Jeremiah put his arm around her as the aliens began filing back into the castle. An official looking man with a megaphone stepped forward from the human line at the front of the school. “Greetings,” his amplified voice boomed across the parking lot.
The aliens ignored him and continued back into the castle. The man advanced a few more paces and said, “We would like to speak...” when he suddenly lowered the megaphone and looked down at his feet. Then he turned and sprinted back to the human line.
Once he was past the first of the humans, the official threw himself to the ground, ripping at the laces of his boots and yelling for a medic. Wisps of smoke were rising from the boots as he pulled them off.
Lori’s stomach dropped.
She had the feeling that getting into the alien castle had just gotten a lot more complicated.
TWENTY SEVEN
On his fourth day attending school with the aliens, Jeff made an important discovery.
It was second period while they were all out working on the little trees. For the first three days, Ushegg had fertilized around the tree with either the orange shavings or his own blood. But on the fourth day, when they opened the bin to get out the shavings, they had been replaced. “What the...?” Jeff said in confusion.
As Ushegg lifted out a very small scoop, Jeff held up one of the dry, greenish brown bodies. “Flies?”
He followed Ushegg over to his tree and watched, baffled, as Ushegg kneaded the dead dragon flies into the dirt around his tree, chanting softly as he went. Jeff dropped down by his friend and moved his head closer to hear the words. “Yuoshr keshu, yuoshr keshu,” Ushegg chanted.
“Keshu?” Jeff asked. Ushegg looked up at him. “I know this. Keshu is... You said that yesterday when you helped the lunch ladies…” Jeff racked his brain, “Fire?” Jeff made the sound of a roaring fire and tried to pantomime flames rising up.
Ushegg nodded. “Keshu.” Then he held up one of the dragon flies between two fingers and said, “Nu kyeuz quogu keshu.” He pretended to shoot flames out his mouth, then put the flies into the dirt and continued, “Zi nuth ggor xuovu nu xshu.”
“Okay wait,” said Jeff. He picked up a fly. “Kyeuz?”
Ushegg nodded.
“Kyeuz then something about fire. And xshu,” he pointed at the tree. “Xshu?” Ushegg nodded again. “Geeze I wish you guys spoke English,” Jeff said, shaking his head.
Ushegg patted his shoulder consolingly and repeated his instruction. As he spoke, Jeff filled in what words he could, mentally substituting the English translations he knew for Ushegg’s words. Ushegg held up a fly, “The flies quogu fire.” He put the fly into the ground by the tree, “Zi the tree ggor yuoshr ex kshiqu nuqu.”
“Still lost me,” Jeff said.
Ushegg pulled out his wand and stuck it into the ground. He held up a fly and repeated, “Keshu.” He sank the fly into the dirt next to the wand, then made a slurping noise like he was sucking up something. Then he pulled his wand out of the dirt and said, “Keshu!” A little flame appeared at the tip of his wand.
Jeff’s jaw dropped. He snatched the wand out of Ushegg’s hand and held it up to the tiny tree.
“Suzy!” he hissed to his sister, who was working with Shovuy a few paces away, “The trees are wands! They’re growing new wands, and they feed them the magic flies so that they can make fire.”
Suzy, along with half of the students in the courtyard, looked up at Jeff. “Of course they’re wands,” She stage-whispered back, glancing around uncomfortably at all the stares. “What did you think they were?”
“I... what?” Jeff sputtered, “I thought they were like, little banzai trees...” He trailed off. Ushegg was finishing up with the last of the flies, kneading it in carefully next to his tree.
Jeff grabbed his shoulder. “Ushegg, those trees, uh... xshuz?” he pointed to the trees along the back wall of the courtyard, the ones he hadn’t seen anyone working on all week. “Can I?” Jeff pointed to himself, then back at the trees.
Ushegg pursed his lips, “Thias jotu xi ozg Qush Yurwush.” Then he seemed to think better of this and grinned, saying, “No, sirx ozg Yurwush.”
He led Jeff back to one of the trees and knelt. Jeff could see this tree was much less impressive than Ushegg’s. The trunk had a little kink in the middle, and it was more of a dull grey than the shiny black of the other trees. It was also taller, but with fewer leaves.
Ushegg pointed his wand at it and began the sing-song chant he always did on his own tree, but stopped after a minute and handed his wand to Jeff, who struggled through the garbled phrases despite Ushegg’s coaching.
When he was done, he thought MAYBE something had emerged from the wand, and MAYBE the tree looked a little healthier.
Some of the other students were already standing, done with their trees, so Jeff raced back to the bin of flies, grabbed the tiny scoop, and was reaching to plunge his hand into the bin when Qush Yurwush caught his wrist.
“No,” he said. He looked not at Jeff but at Ushegg and said something long, loud, and stern with great finality and a don’t-mess-with-me kind of stare that ended the discussion. He called to the students and waved them back into class, but stayed planted by the bins until Jeff and Ushegg had walked in.
“What?” Jeff asked, pointing back to the teacher as they walked in. Ushegg answered, but it meant nothing to Jeff.
“Jeff!” Suzy hissed to him as Qush
