“How,” Jeff began, but Suzy cut him off. Yurwush was writing something on the board; the lesson had begun.
“Shovuy will show us after class,” she whispered.
“How did you get that?” Jeff whispered back. Suzy ignored him, already focusing on Yurwush’s lesson. She didn’t know they were wands, he thought bitterly.
Suzy concentrated on Shovuy’s words as they walked, Jeff and Ushegg trailing behind. The girl talked so fast it was hard to get much, but here and there, Suzy filled in the words she understood. “And noxz Qush Yuz jiazu. He’s ggshomth. One xequ he zeggus his sic ir az fazx tuggoazu iash ball burx itush jez kurggu.”
Suzy shook her head and made a sympathetic “mmm.”
As they walked down the cobbled street of the town, she saw various aliens about their work, carrying water in buckets, chatting with friends on doorsteps, or preparing food inside their homes at the hearth. There was jade everywhere in the homes, particularly around the fireplaces. The chimneys were pale green straws poking out of the brown juice-box houses.
A man with a cart of fish shouted, “Kew, kew, kew!” and held up a fish to Shovuy, who ignored him. On a doorstep, two toddlers were trying to climb onto the back of a tired-looking two-headed dog.
It wasn’t a large city, and soon, they had reached the edge on the north side where the road continued out onto a broad plain dotted with houses and grazing orange spiders.
The smells of wood smoke and the ever-present curry were joined by something more offensive as they approached a wooden fence surrounding a low open building like a barn or stable. In it, Suzy could see a half dozen of the furry orange spiders milling about.
Shovuy unlatched a gate in the enclosure and ushered them in.
“This stinks so bad,” Jeff muttered.
“So bad that what?” Suzy asked, then laughed. She was as surprised as Jeff at the question – she had said it by reflex, mimicking their mother’s most annoying habit. Their mother’s pet peeve, heightened from years of work as a newspaper editor, was people using “so” to mean “very.” So with Jeff and Suzy, she always insisted they complete the phrase[7].
“So bad that,” Jeff, recovering from his surprise, racked his brain, “Even my armpits are plugging their noses?”
“What? That doesn’t even make sense.” said Suzy.
“You mean it doesn’t make SCENTS?!” exclaimed Jeff, delighted.
Suzy rolled her eyes and turned to Shovuy who was watching the humans curiously. Suzy smiled and made a lead-the-way kind of gesture to her friend.
The alien girl led them to a trough on the side of the building, shooing away a couple of the riding spiders. Suzy gagged. This was where the stink was coming from.
The rotten sea smell and the odd bits of skeleton suggested the spiders were regularly fed on fish guts, and they didn’t always finish their food.
From a hook on the wall, Shovuy grabbed a wood-and-reed flyswatter, and as Suzy noticed the dragon flies swarming the trough, things finally clicked into place. “Oh, I get it,” she said.
“‘Cause SCENTS!” said Jeff.
“No, not your stupid joke. I got that. Qush Yurwush said we couldn’t use the school supplies unless we brought some to share, so Shovuy brought us here where there are like a million flies.”
“I like the way that dead flies are school supplies here,” said Jeff.
Shovuy swatted a fly, then tried to use the swatter like a spatula to lift the tiny carcass. She had a hard time getting the swatter under the body, and after she had pushed it around a little, Ushegg made an impatient sound, picked up the fly and threw it at her. Shovuy jumped back and started yelling at Ushegg, who just laughed.
Ushegg turned to Jeff and motioned to a fly sitting on the edge of the trough.
Slowly, stealthily, Ushegg extended his hands on either side of the fly, but about four inches above it, then gave a sudden clap. Before Ushegg’s hands connected, the fly, startled by the movement, flew directly up and was crushed by Ushegg’s hands as they came together.
Ushegg held out his hand to Jeff and then Suzy, showing off the fly smashed there. Jeff gave an appreciative whistle. Suzy reached for the fly swatter.
A couple of hours later, they were heading back through the town with their prize – a wrapped cloth bundle with dozens of dead flies inside. They had left Shovuy at her house, and now only Ushegg accompanied them. Jeff kept blowing on his hands, which were red and sore, marked by dozens of tiny burns from the dragon flies.
“You should have used a fly swatter,” Suzy said.
“You and Shovuy had the only ones. Plus, I did just fine without. I got like twice as many as you.”
“You did NOT!” Suzy said, eyes wide with indignation. They argued about this for a while as they walked back to the school.
Ushegg took them down an unfamiliar street, and as they passed a big, shabby house with shuttered windows, a dog barked from inside. A few paces past the house, Jeff stopped.
“Wait. Suz,” He stood there listening. “Do you hear that?”
“What, the dog?”
“Yeah. Dogs don’t bark here; they roar.” They looked at Ushegg. His brow was furrowed, and his head cocked as he listened to the house.
Jeff walked back slowly. The barking grew louder, and Suzy could hear the dog’s paws scraping on the inside of one of the shuttered windows. Cautiously, Jeff reached for the shutter.
“Jeff, don’t,” Suzy began. Then the shutter burst outward as the dog forced its way through. Bits of wood clattered to the ground below, and Ushegg jumped back in alarm, but
