I threw the bedcovers back further. “Just for tonight, okay? Just for tonight, you get to sleep with me.” As I picked her up, she began to look frantically around the room.
“Tedu.” she chimed.
“Tedu? What’s a Tedu?” I asked. I was too tired for this. I tried to put her down, but she kicked and fussed. Then I remembered the little furry thing she’d had in her hand when I first saw her. Carrying her over to the window, we found it behind the suitcase, where she must have dropped it when I lifted her through the window.
She grabbed it and clasped it to her chest. “Tedu.” her voice box crooned.
Since the moon had disappeared, I had to feel my way with my feet. No use worrying about monsters under the bed any more, I had an alien in my arms! I laid her in the middle of the bed, climbed in beside her and pulled the blankets up to our chins.
My head still spun. Tomorrow, I was going to have to figure all this out, but for now . . . I yawned.
A paw reached over the side of the bed and gently swiped at my nose. I sighed. There was probably enough room for all three of us.
“Come on,” I said, patting the bed.
CHAPTER 4
Instructions for Galena
1. Change nourishment bands as needed. Make sure Galena utilizes the vegetables as well as the desserts.
2. Galena must spend most of her time with the IDs. These are disks containing all of Earth’s history and information to the present day. This is her education about Earth. Make sure she uses all of them, as she may prefer some over others.
I rooted through the little suitcase. That was it for instructions? I’d expected there would be a whole manual of instructions—at least as many as you get with a Nintendo game! It was eight o’clock, time for my morning chores. Mom might check at any moment to see why I hadn’t come downstairs yet.
All the suitcase contained was the piece of paper with the instructions, two small boxes, and three more purple space suits.
Galena perched on the edge of the bed watching me, Tedu still clutched in her hand. Roper sniffed at one of the boxes in the suitcase. I picked it up. Nourishment Bands was printed on the outside. Inside were several wide band-aid like strips with rows of colored bumps. Many bumps were in shades of green, the rest were white, red, orange, brown, yellow, purple and even black. There were also a couple of bumps that had weird colours I couldn’t name. On the bottom of the box it said: “Warning: not for humanoid use”.
Fat chance I’d ever try them, I thought to myself, wrinkling up my nose.
“I can’t believe it smells like food to you, Roper. I bet it’s not even close to food as we know it,” I commented as he sniffed at the bands.
I looked up at Galena. “Do you need one of these now?”
She shook her head and held out her wrist. I pulled back the edge of her sleeve. The band she had on was almost full of bumps. She pressed a white, and then a brown and yellow bump.
“I hope that was a wise choice for breakfast,” I muttered to myself, sitting down beside her.
“I have to go, Galena. I don’t know how I’m going to explain to people what you are and why you’re here. You’re going to have to stay up here and be very quiet while I do the chores and think of something. Do you understand?”
Galena nodded as she climbed down off the bed and got the box of IDs from her suitcase. She turned it upside down on the bed. Hundreds of tiny gold coloured disks about the size of a dime fluttered out. I picked one up to examine.
“The Fall of the Roman Empire!” I picked up another. “The History of the Nuclear Age!” I read in disbelief. What kind of super kid was this anyway!
Solemnly, Galena took one of the disks from me and climbed back up on the bed. She propped herself against the wall, popped open a little compartment on the side of her translator box, inserted the disk and pushed a button. As the coloured lights blinked on her belt, she became motionless, as if in a trance. I waved a hand in front of her eyes, but she didn’t respond.
“Maybe it’s like virtual reality,” I said to Roper, who eyed her with interest. “You know, it’s as if you’re experiencing the whole thing. She’s certainly tuned into something.”
Roper just looked at me without wagging his tail. I guess he just understands “dog” things like “walk”, “dinner”, “cat”—stuff that really means something to him—but not “virtual reality”.
“Come on, Roper, we’ve got to go,” I said, opening my door. But Roper wouldn’t come. He whined, looking back at Galena, and then lay down on the floor beside the bed.
“You want to baby-sit? Okay, good dog. I’ll be back soon,” I said, patting him on the head.
CHAPTER 5
Get over here! I don’t care if you were planning on biking with Diane,” I whispered urgently to Paul on the phone. Cupping my hand around the mouthpiece, I lowered my voice even further. “Gagar came back Friday night. You won’t believe what he wants me to do this time!” I chewed on my thumbnail. “Besides, I need your help.”
Paul hadn’t been home all day yesterday. I had spent the day itching to share the news of Galena’s arrival with him.
Galena hadn’t been any trouble. In fact she’d just sat in my room all day immersing herself in different IDs: Demise of the Dinosaurs, The Second World War, The Industrial Revolution. She wasn’t even using the disks in the proper historical order. I don’t know what kind of a jumbled up pile of knowledge she was absorbing about the Earth, but she was learning more than I’d know in a zillion years.
I really did need Paul’s help. Not with Galena. I needed his advice about something else.
Michael Black was a boy in our grade 6 class. He and I had a “thing” going for each other that had started last year. We often did our homework together and we’d gone to a few shows. I’d worn skirts more often this past year, because Michael told me they looked nice. We’d even experimented with a few kisses. I wasn’t sure I liked kissing, but maybe I’d develop a taste for it.
Lately, however, he’d been different—almost as if he were changing his mind about liking me. Boys talk to other boys about boy things. Maybe Paul knew something.
Dr. Ferguson stuck his head inside the door just as I hung up the phone. “Oh good. You’re here. I need your help for a little while.”
“But Paul’s on his way over. Can’t we do it later?”
“No, I need you now. Your mother is out picking cherries, and Mr. Johnson just dropped his dog off. Mitsy’s had a run in with a raccoon. I’d like you to hold her while I suture a couple of wounds.”
“Oh, all right.” I tried not to let on how pleased I was. Usually Mom helped with all the neat stuff and I just did the cleaning and feeding. I followed him out to what had been our garage, but which was now renovated into a clinic.
Mitsy was feeling very sorry for herself. She cowered in the corner of her box, shaking. She wasn’t hurt too badly, just a small gash on the back of her neck and another on her paw. Dr. Ferguson felt the wounds would heal more quickly if they were stitched. As well, he would give her a shot of antibiotics to prevent infection.
“Just