“‘Cause breaking into the school might help,” Jeff went on, “Maybe we can find some stuff at night while they’re all gone. But really we need to be there during school – hear the lessons, practice with them. We’re got to make friends.”
“Jeff,” Suzy tried to keep her voice low, but she wanted to throttle him. “If we go out there, they’ll just call the army to come and arrest us!”
“Well you wanted us to turn ourselves in anyway,” Jeff shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen? I don’t know. But it’s the same worst that would happen if we just walked up to our school.”
“So now you want us to turn ourselves in?” Suzy demanded.
“No, I want to make friends! Look,” Jeff pointed with his thumb at the kids and their game, “If we go out there, they might just run screaming for the soldiers, and we might get taken back to the school. Which is where you think we should go anyway. But MAYBE, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d want to play with us. Like E.T. I mean, if an alien showed up on earth and wanted to play with me, I’d totally do it.”
“That’s because you have no friends,” Suzy muttered.
A ball thumped to the ground just a dozen paces from them on the edge of the field. An alien was jogging over to retrieve it.
Suzy’s stomach grumbled. One of the aliens called something to the boy who was coming for the ball, and he shouted something back, laughing. He had an open, happy face.
Her stomach rumbled again. She made up her mind: she was ready to turn herself in.
Or at least turn Jeff in and see if it was safe.
“Okay,” she whispered, “Kick the ball back to them.”
“Seriously?” Jeff gaped.
“They’re probably going to attack us or take us back to our school, but that’s where I want to go anyway. And who knows? Maybe you CAN make friends with them. So,” she gave him a little shove, “Go make friends with them.”
A smile crept onto his lips.
Two years ago, when they had just moved to Alpharetta, Jeff and Suzy hadn’t known anyone in the neighborhood. One evening, they had heard yelling kids in the street and stepped out on the porch to watch, along with their mom.
A gaggle of kids were huddled in the middle of the street, eyes closed, shouting out a count as one boy ran and hid. When the count was up, they spread out, canvassing the front lawns, singing, “No bears are out tonight. Daddy shot ‘em all last night!”
Jeff and Suzy had watched the game longingly, and when a couple of the kids glanced their direction, they had waved and smiled, hoping for an invitation, but it didn’t come.
Neither Jeff nor Suzy was especially shy, but that night, in a new place where the other kids were already friends, they hadn’t known how to break in.
And then their mom shoved them off the porch and said, loud enough for the whole street to hear, “You need friends. Go make friends with them!”
It had been awkward and embarrassing in the moment, and Suzy had wanted run inside, but afterwards it had become something of a family joke. They’d be walking down the aisle at the grocery store or at school, and a stranger would be walking toward them, and Jeff would shove Suzy (or vice versa) and say, “Go make friends with them!”
The corners of Suzy’s mouth twitched up as she remembered. “Yeah,” she said, shoving him again. “Go make friends with them!”
Jeff nodded, took a deep breath, and stood up.
The alien boy, only a few paces from the ball, jumped back. “Quirguth!” he yelled, pointing at Jeff.
“Hey,” Jeff waved awkwardly.
“Orinush iru!” The boy shouted, now pointing at Suzy.
“Dang,” she muttered, standing up and giving a little wave.
Around the field, the aliens began to point and murmur. One of them shouted, “Oshu nuth quirguthz ish oyeurz?” This set off an even bigger chorus of murmurs.
“So, you want your ball back?” Jeff said, stepping out onto the bright blue grass. He kicked the ball with the side of his foot to the alien boy, whose arm was still raised, pointing at Suzy. He shouted something unintelligible and backed away from the ball. Another alien ran off the field and into the school building.
Jeff looked back at Suzy. She shrugged helplessly.
Jeff walked to the ball and began dribbling it slowly toward the closest arch. “So do you have to get it through all the arches or something?” he wondered aloud.
The two kids who had been standing at this arch backed away. A couple others began shouting things. They didn’t sound friendly.
Jeff kicked the ball through the arch. “So am I winning now?” He dribbled a little faster toward a second arch. One of the aliens said, “Cetu az togg iash toy!” and ran toward Jeff. He looked angry.
Suzy knew suddenly that this could go worse than just turning themselves in.
“Yeah, I don’t know what that means.” Jeff said. He was trying to sound confident, but Suzy could hear the tremble in his voice. “You wanna play, too?” He kicked the ball through the second arch and ran after it, but the alien got to it just ahead of him.
The alien put himself between Jeff and the ball, and Jeff bumped him pretty hard with his shoulder. The alien looked even angrier, and a lot of the others started yelling. Suzy began to wring her hands.
Jeff and the alien were going at it for the ball. Another alien came over, and the first one managed to pass it away. Jeff chased it. They were coming toward Suzy, and a couple of the other aliens were running forward now, too. She couldn’t tell if they were
