Part Two of the story I started Last Week

 

 The tall woman it turned out was named Alice Margaret Cake, to be called Ms. Cake, or Teacher for short. It was she who arrived early every morning to set up the classroom and make sure all was in order before the students arrived.

“And then,” said Ms. Cake, as she dusted off the desks with a cloth and straightened the chairs (Janek still hovering nearby), “then, I teach the class all day until evening. And then, I make sure everyone has Cleared Out before the caretaker comes by to close up. And then—”

She thrust a jar of pencils onto her own desk with rather more force than was necessary.  

“and then, I when the day is done and night has fallen, then I take out my pencil—”

She gesticulated energetically with the blackboard cleaner.

“---and review everyone's work, beginning to end, every subject; even geology. And then—”

She had been bending over (the better to scrub the blackboard) but now she straightened and gave Janek an appraising look.

“---I grade. If you do well, that is the end of the matter; if not, you will see me after class the following day. Correct?”

“Yes ma'am!” Said Janek hastily, for the appraising look was beginning to be rather uncomfortable. Satisfied, Ms. Cake finished the blackboard and sat down stiffly at her desk and crossed her arms thereon. Janek stood awkwardly where he was, but when the silence became too heavy to bear, he edged towards a desk, keeping his eyes warily on the teacher. She didn't move and he made to sit down, but his knee caught on the edge of the desk, and the three pencils laid out on it clattered and began to roll. He made a grab and seized one, but the other two fell on the floor with a horrendous noise.

“Nearly time now!” Announced Ms. Cake over the clamor of rolling pencil. “The usual late hour has arrived, and—Aha, yes. Late as usual.”

The door had burst open, and Janek looked up from his attempts to secure the pencils to see a wave of hurrying children bearing down on him, all carrying backpacks, waving lunchboxes, and apologizing at the tops of their lungs. Somehow in the next minute, he found himself seated in his desk beside a bored-looking youngster whom he knew nothing about, gripping a pencil, and staring down at a printed worksheet. Ms. Cake stood before the blackboard and silence fell.

“As you can see, we start with astronomy. Begin the test, please. I trust you have applied yourselves diligently to your studies over the summer?”

“Yes Ms. Cake!” Chorused the class except Janek who was too befuddled to join in. He rather thought that things were progressing too quickly, and he was not feeling very focused, but he bent over the paper and tried to ignore the squeakings of his neighbor's pencil.

His heart leapt. He knew these answers! Carefully he began to answer the questions. He loved astronomy.

After the test Ms. Cake stood and talked for a long time. The older students at the front of the room were listening attentively and making notes in their notebooks, but Janek did not know how to make notes. He found himself drifting off.

Suddenly the lecture was over and Ms. Cake was announcing lunch break and recess. He stood up stiffly with the class to recite the Lord's Prayer before stumbling out into the open at the end of the loudly chattering crowd.

The school yard was small and stony, and open to the sky like a courtyard. There were long tufts of scraggly golden-rod and seed grass sprouting from the corners of the yard near the walls. Most of the students were sitting down in groups in the shade of one wall, pulling out sandwiches and chattering. Janek swallowed hard and trailed Albert, his neighbor, to a particularly large group of boys all talking loud and happily.

“Morning, everyone!” shouted Albert genially, plopping himself down and opening his lunch. Some of the students looked at him but went back to eating. Unperturbed, Albert produced two thick slabs of bread-and-butter and a sausage from his box and took a huge bite. Janek sat down to the side and nibbled at his cornbread sandwich, eyeing Albert curiously. Albert was shorter than Janek, but wider, and sturdy looking. Wide-rimmed glasses rested on his very blunt nose and covered much of his face. His hair was black and stuck straight up like bristles on a wire-brush. He did not seem to know any of the boys in particular, but spoke to all of them as one and without bothering with introductions; and the rest of the crowd seemed to all be doing the same thing, so mutual understanding was reached. Albert was getting along splendidly.  

“What's that you got there?” Asked Albert, suddenly turning to Janek. He was now munching away on a large wedge of apple pie and a chunk of cheese.

By the time Janek realized that he was being spoken to, Albert had been engaged in argument with the boy next to him. He made a mental note to be quicker, but every time someone glanced his way, words seemed to stick horribly and he stayed silent.

“Anyway, what's that you got?” The question came at him again. Janek wasn't expecting it so quickly. Promptly he forgot everything to do with sandwiches and cornbread and stuttered “Nothing!”

Albert swallowed his cheese and frowned at the cornbread still clutched in Janek's hand. “Alrighty, then! Want some?” He added abruptly, holding out the pie.

 Janek stared. Was he supposed to break off a piece, or take the whole thing? Besides, he still had several doughnuts and an apple in his bag, as well as a generous slice of summer-sausage.

Albert grinned. “It's awful good. Say, is that molasses in there?” He pointed at the cornbread sandwich.

Janek wasn't sure at this point; but the dark substance trickling down the side of his cornbread was answer enough. Albert's face took on a look of sympathy.

“Horrid stuff, isn't it? Here, eat this.”  

Janek suddenly found the remains of the flaking pie thrust roughly (but not unkindly) into his hand. Desperately he tried to digest the flood of conversation Albert was now administering upon him.

“It's best right after drinking apple-cider and persimmons (or that's what Joe here says) but I like it anytime. You should've seen the frog I caught yesterday—legs as big as a chicken's—”

Janek shuddered inwardly and looked down at the pie. The sticky cinnamon-and-apple filling clung to his fingers, and he licked it. Albert dived back into his lunch pail and emerged from the depths thereof with another sausage and a doughnut.

“Anyway, what do you like here at the school? Dreadful tiresome, I think.”

Janek made a valiant effort to speak. “Astronomy.” His face burned.

“The stars and things? Say, good for you!” Albert gave him a respectful look. “I'd rather be out at our place than any old school, but—say, what's that? What, Joe?”

Joe, the skinny, freckled boy wearing a cap much too big for him, had seized Albert's sleeve and was tugging vigorously, pointing upwards.

“Looky there, quick!”

  All Janek could see was the haze of streaky white clouds. Then, he heard the strangest thing he had ever heard before—like the sound of a train coming into the station, a distant rumbling and shrieking of iron things. He saw a black dot like a turkey-vulture below the clouds, but it kept getting bigger. . . 

“Joe, hey, Joe! Stop pulling, I see it!”

“Im telling you, Albert, the sky's falling in!”

“I reckon it is! Here, wait—”

But his words were drowned in a clamor of screaming students as they scrambled for the far wall. Janek saw a huge black thing coming towards him out of the sky, and then something blinding bright like the sun stabbed at his eyes and he shut them. Something crashed horribly. A wave of heat rolled over him as though he had opened the door to a stove. 

Tentatively he opened his eyes, blinking. He registered a blackened structure resting at the opposite wall, leaking a horrible greasy smoke. Something was moving inside it, something big—

Janek's insides gave a leap of horror, and Joe yelled,

“It's-an-alien-from-the-moon-and-it's-come-to-eat-us-all-up!”  

Albert pointed shakily to Janek's cornbread sandwich, now lying to the side of his lunch-pail.

“If you reckon he's hungry—he can have that. Look here, Janek. You know the stars—you go look at him. Try and make friends.”

 The whole class was looking at Janek expectantly. His head spun and he felt his insides doing strange things; he didn't even know how to talk to another child his own age. How could he possibly address a creature that might hail from the moon?  

The class screamed as the thing moved again.

Surely a teacher would hear. Surely something would happen to save him from looking at this thing. Surely—

Albert was pushing him forward, thrusting the cornbread into his hand. “Give him that —might help his temper.”

Janek's legs were stiff as boards and his brain wouldn't make them run. His mouth was too dry to speak or yell.  

  The thing wobbled forward and emerged from the smoke to full view. Janek could hear his own heart thudding in his head. The class gasped and squealed behind him.

The creature in front of Janek was a person. . .he was a person after all. Janek felt a rush of relief—until the person raised his head and pushed back a length of grey hair.

The face that looked down into Janek's held two golden-flecked purple eyes, eyes so full of strange ideas it was dazzling. Janek's pounding heart was drowning out everything else.

Then he realized something, and he grasped the one idea that was beginning to make sense.

The class was counting on him.  

But, they didn't understand. He liked astronomy—but that didn't mean he could speak to aliens. What they needed was a person who wasn't afraid to talk to people, not someone of such an Unsociable Disposition as himself.

Janek considered how easily Albert had spoken to the other boys. 

Could he?

He locked eyes with the strangely purple ones and did the hardest thing he had ever done.

“Hi.”

Even the class was still. His voice sounded hollow in the courtyard.

 The word his throat had made seemed to hang in the air. In a daze, Janek found himself holding out the cornbread sandwich.

The strange eyes blinked slowly. A pale, long-fingered hand reached out. Janek felt the cornbread lifted off his palm. The cold fingers touched his for a moment and Janek felt a thrill like an electric shock run through him.  

But, the pleasure was brief. Suddenly there were loud, incessant noises in the background. Grown-ups had arrived, and Janek found himself swept away from the foreign purple eyes and hurried into the schoolhouse and safely out of the way with the rest of the students. Tingly from the encounter, Janek found it hard to concentrate on what he was doing, but one thing was clear. Surely, surely talking to people would be easier after this.