Something about Peter’s tone sparked a thought in Jeff, and he looked around. “Hey, where’s Aiden? And Phil? And, uh…” He tried to remember who had been taken home by parents and who had still been in the class when they tried to escape.
The class grew even more somber. “They took them out after we came back to class,” Jada said. “They were hurt pretty bad, but we think they were taking them to a doctor or something.” Everyone hurried to agree with Jada, but Jeff could tell they were worried.
“We’d go and look for them, if they’d ever let us out of the classroom,” Peter griped.
“Wait,” said Jeff, “They won’t let you out of the classroom? What about if you have to go to the bathroom?”
“No, uh, they’ve let us go twice today,” Shen finally answered. “They let us go to the school bathrooms yesterday before we all realized that the plumbing doesn’t work. You know – no sewer or water pipes. So, uh, don’t go in the bathrooms.”
“It’s pretty nasty,” Jada agreed.
“But they took us all out to some outhouses this morning.”
“Yeah, they empty into that river you went swimming in,” Peter laughed.
“Hey Jeff, when they take us out there, don’t try to climb that little tree in the courtyard. Right, Ryan?” Jamal said, smirking.
“I wasn’t – you know I wasn’t trying to climb it!” Ryan sputtered, his face turning red. “I saw that little tree, and I just wanted to get a better look at it, but the aliens all freaked out, I didn’t even… I mean, I had only taken a couple of steps toward it, and they all started yelling at me and pointing their wands at me and pushing me around, and I hadn’t even done anything!” His voice broke a little as he finished. He scowled at the floor, face red, arms folded tightly across his chest.
Into the awkward silence, Jeff interjected, “Okay, glad you told me. Suzy was planning to cut that tree down for firewood.” Suzy protested, and everyone laughed. “But seriously, what about food?”
“The lunch ladies brought us some stuff this morning,” Paola said, “But it wasn’t even that much.” There was a general clamor of agreement.
Jeff looked around at his classmates, hungry, dirty, and scared, yet human and familiar, and he thought he was almost glad he had been captured. Then food came, and he was certain.
The lunch lady was accompanied by two of the alien guards, and she carried a large plastic crate, the kind the little milk cartons came in. In it were apples, rolls, and a pile of fish sticks. She told them all to sit down; then she came around to each of them and meted out their portions.
Jeff looked down at his one fish stick, one apple, and one-half roll and agreed with Paola: IT WASN’T EVEN THAT MUCH. But it was better than nothing.
Jeff bit into his roll and listened to the lunch lady snap back to the complainers that they were lucky to have this much. The food truck came daily, and they only had this much because so many kids left early yesterday.
“What about drinks?” Peter said, as the lunch lady turned to go.
“Oh yes!” she said, flustered. “Three or four of you can go with this one,” she pointed at one of the guards, “And get water for your class. We’re out of containers, though, so use your recycling bin.”
“So Nacho,” Jeff said, as Peter and Jamal left to get water, “What have you guys been doing all day?”
“A lot of UNO and hangman, mostly,” Nacho said, “Plus trying to guess what’s going on and coming up with plans to escape or take over the school from the aliens.”
Jeff considered this while he ate his apple down to the tiniest skeleton of a core. Then he ate even that and sighed wistfully. “Let’s get in on some of that UNO,” he said as he picked up his fish stick and headed over to the circle of kids sitting in the corner.
They played into the very last of the fading light, talking about home, parents, Ms. Hacking. There was more laughing than Jeff might have expected from a group of half-starving kids stranded on an alien planet; Jeff and Suzy’s reappearance had made them all hopeful.
When it got too dark to play, and the class began to break up – crawling under desks, wrapping up in whatever clothing they had, whispering as they waited for sleep to come – Jeff thought about the various sleepovers he had had. This was cooler in a way – no parents, no bedtime, cute girls…
He wished Jenny were in this class.
Also, as sleepovers went, this needed more pizza. And less fearing for your life.
Somewhere near the back of the room, Tanesha broke into sobs, and several of the girls clustered around her, comforting her. The sound of crying made Jeff uncomfortable, made his own throat constrict. Then he thought of his mom comforting him, and that was worse.
He was grateful for the darkness as he wiped his eyes and breathed out shaky, homesick breaths. He needed to go home.
He rolled over to face away from Nacho. Something in his pocket jabbed him.
“Oh!” he whispered, jerking upright and hitting his head against his desk.
“What?” Nacho asked. Jeff pulled out the wand.
“I forgot to tell you about this!” Jeff handed it to Nacho, then told him the story of how he had found it. “I haven’t figured out how to use it yet, but tomorrow, we’re going to figure it out.”
Jeff lay back down feeling better. “You’re the key,” he
