat and muddy and scent-blind.

  He finds Molly’s dream, recognising when they drove into the woods few-days-back, trees alive-alive with smells and noises. In that place, little creatures hid and watched them and the humans did not feel them there, those little lives up in trees and under bushes. They found a place no one would come and played a chasing game and threw ball and had a picnic with sausages. Mom gave up the chase first, Cory and Dad played their good running game around the tree. Cory mind-hid and Gene-Dad stood hands on knees and said, ‘Well, that’s cheating!’ but that was only fake-cross.

  Cory soaks in these strange human half-dreams, revelling in their closeness, how the humans open with warmth at the thought of him. The sadness that wants to eat him is always there, although sometimes it hides away at the edge of him.

  Cory’s body wants to pee. Up-up-up he swims from his sleep, up-up-up he swims into the light. Body-wakening, he is in his little room, new Mom and Dad in the room next door. It’s too early. He is wearing the blue rocket pyjamas very-sharp-Cory. Along the corridor to the bathroom in the house-just-for-three where no machines talk or think or can be commanded by voice.

  He creeps into Mom-and-Dad room and wriggles himself up between them. Dad grunts and Mom stirs a little, but they do not wake. If he does wake her she moans, ‘Half past five, Cory, that’s cruel and unnatural punishment. Please, for the love of God.’

  Warm between his new-parents, surrounded by their feel and smell, he is content and his body at least lies still, but his mind runs around the room sixteen times and away. He learned only twenty-three good words yesterday: Must Try Harder. Are dragons dinosaurs? Wha
t musical instruments made that music disc? Beaver-dam. Gene showed him one in a book, and so exciting, he must-must go and see clever beavers make dam. Im-pressive was a new word. Im-pressive.

  Humans are so dense at learning his language, so slow to pick apart sounds, tock-tock-tock. Quicker for smart Cory to learn human. Learn English, humans have many, many languages. How strange.

  Gene tries to turn over but they are in a tangle and it is Molly who groans awake.

  ‘Morning good morning good morning,’ Cory says, and Molly mumbles, ‘We need a bigger bed. Like a mile wide.’ She rises muddy-eyed and cooks pancakes and bacon yum-yum and brews coffee, filling the air with the bitter black smell of breakfast.

  Cory sets the table, air-tasting the food. Gene walks in, wet hair and dressed for work. He is so-not-awake. When Molly isn’t looking, Cory sneaks a piece of pancake with his tendrils, manners-Cory-Myers. Cory hugs new-Mom and she puts out her hand to be kissed.

  ‘What-do today, what-do today?’ Cory asks. He hopes it is an expedition day but often it is not, and that is okay too.

  Cory must be secret, very secret. He often hears the children argue in the street as they go to school or come back. School is out soon, says new-Mom, and so they will go to camp. Outdoor games and so many children, camp sounds big-big fun. Cory aches and aches.

  Cory watches the children from the attic window: Chuck is red-haired-male and Bonnie is black-haired-female. Chuck is pale like Gene and Molly, sun makes brown spots across nose and turns ears red. Bonnie is dark-skinned. Complicated about light-skinned and dark-skinned, makes Gene-Dad and Molly-Mom trip over words, all fear and embarrassment.

  ‘Tell just-two children,’ he asks, knowing he will be told no, but so-hoping.

  Each time, Molly wrinkles her face, sad and anxious and loving. ‘We have to keep you safe, sweetie-pie. Children can’t keep secrets. You do understand? You must look me in the eyes and promise, never ever.’

  Of course Cory is good and of course Cory promises. Most humans are nice, Mom promises, but there are Bad Men who will take Cory away, shiver-shiver.

  The Bad Men are all around the forest, in the forest, the lake – and in the lake the space-to-planet-Ship his mother commanded. Radioactivity is bad-bad-bad: healthy Ship makes no radioactivity. If Ship makes much radioactivity it is poisonous and will explode.

  It makes him sick. He cannot think about it. All the people died and the Ship’s mind must be dead too and cannot help him.

  He must be here and now and not stay in the sadness. Gene-Dad waves the newspaper. ‘Not so long now before men on the Moon.’ Molly-Mom pulls a face, but Cory and Mom have a big secret; she is a bit excited too. This will be the first time ever for humans on the Moon.

  Every little cub of Cory’s people is taught the old-old stories of the brave Moon Riders. Many many sixteen-squared years ago, seven of Cory’s people swam away from their planet and made the first step out to the stars. Everyone sings the songs of the Seven who first walked on the moon, and their ship, Bird of Moonlight.

  *

  Warm and sunny and hot later. Today is a mostly inside day. Mom opens back windows so smells of the woods can come into the house all warm and living. Cory and Mom do chores and school which is his favourite, and they bake a cake for Dad which comes out a bit strange because Mom did the recipe out of her head. Mom makes icing and Cory licks the bowl yum-yum. They listen to music, Bach is so-fine and Cory sways because Earth music fills him with all the feelings, and then they do more school. It’s not a Mom-sings sort of day. She doesn’t want to take him anywhere in the car. He brings her the keys and she shakes her head.

  ‘Some days are sunny inside and some aren’t, sweetie-pie. But I always have you, my little ball of sunshine.’

  Cory knows how to rub her neck just-right. Then Cory stretches and says, ‘Cory need nap.’ They know this is a story; that it is Mom who needs the nap.

  Ten minutes after Molly shuts the bedroom door, Cory is in the back yard. He is allowed if he is careful and hides. It grows wild, not all straight rows of flowers, and he picks through the air-tastes like putting tendrils in a bowl of stew. There’s a warm haze and birds sing-sing-sing.

  Such a little place, the garden, he loves it, but he has explored it so much he knows it all. Oh, he hopes so soon big exploring can begin, find new woods and rivers and hills, meet elks and cows and redwoods high as the hospital and the great waterfalls; he wants to go to the lands of ice and dry sand scouring tall coloured rocks.

  He smells the raccoons, and here is a new smell: a new animal with a strong smell, but not dog or cat. Wild animals carry disease, says Mom, Cory-don’t-touch, in important voice. Cory should get hospital gloves to play with raccoons.

  The sun rises in the wrong place and the day is too long.

  High voices come over the fence too tall for even a human adult. That one is Chuck and that is Bonnie. Clever Cory could get onto shed roof and hide and look down on them, be sneaky and listen. Shed roof is still ‘in-garden’.

  The tree-stump, a hand here, a foot on the window frame, up to the strange metal bit that once held a light, and then Cory is on the slanted roof and watching over the fence.

  The two children are on the footpath, looking at his house. Bonnie is wearing her red dress and white tights. She has a coloured-cloth-strip knotted in her hair. These aren’t her ­playing-in-the-woods clothes so they have come from somewhere else. Bonnie has a grown-up brother and sister, says Mom; Chuck has two little sisters.

  ‘They should send a girl to the Moon,’ Bonnie says.

  Chuck’s shirt is white but his jeans are like Cory’s. Chuck kicks stuff and says, ‘It’s way too dangerous.’

  ‘In the old war, women flew planes,’ Bonnie insists. ‘The Russians sent a woman into space ages ago and we’re better at space than they are. Space flight is science and we’re not even sending up a scientist. That’s silly. They should send a woman scientist. I bet your mom agrees with me.’

  Chuck frowns a big frown. ‘Okay, so girls can be smart, but they’d have to put a special girl’s bathroom in the rocket and there wouldn’t be room.’

  ‘Women can do anything a man can, my mom says. And your mom says. And Mrs Myers too. I’m going to be a Senator, I’ll be elected President, and then I’ll tell NASA to send a woman to the Moon.’

  Cory holds on to the roof, finding the conversation confusing, wanting to ask sixteens of questions and be their friend. Why no girl pilots?

  ‘Pigs will fly,’ Chuck says.

  Cory has seen pigs in a book. He did not know they could fly.

  Bonnie seethes, but then she looks up at the shed roof. For a moment, Cory thinks his hiding is not working and sharp fear rises, like he ate needle-grass. Humans he’s met are easy to hide from but just maybe some of them are like real people and can see hiding. But then Bonnie looks to the Myers house, then back to Chuck.

  ‘This is where I saw the ghost,’ she says.

  Chuck stands tall and says, ‘Bonnie Alexander, you’re such a big liar. You did not see a ghost.’

  ‘I did so.’ Bonnie has a firm face. ‘It was a little girl in white, about so high and—’

  Chuck hoists his schoolbag onto the other shoulder. ‘Big liar.’

  ‘It was the baby Mrs Myers lost.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. That was tiny. Ghosts can’t grow. That’s horrible. You shouldn’t make up stories about that.’

  Bonnie stamps her foot, turns and runs away. She uses words Cory does not know and there is a wave of anger Cory can feel. ‘I’m going home!’ she shouts.

  Ghost. Cory moves the word around like a little fruit in his mouth. He will find out what it means.

  Chuck stands, undecided. Cory could try a big jump-down over fence, but this jumping tricky-tricky. Or he could climb down and use the little raccoon gate. Cory knows he could move the broken plank in the
fence and wriggle through. He could follow Bonnie and Chuck. But he promised, he promised: no leaving the garden without a parent.

  On his Ship, on his home planet, Cory has never been away from other young for more than a day or two, never even when out in the wild; always other people sleeping alongside or waking with him. Wanting to play with these humans hurts, like he could swell and burst, but then thick, cold fear of the Bad Men comes and he must find somewhere to curl up until that fear has gone. Children might tell the grown-ups and then the Bad Men would come.

  He is no solo; he never chose to be alone. He hungers to sleep-in-many, to dream-play and dream-work as well as waking. Although the humans love him, he must carry his heavy sadness alone, until his people return.

  CHAPTER 15

  Summer

  It was Thursday, so Peggy Fell came with a heavy bag to mind Cory, who leaped up to hug her, and demand, ‘Geography lesson. And then game.’ Peggy was all grins. It was good of her to give up her day off; if only it could be every week, but that was greedy. Molly wanted to spend a day a week helping Dr Jarman with the research, to make it happen faster and to learn new skills. She did some typing for Jarman, trying to follow where he was up to, but it was all painfully slow going.

  Now Molly was going to meet her friends. The night before she’d finished the book Diane and Janice had been on at her to read, when you feel strong enough, and she couldn’t wait to let off steam. This new writer, Maya Angelou, her writing blew the top of her head right off. She found it unbelievably powerful, shocking: you knew such things happened, but to have them set out in all their horror like this . . .

  It was a beautiful day, so she walked, pondering the book full of paper slips marking the key bits and how to play ‘sad, ill Molly’ reacting to it. She would make today a good day, so she could be upbeat before she ‘got tired’ and needed to leave early. That would work. She pushed aside her disgust at deceiving her best friends.