Being Human: Part One

My family is just like your family: we eat breakfast on the couch together in the mornings, sing songs a bit too loudly when listening to the car radio, and get along well (for the most part). My family is just like your family, except that we came from another planet. You call us aliens; I prefer the term extraterrestrial. It sounds cooler and makes people think I’m some reptilian-like creature. In reality, we’re quite similar, despite what others might have told you.

Oh, me? Eden Charles. That’s my human name, anyway. My real name can’t be written in English characters—or in any human writing system, for that matter. It sounds something like a cat coughing and a velociraptor trying to speak Spanish. I’m eleven Earth-years old, and I’ve lived among humans for the past two years. You see, my planet is in the midst of political upheaval and civil unrest. I guess that’s something we have in common, though Earth is still far safer than my home planet. We didn’t know where we’d end up at first, but we eventually settled in the small town of Copperton, Virginia.

When I first moved to Earth, I hated it. I wanted to be back home. Humans scared me the most because I didn’t know much about you. I thought you were these scary creatures who don’t care about anyone but themselves. I thought you were cruel just for the sake of being cruel. I am writing this to show you the effort I have put into learning about human ways and my desire to be like you. To do this, allow me to take you through everything I’ve learned since coming here, beginning with how Jodi Kruger came into our lives.

First, I learned that humans have a TON of rules.

To fit in as humans, we first had to get disguises. These were provided to us by the company we used to move from our home planet. We paid good money to get the highest quality of disguises. I like how mine looks. I tie my black curls into two buns on top of my head. Apparently it’s called SPACE BUNS! How perfect is that?

Humans have to pay money to live. I find that strange, but Mom and Dad say that’s just your way of life. We paid for paperwork from COMPLETELY LEGAL SOURCES to show that my parents could live and work in the country. They gave us IDs, birth certificates, Social Security cards, driver’s licenses (I am too young for a license, so that was just for my parents), and probably other forms I don’t remember. Dad got a job as a line cook, and Mom has two jobs: she’s an administrator at a high school near our house, and after that, she goes to a hotel and cleans. It takes a lot of work to be a human, I see.

Because of their jobs (and some TOTALLY NOT FORGED papers), we were able to buy a house. Mom says it’s a Victorian style. It has a turret on the front and a massive deck out back. My bedroom is off the turret, so I have a really cool window seat in my room. The walls in my room are a light pink wallpaper with white painted wooden paneling. It’s super cute, in my opinion. Definitely feels like a human house.

While they’re at work, I spend most of my time at Copperton Elementary School. That’s right, I go to a human school now. I didn’t want to go, but that’s another rule: all kids have to go to school or be homeschooled. I asked if I could be homeschooled, but my parents both work all the time, so they don’t have the time to teach me. Plus, Dad said I needed to learn how to fit in with kids my own age.

I got placed in Mr. Gagne’s classroom. Mr. Gagne (pronounced Gan-yay, NOT Gag-knee, as I learned the hard way) teaches third grade at Copperton Elementary. Technically, I was old enough to be in fourth grade, but I didn’t do so well on my placement tests. What can I say? English is a difficult language. If I can understand what a sentence is trying to say, why does it matter if my grammar isn’t one hundred percent perfect?

Anyways, Mr. Gagne’s classroom also had its own rules. No talking during class without raising your hand, no eating unless it’s snack time, no getting up to go to the bathroom. That last one was the hardest for me to adjust to. If I gotta go, I’m gonna go. If you break the rules of the classroom, you have to sit at the desk next to Mr. Gagne’s. I sat there quite a bit at the beginning of my time in school.

“Alright class,” Mr. Gagne announced on my first day. “We have a new student joining us today. Her name is Eden Charles. Would you like to tell us a little about yourself, Eden?” he asked.

“No, thank you.” The class erupted in laughter. I didn’t get why. Turns out, humans sometimes ask questions when they really are trying to tell you what to do.

“Well, Eden was homeschooled before coming to us. I think you guys will like her. Please give Eden a warm welcome to Copperton.”

I sat back down at my desk. I knew it was my desk because there was a little plastic placard with my name written on it in funky lettering. The desks were arranged in groups of four, spread throughout the classroom. I sat with two girls and a boy: Maeve, Teagan, and Keith. Maeve whispered something to Teagan as I approached.

“Welcome to our class!” said Maeve.

“You’re going to love it here,” Teagan added.

And that is how I met my two best friends, though I didn’t know at the time that we would become close. See, I was still under the impression that humans hate each other, and therefore hated me. I was convinced Maeve and Teagan wanted nothing to do with me.

They proved me wrong at lunch when they sat with me in the cafeteria.

Lunch is a weird period. I didn’t expect the cafeteria to be a loud room, but boy was it boisterous. Kids do more talking than eating at lunch. I skipped breakfast that day so I would have an appetite for lunch. See, we only need to eat one meal a day to be full, and my parents didn’t want me to be the only kid in school not eating lunch. Apparently that could draw unwanted attention to me, and that is the last thing we needed. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. So, I simply put my head down and focused on eating my salad.

Then, Maeve and Teagan showed up. They were giggly and chattering and smiling wide smiles across their faces.

“So,” Maeve started, “I’m having a slumber party next Saturday. You have to come, Eden. All the girls in our class will be there. You’ll get to meet them and maybe make some new friends.”

That sounded like a lot of people. I had never heard the term slumber party, but based on the words (slumber meaning sleep and party meaning, well, PARTY) I couldn’t imagine it would be too exciting of a time. I’d also have to check with my parents. I’d never been anywhere outside the house except for school. Would I even be allowed to go over there?

“I’ll ask my dad!” I said this to appease her. I had no intention of actually going.

She and Teagan both squealed. “I’m so excited! You’re gonna love my house. My bedroom is HUGE. Here’s an invite with my mom’s phone number and our address. Call and let me know if you can make it!”

From the outside looking in, it really looked like I had made some friends. On the inside, I wondered if that could actually be the case. My presuppositions were beginning to unravel.

I had to ride the bus home from school. If I thought the cafeteria was noisy, the bus ride home proved me way wrong. The bus itself was loud with its diesel engine chugging and rattling the metal frame and windows. Because of that, kids yelled over one another just to be heard by the person sitting next to them. On top of all that, the radio was playing! So much noise confined to what amounted to a human sardine can of a bus. I asked the bus driver if I could walk home instead. He didn’t seem amused.

“Go sit down,” he grumbled. Ouch. New rule: don’t talk to grouchy bus drivers.

I didn’t know which stop was mine. Would he pull up to my house, or would I have to walk all the way home from wherever he dropped me off? I covered my ears; I’ve never had to try so hard to think in my life! I was on the bus a good forty-five minutes before we reached my neighborhood. He drove up to my house and stopped the bus.

My dad was waiting for me at the end of the driveway. I ran into his arms as I got off the bus.

“I got invited to a slumber party next weekend. The host is a girl named Maeve. She’s in my class. Can I go? Please say no.”

“Definitely!”

“What?”

“I want to meet this kid’s parents first, but you can go.”

“No, wait, you were supposed to say no. Why would you let me go? Isn’t that a big risk?”

“Sure, it’s risky, but I think it’ll be good for you. Plus, you got invited on your first day there. Sounds like you’re fitting in just fine.”

I didn’t WANT to fit in, though. I wanted to go home. I wanted to get off Earth and never look back.

We walked inside, and when we did, something was off. You know how you get that sense that someone is in the room with you, even when you can’t see anyone? Well, we get that, as well, only much, MUCH stronger. From the dining room, a girl a few years older than myself came out and greeted us. She had fiery orange hair and the fairest skin I’d ever seen.

“Who are you?” I demanded to know.

Dad spoke before giving the girl a chance to say anything. “This is Jodi Kruger. She goes to the high school Mom works at. She’s going to be your new babysitter.”

I already didn’t like the sounds of that. “What’s a babysitter?”

“She’s going to come over after school and watch you while Mom and I are at work. She’ll help you with your homework and make sure you have everything you need for school tomorrow.”

“I can do all that myself!”

“Not here, you can’t.” Another stupid human rule, I thought. I knew how to make food. I knew how to do homework. I knew how to not run into the road and get run over by a car. I didn’t need a babysitter. Besides, that meant I couldn’t take my human disguise off until she left. Pretending to be a human is hard work; I should be able to come home and relax as myself, not keep up this front for some stranger in my house.

“I’m not doing this,” I told Dad.

Boy was he mad. Dad took me by the arm and led me into the kitchen. The strange girl sat in the living room to wait.

“Eden,” he said, his voice stern but quiet so Jodi wouldn’t overhear, “I know this is a lot of change for you, but you need to learn to accept this. We can’t leave you home alone at your age. Your mom and I need to blend in as well. Besides, I think having a human in the house will help you learn how to act like one.”

There was no fighting Dad on this. He was right. I wasn’t about to admit it to him, though. No, that would be giving up, and I don’t do that.

“Whatever.”

He then said my full name, a name I only hear when in serious trouble. I averted my eyes to avoid some of the embarrassment rising in my body.

“You will go apologize to her,” he said in our native tongue, “and you will make her feel welcome here. I don’t want to hear any more back-talk from you.”

I bit my lower lip and nodded. I wanted to cry, but not in front of him. He leaned over, kissed my forehead, and led me out to the living room where Jodi sat.

“I’m sorry, Jodi,” I whispered, still holding back tears.

Jodi stood up and walked toward me and Dad with a smile on her face. “I forgive you, Eden. I didn’t want a babysitter when I was your age, either. Now, your father has to go to work, so it’s just going to be you and me. You’re in good hands here, I promise.”

This is how I learned my next lesson about humans: babysitters aren’t so scary, after all.

I went straight to my bedroom after Dad left for work. Sure, Jodi didn’t seem that bad, but I wasn’t ready to give my dad the satisfaction of being right. Besides, I still believed I didn’t need a babysitter. Why should I humor her?

In my room, I have a box full of robotics parts I occasionally like to rummage through. I used to have a lot more widgets and things, but we had to leave them behind when we came to Earth. I missed them a lot, hence why I started collecting parts here. Today, I wanted to mess around with a remote control car I found in the trash when I first moved here. I modified it to go faster and be able to jump. Pretty cool, right? So I drove it around my bedroom, but that got boring after a while. I wanted to test its jump ability, and I knew the perfect place to try it out: the staircase.

I raced to the bottom of the stair landing and set up the car. It could jump maybe seven inches, so it should’ve been fine jumping up the stairs. Boy oh BOY was I wrong! The car made the first two jumps no problem, and it just about made the third jump. By the fourth step, I thought I was getting the hang of the controls, so I, like any other kid, decided to test my luck and see how many consecutive jumps it could make. Answer: one and a half. It got caught on the sixth step and toppled down the stairs back to me, breaking into a dozen pieces as it fell.

Jodi heard the commotion. She came running into the hallway to find me surrounded by electronic bits and bobs, trying furiously to fit them all back together again.

“Is that an RC car?” she asked, intrigue in her tone.

I huffed as I searched for pieces. “It was. Now it’s a pile of junk.”

“Not necessarily. We can put it back together.”

I peered up at her. “You know how to do that?”

“Sure! “You know,” said Jodi, “I’m on the robotics team at my school. We build stuff like this all the time.”

Jodi gathered all the pieces together that she could find. Sure enough, one of the tire axles had snapped in half. Gluing it back together wouldn’t work, but I thought I might have something in my bin I could use. I told Jodi I’d be right back and sprinted to my room. I rummaged through the bin for a few minutes but couldn’t find anything suitable for the car. It was the only one I had at the time, and I thought I had made it sturdy enough to handle a few stumbles. Guess not.

“I don’t have any spare axles,” I told Jodi, defeated.

“That’s okay. We can make you a new one. All we need is a metal rod.”

I didn’t want to believe her. I wanted to be mad at her for trying to get in my business. But I couldn’t find a reason to be upset. She genuinely wanted to help me; how could I be mad at her for that? “Really?”

“Yeah! I’ll pick something up from school tomorrow and bring it here. Think of it as a peace offering.”

I didn’t know what this “peace offering” thing was, but it sounded like a good thing. I held out my hand for a handshake (that’s what humans do when they agree on something) and collected the broken parts. For the time being, they would live in my bin. And if Jodi was as interested in robotics as she claimed (she is!), then maybe she’d enjoy seeing my collection.

“Want to see something cool?” I asked her. She smiled and followed me upstairs. I pulled out a bunch of my favorite gadgets I had made and let her hold them. I’ll admit, I was nervous about letting her hold my robots, but she was very gentle with them and didn’t break anything.

“How did you learn how to do this?” Jodi said in amazement, looking upon my toaster robot.

“It’s quite simple when you break it down. All I did was switch out the mechanical components with an RC car, attach wheels, and rewire the controls to give it all wheel drive. The only part that is still a toaster is the body. You can actually make toast with it still!”

“That’s incredible.”

That’s right, a HUMAN thinks I’m incredible. I couldn’t wait to tell my parents about my time with Jodi, but I was sad when Dad got home because that meant Jodi had to leave. I wanted her to stay so we could all talk about robotics more, but she said she had to get home.

Once Jodi left, Dad scooped me up in his arms and asked me how being babysat went.

A wide grin grew across my face, ever-so-slightly stretching my disguise. I relayed to him everything we did while he was gone, how she was also interested in robotics, and how she said she’d get me a new part for my RC car. I may have been rambling a bit, as Dad chuckled while I spoke. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, I’m just happy you had a good time. Did you get any homework done though?”

MY HOMEWORK. My backpack was still at school! I had forgotten about that with all the fun Jodi and me were having.

Then it hit me: I was getting along WITH A HUMAN. A human who was interested in robotics and wanted to help me rebuild my RC car for no other reason than because she wanted to help. She gained nothing from this. My presuppositions were shattered.

I ended up having to stay inside during recess to finish my homework the next day. Honestly, the punishment could’ve been a LOT worse than that, so I am thankful that was it. My classmates, however, had a blast with my mistake.

“Hey Eden!” my table mate Keith called to me when I walked in that morning. “Saw you forgot your backpack. Did you forget your brain, too?”

My face flushed hot. The closest human word I can think of is mortified. Yeah, that fits. I scratched at my fingers, suddenly very aware of my disguise’s texture. I wanted to rip it off and show them my extraterrestrial self, but I couldn’t exactly do that without getting the government called on my family. I am not cut out for life in a science lab being experimented on.

“That’s enough,” Teagan said to Keith, stepping in between him and me. “Go away. No one likes a meany.”

He scoffed as he turned away from us.

“I’m sorry about him, Eden. He’s just a jerk. Don’t listen to anything he says.”

I thanked her and unpacked my bag, but really, I wanted to hug her. We don’t really hug on my planet, but ever since coming to Earth, my parents have been hugging me more, and it makes me feel better when they do. I wanted Teagan to know she made me feel better, too.

The school week went well from that point on. Maeve, Teagan, and I all ate lunch together, and we’d hang out during recess, too. We were acting like real friends, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t hate it. It was nice being able to talk to people who weren’t my parents. I still wasn’t sold on the whole human thing yet, though. That wouldn’t come until later.

As each day passed, I dreaded the slumber party more and more. Not because of Maeve and Teagan; no, I actually found myself looking forward to seeing them outside of school. It was everybody else that terrified me. She said all the girls from class would be there. I counted twelve girls total, not including myself. That’s a lot of people. I could get by in class because nobody was allowed to talk without raising their hand (except during projects, but then we’d just talk with our groupmates).

You have a word for this phenomenon as well: social anxiety. That’s what I had (okay, have), and I had no clue how to handle it.

The day before the slumber party, my anxiety was at its zenith.

I flopped on the couch and counted the seconds away: one, two, three, what if everybody there hates me? What if my disguise comes off and everyone sees who I am? What if I can’t make friends? What if, what if, what if? My breath quickened and I couldn’t sit still. I scratched at my disguise until my fingernails went dull. Why was the material so itchy?

I didn’t notice Jodi enter the room. I was too lost in my thoughts. She sat down next to me, startling me and making me almost jump out of my skin (literally!)

“What’s wrong, Eden?” she asked, putting her arm around my shoulders.

I tried to form words, but it was like my brain became disconnected from my mouth. Jodi looked at me with sympathy in her eyes, the eyes of someone who understood what I was going through without me having to say it out loud.

“Your dad told me you’re going to a slumber party tomorrow. That’s pretty exciting.”

I buried my head in my knees.

“You know, I used to be scared to go over to my friends’ houses. I tried to always have my friends over to my place. What’s your friend’s name?”

I sniffled. “Maeve.”

“Well, I’m sure Maeve is also nervous about having that many people over to her house, and you’re probably not the only one who is scared to spend the night somewhere new. It’s completely normal.”

Normal. Something about me was NORMAL. By HUMAN STANDARDS. I could hardly believe it. Humans have the same feelings and emotions as me. The same fears, the same anxieties. It’s amazing. I hugged Jodi for the first time. She hugged me back. It was my first human hug. I didn’t want it to end.

Mom took me to Maeve’s house for the slumber party. I had everything packed: sleeping bag (we had to go and buy one), pillow, blanket, water bottle, and pajamas. I was set. We pulled up to this massive house in a neighborhood full of identical-looking houses. It was at the end of a dead-end street called a cul-de-sac (which, by the way, is my new favorite word) and was three floors tall. The outside was white with black shutters and trim, making it look like one of the coloring book pages Mr. Gagne hands out in class when you finish your work.

A woman came out to greet us. She and my mom spoke for a minute, getting to know each other. The woman introduced herself as Mrs. Faust, Maeve’s mom.

I hugged my mom goodbye and went with Mrs. Faust into the mansion. The inside looked bigger than the outside, and that’s saying something, ‘cause the outside was huge. The entryway opened into a massive, wide staircase, and archways on either side of it led into the living and dining room. I brought my things upstairs to Maeve’s bedroom where she and about ten other girls were hanging out. I recognized most of them, but there were two I did not know from school. Maeve greeted me with a hug and helped me unload my bag.

“I’m so glad you could make it!” she said to me. “Oh, this is my foster sister, Leah, and her friend, Paula.”

“What’s a foster sister?” I asked.

“It means she’s not related to us, but she’s part of our family anyway. She’s going to be adopted soon, so she’ll be my sister after that.”

“Adopted?” I felt stupid for not knowing these words, but I looked around and realized I wasn’t the only one confused. Other girls were listening to the conversation with intent interest.

“It means my parents will legally be her parents and I’ll legally be her sister. Isn’t that awesome?”

It was awesome. We don’t have anything like that back on my home planet. If a kid lost their parents, they were expected to raise themselves. The community would help support them, sure, but nobody would step up and take in a kid who wasn’t their own. You humans have that on us, I will admit.

The rest of the evening, we all chatted and ate ice cream and painted each other’s fingernails. I never would have thought to paint my nails, but they were really pretty the way Teagan did them. She painted the base a super cute pastel pink and did the tips in white. I loved how they looked so much that I still get Teagan to paint my nails to this day.

By the time everyone else was asleep, I was still wide awake. I have a hard time sleeping in general, so trying to sleep at someone else’s house in a small room full of kids was infinitely more difficult. I stood up from my sleeping bag and skulked to the hallway. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but it didn’t matter because Maeve still woke up.

“Where are you going?” she whispered.

“Just for a walk. I can’t sleep.”

Maeve crawled out of bed and stepped around the landmines of sleeping humans. “I’ll come with you. I can’t sleep either.”

We went downstairs and onto the back porch where we sat and enjoyed the sounds of nature for some time. Earth really is a beautiful planet when you take the time to appreciate it. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, and the smell of rain filled the air.

“Were you anxious about having this many people over?” I asked. Clearly, subtlety is not in my skill set.

“Anxious?”

“Like, scared.”

Maeve took a deep breath before answering. “I was scared nobody would come. I was scared you wouldn’t come.”

Me? “Why?”

“Because you seem cool. I wanted to have the new girl over. What if you didn’t like me?”

She what-ifs as well! I thought I was going crazy for that.

Something else was bugging me. “How come your family decided to foster?”

“Mom says it’s the right thing to do. People should take care of each other.”

People should take care of each other. What a great rule to live by.

We didn’t talk the rest of the night. There was nothing more that needed to be said.

I was THRIVING as a human during this time. Maeve and Teagan were my closest friends. After the slumber party, we hung out all the time after school and on weekends. I found out Teagan lives right down the road from me, and my parents recently let me start walking over to her house after school. They would NEVER have let that happen just a few months ago, but we were beginning to get used to this whole human thing.

As fun as it was going over to Teagan’s house, I preferred having her over to my house. That’s right, I am allowed to have my human friends over. Part of blending in involved getting over the fear of having humans around us. You humans are social beings, just like us. But being social with humans does not come naturally to us; we had to learn. I will say, Dad was much more willing to welcome humans into our home than Mom was. I just wanted to see my friends.

My favorite days were Thursdays. Why, you ask? Because Jodi has robotics on Thursdays, and she started bringing me with her to the meetings. I got to hang out with high schoolers doing my favorite activity, and they actually enjoyed my presence. The team dubbed me their unofficial team mascot. Personally, I think it’s hilarious they have an extraterrestrial for a mascot and don’t even know it. How’s that for fitting in?

It was during one of the team meetings that I learned my next lesson: there are some issues I’m not supposed to understand yet.

We walked to the high school from my house after the bus dropped me off that Thursday afternoon. The sun was bright and blaring in my face, making it difficult to keep my eyes open. I was sweating under my disguise, and my species rarely sweats! I wanted to tear off my disguise, but the last thing I needed was Jodi calling the government on me. I am NOT cut out for a life stuck in a science lab (unless I’m the scientist!).

Copperton High School is much, MUCH larger than my elementary school. There had to be room for a thousand students, maybe more. I loved the colors. Maroon and purple stripes accented the otherwise white walls. Jodi said those were the school colors. We took the elevator (yes, this school has an elevator!) to the third floor and padded down the hall to the robotics room.

The robotics room was my dream room. It was dark, with the only window to the outside being covered by a large metal shelf stacked to the brim with robotics parts. Many of these shelves existed in this place, all equally cluttered. A red metal tool cart on wheels partitioned off a section of the room where massive computers were set up. That side of the room held more of the electrical parts and disconnected wires. I wanted to explore every bin and bag in the entire room.

They had a robot they were working on for a competition coming up. It looked nothing like how I imagined robots would look. It had a large boxy perimeter and lacked any definable shape. Jodi explained to me that the goal of the robot was to catch foam balls, contain them, and transport them to another location. Once she said that, I could better see how the robot would be able to perform the tasks. It had a long arm with a pincer on the end of it, and a milk crate on the back would act as the storage spot for the foam balls.

Mack was my favorite of the team members because he coded the robot controls. I had been DYING to learn how to code. It’s like learning another language, so you’d think with me being bilingual that I’d learn it pretty quickly, right? Right? WRONG. I watched as he typed what looked like gibberish into the command prompt. I couldn’t parse a thing of what it did, but he ran the code, and the robot began to dance with its arm.

He started explaining the lines of code to me when Jodi got a phone call. She didn’t leave the room to take the call. She smiled as she greeted the person on the other end, but her face dropped not even ten seconds in. All the color in her face faded, and her jaw dropped open. She finally hung up the phone, and all of us in the room looked to her.

“You okay?” Mack asked.

Jodi struggled to form words. I walked over to her. “I, I think,” she stammered. “I think I should get Eden home. Sorry, guys.”

She took my hand and walked me back to the house in silence. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to find out what was wrong and help her, but I couldn’t. I’ve found that we have this in common as well, us extraterrestrials and humans: when we care about someone, it hurts to see them hurting. You call it ‘empathy.’ I like that word. I empathized with Jodi, even though I had no clue what she was going through.

We reached the house and sat outside on the front porch. Jodi stared out at the house across the street, though I suspect she wasn’t really looking at anything. We sat and sat and sat, until Jodi couldn’t hold her emotions in any longer, and she let out a heartbreaking wail. She sobbed for a minute, then tried to compose herself again. It didn’t work, but I’m not about to judge her for it.

“I’m sorry, Eden. I’m okay, really.”

I didn’t believe her one bit. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. Come on, you’ve got homework to do.”

She stood up and let herself back into the house, and I followed. We worked on my math homework together. This seemed to get her mind off of that phone call. I’m happy I could do something to help, even though it was really her helping me. It helped both of us, so it was good. I did my very best to not rely on her for every question. Jodi deserved a break, and besides, I had been learning how to do my homework on my own, so I was needing her help less and less except in English. English still confuses me to this day, but that’s not the point. The point is that Jodi was in pain, and all I could do to help was pretend nothing had happened.

Dad came home early, like, before dinner early. This was strange. Dad normally works really late on Thursday nights. Her shouldn’t have been home yet.

“Eden,” he said to me, “could you go to your room? I need to talk with Jodi.”

A private conversation; my favorite. I traipsed up the stairs and shut my bedroom door as if I had gone into my room. Instead, I sneaked back to the staircase to see if I could hear their conversation. They were whispering, but I was able to catch snippets of it here and there.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Dad said. His voice was deeper than Jodi’s, so it was easier to hear him.

“I’ll be alright. Really.”

“Do you need to go home? Get anything? What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know.” Jodi began crying again. “They’re gonna send me to foster care. I don’t want to go, Mr. Charles. Please don’t make me go!”

Guilt crept up inside me. I shouldn’t have been listening to them. I tiptoed back to my bedroom and closed the door as softly as I could. Now I couldn’t hear them, and that was for the best. I worked on my fixed RC car instead. Now that Jodi had given me the new axle, I wanted to see if I could modify the car to be able to jump higher. I couldn’t get her cries out of my head, though. What was foster care, where were they going to send her, and who was ‘they?’

When some time had passed, I went back downstairs. Jodi was pacing in the kitchen. Dad sat on the sofa with her head in her hands. I joined him there.

“What’s going on?” I decided to ask. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have said anything.

“Nothing you need to worry about, kiddo.”

Except that it quickly became something for me to worry about when the police and a social worker arrived at our doorstep moments after she said that. Talk about poor timing. Dad let them inside and called Jodi over. They talked and talked as if I wasn’t there, saying they were there to take Jodi into their custody. When they said that, I couldn’t help but speak up.

“She’s being arrested?” I exclaimed.

“No, Eden,” Mom said. “They’re taking her into foster care.”

Foster care. Like Maeve’s foster sister Leah. She’d go to a family that wasn’t her family. But we were a family that wasn’t her family, too.

“Where is she going to go?”

“We don’t know yet,” the social worker said. She checked her watch. “We need to get going, Jodi.”

“Can we take her?” The words escaped my mouth before I could think further.

“Take her?” Dad said.

“Maeve’s family is fostering a girl. Why can’t we foster Jodi?”

Dad and the social worker looked at each other, then back at me. I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. I hoped it was good. Jodi had the same hope in her eyes I felt in my own.

“Is that an option, sir?”

“If your family wants to apply to become emergency foster parents, I’d happily place her with you.

“Let me talk it over with my wife. We’ll let you know by tomorrow.”

The social worker nodded and led Jodi outside. Jodi looked back as she left. If I’ve learned one thing about humans since moving to Earth, it’s that people are generally easy to read. Jodi wanted to stay; I could tell. I wanted her to stay as well.

Mom came home at her usual time, eight p.m., and the three of us sat in the living room to discuss the Jodi situation.

“Are we sure about this? Like, really sure? Mom asked.

“I don’t know. She’s a good kid, but she’s not our kid. I just don’t know.”

They paused to think. If I wanted Jodi to stay, I needed to speak up.

“You’re the ones who always say we need to fit in with humans. Imagine how well we’d fit in with a human in the house!”

Mom considered my idea, but not for long. “We’d have to stay in our disguises full-time if we did that. Is that something we’re willing to sacrifice?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” I said. “Humans are supposed to take care of each other. Jodi needs us right now. We have to do this.”

Dad cleared his throat. “I think she’s right. It’s what a good human would do. Think about if something were to happen to us. I wouldn’t want Eden to be left on her own like she would be back home.”

Mom wasn’t convinced yet, but I think she was starting to come around to the idea. “We’d have to be extra careful, you know.”

“I’m okay with that,” said Dad.

“Me too,” I added.

Mom sighed. “Sounds like we’re doing this.”

I’ll admit it, I was stoked when she said this. I jumped to my feet and squealed like a happy pig. I’d never had a sister before. Now, I’d have one, sort of. If it could be anyone, I’m glad it was going to be Jodi.

And that’s how we became the foster family of Jodi Kruger. Well, there was a lot of LEGAL PAPERWORK involved, and the social worker returned to our house to tour it and ensure it was fit for Jodi, and my parents had to take classes on being foster parents. But then we got approved, and Jodi officially moved in with us. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her as happy as when the social worker dropped her off at our house for the final time. She was home.