I turn to Momma.
“Right?” I ask her. “Moontians, get it? But I don’t know her name yet. We didn’t get to that one. I guess I forgot to ask.”
“Mylo,” Momma says. “H-how do you, how do you know all of this? These…these details?”
“ ’Cause,” I tell her. “The Moontian let me wear her little gold headbandy thing and it showed me all these answers to all these questions I had. First with these sort of pictures on the backs of my eyelids, and then the facts just stayed stuck up into my brain for permanent. Pretty neat, huh? I feel a whole lot smarter than I did before. Like…like…seventh-grade smart instead of just going-into-sixth-grade smart.”
Momma looks at Daddy and then back at me and then I watch her eyeballs go straight up while she crosses her front with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
“Lord have mercy,” she tells the ceiling.
Momma always says that when she crosses herself.
“You don’t have to worry, Momma,” I tell her. “No matter what Dibs says about them, they come in peace. She told me so. They didn’t come for an interstellar invasion to take over our planet or even to probe our brains for experimentation. They’re here to help us, Momma…not to hurt us. They didn’t come for none of the stuff that Dibs said they did. Although I s’pose it’s going to take some fast talking to convince Dibs of that. He thinks of the Planet Comics series as the bona fide Martian Bible. Wait till he hears they aren’t from Mars at all. He’s going to flip his lid.”
“Mylo,” Daddy says. “You said they’re here to help us? Help us with what?”
“Daddy…we are destroying our planet,” I tell him. “And everyone who’s anyone knows it, too. Out there they do, anyway.” I point out the window toward the night sky. “The only ones who don’t seem to know it is us here on Earth. The nuclear bombs in Japan and the practice ones that went off in the desert here, they’re causing damage all the way to Europa and beyond. We aren’t just hurting each other on this planet; we’re hurting others out there, too. They don’t have war in Europa—she doesn’t understand why we have it here. Even with that big noggin of hers, she can’t figure out one good reason for it. And come to think of it, I can’t, either. Dibs says their brains are a million times smarter than ours are. Maybe that’s why they don’t have war there. No hate, either. She told me so. Can you imagine a world like that?”
I wait.
For something.
Anything.
Just so I know they heard me. I mean, really heard me. And that they believe me, too.
But Daddy doesn’t even open his mouth. He just slips down into his chair at the kitchen table like a bag of bones and Momma starts up with the pacing again.
“And they picked me, Momma,” I tell her. “Me.” I push the curtain to the side again and peer out at her. “And I’m going to be the one to get her home, too.”
My chest is bursting and it’s the first time I’ve ever felt so much strength inside me. That there really might be courage somewhere inside that was just hiding all along. I feel like a real live Superman who’s going to save the world from chemical annihilation. Tune in next time, boys and girls, and learn how Superhero Mylo Affinito saves mankind from extinction! Brought to you by Kellogg’s Pep, the buildup wheat cereal.
I stand there, staring at them with my hands on my hips. “Well?” I demand. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Mylo,” Momma starts.
Here it comes.
Momma will know exactly what to do. Momma always knows. Now that she’s had her Mississippis to take it all in, she’ll have the exact words to make everything right.
That’s the way Momma is. No matter what.
“Yes, Momma?”
“Mylo…”
I glance over at Daddy and then back at her. “Y-yes, ma’am?”
She stops pacing and meets my eyes.
“Wash your hands.”
“Again?”
“That’s right, and don’t leave out any of the letters.”
I sigh and grab the sloppy bar of Ivory. I guess Momma doesn’t have the words when it comes to Moontians.
* * *
When the Moontian is finally done talking to the sky or baying to the moon or whatever it is she’s doing out there, I convince Momma to let her actually come inside the house. Which is a big deal, since Clark Kent isn’t even allowed in the house and he’s family. But I think Momma agrees to it more because she can keep a watchful eye on her than anything else.
Momma’s not quite convinced yet that the Moontian is here on friendly business.
I even let the Europa visitor sit in Obie’s spot.
It’s only the polite thing to do.
Momma dishes up two big bowls of Chocolate Swirl ice cream. I can’t say I’ve ever been allowed to have a bowl of ice cream after midnight before, but I think it has something to do with Momma trying to keep things as normal as possible.
As normal as things can be when a Moontian comes visiting.
“You go ahead there and have your ice cream.” She points from the sitting room doorway. “Me and Daddy are going to talk in the next room. We’ll be right here.”
“Okay, Momma.” I scoop up a spoonful to show the Moontian how it’s done. “See? Like this.”
“Don’t, ah…don’t…just don’t touch anything.” Momma peeks once more around the doorway, wrinkling up her nose.
“See?” I hold out the spoon. “You scoop first, and then you eat it.”
She stares down at her Chocolate Swirl and then sticks a long, skinny gray finger in it and pulls it out again.
I scoop up another big mouthful and focus in on Momma and Daddy’s hushed voices in the next room. Although I can’t make out the words so well, there is no mistaking the way they’re spoken.
Harsh tones hurl back and forth.
Sharp and biting.
Rigid and angry.
It makes the Chocolate Swirl churn inside my belly.
Once in a while some words sneak out of the whispers and reach my ears. Words like Army Air Force and Mac Brazel and even the Battle of Los Angeles.
“Stay here,” I tell the Moontian. “I’m going to go and listen. I know that seems like the wrong thing to do here, but if I didn’t listen when I wasn’t supposed to, I’d never know a single thing that goes on around here.”
She blinks her glassy black eyes at me and then stares back down at her bowl of ice cream, sticking in another finger to touch the chocolate part of the Chocolate Swirl.
“It’s cold,” I tell her. “But it tastes good. I mean, it’s no Peppermint Bonbon, but it’s still ice cream. Momma got Chocolate Swirl ’cause it was on sale this week even though Peppermint Bonbon is way better. But you can’t taste it unless you put it in your mouth…unless your tasters are in your suction cups. Which I guess they could be, huh?”
She doesn’t even wrinkle up her forehead this time ’cause she’s so focused on the bowl in front of her.
“Wait here,” I say again. “I’ll be back.”
I slip out of my seat and creep over to the doorway to listen.
Momma is crying.
I know it on account of the sniffling.
“I thought we were done with all this,” she’s saying. “You promised me you were done with all this.”
“I didn’t bring that thing here, Luce,” Daddy tells her. “It’s here because of Mylo.”
“And you don’t think that has anything to do with you? They called you out to the desert today, didn’t they?”
“They needed my help,” he says.
“Well, you could have said no,” she tells him. “Now look what’s happened. I want you to get that thing out of here. Who knows what kind of interstellar germs it’s carrying into this house?”
I hear Daddy blow ai
r out of his mouth in a blast and after he does, his words come out softer and slower. “You know I can’t call the base and tell them she’s here,” he says. “They will do the very same thing they did the last time. That’s exactly why I left the service. I didn’t agree with how they were treating these…these beings. You said you agreed with that decision, remember? What makes you think they won’t do the same thing to these little people again? Right now the Army Air Force believes all the creatures are dead except the one they brought to the base hospital. They don’t know about this one. And if I’m the one to tell them…can you imagine what will happen to us? I’m sorry, I won’t do that. She stays…at least until I can figure out what to do. I don’t understand you, Luce.” Daddy’s voice softens even more. “You’re the first person to give someone a hand when they need it. How is this any different? They need our help.”
“It’s Mylo,” she says. “What if…I just can’t…lose him, too—”
“You won’t,” Daddy tells her. “I promise you.”
Silence.
A floorboard creaks underneath my foot.
Momma’s voice snaps sharp. “Mylo!”
I scramble on my tiptoes back to my seat at the table, almost sliding clear off my chair and onto the floor.
The Moontian is still staring at her ice cream, but now she has it all over all her fingers as she mushes it between them. Just like Baby Kay likes to do.
“You don’t play with it,” I tell her. “You eat it. Like this.” I shovel in a big, cold spoonful. “In your mouth, see?” I open up my mouth to show her.
“Mylo?” Momma peeks her head around the corner.
I snap my mouth closed, swallow down my Chocolate Swirl, and wide-eye her.
“I—I wasn’t listening.”
“Mylo?” Momma’s voice is stern.
I lower my chin in my chest
“I was listening.”
She just sighs and shakes her head.
July 8, 1947—1:30 p.m.
Maybe Jor-El McRoostershire the Third doesn’t know it yet. Or even Pitch or any of the other animals in the field. But the world will never be the same. Not just because a real live Moontian from outer space is living in our house, but also because it’s the first time in history that the Army Air Force tells the world we aren’t alone.
July 8, 1947 Roswell Daily Record
RAAF CAPTURES FLYING SAUCER ON RANCH IN ROSWELL REGION
The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.
But it’s hearing the morning news on KGFL Radio out of Roswell that changes absolutely everything.
“Headline Edition July eighth, nineteen forty-seven. The Army Air Forces has announced a flying disk has been found and is now in the possession of the Army. Army officers say the missile found sometime last week has been inspected in Roswell, New Mexico, and sent to Wright Field, Ohio, for further inspection….”
I place my hand on Daddy’s arm. He’s come in early from the field for lunch and stays longer than normal, reading and rereading the newspaper article about the captured disk while he mumbles to himself and shakes his head.
“Daddy,” I say. “They took him? They took him to Wright Field?”
He shakes his head again. “Not yet—the transfer is set for Friday.”
“They can’t take him there. They just can’t.”
Dibs was a no-show for breakfast, and he’s not here for lunch, either. The Moontian is picking up the pieces of fried chicken that Baby Kay flings off the side of her high chair and setting them back on top for her. Then Baby Kay screeches a high-pitched giggle, claps her tiny hands, and throws another piece over the side.
Baby Kay didn’t need hardly any time to figure out that the Moontian is okay by her. Baby Kay hasn’t learned yet that if you look different you aren’t okay. Babies are that way. Full of love no matter who you are.
“I’m not sure there’s much we can do about that,” Daddy tells me.
“Momma says that about Dibs, too, but I don’t understand why we can’t do more,” I say.
Daddy pulls his ostrich head from the red New Mexico dirt for a moment and meets my eyes.
The telephone rings on the side table in the hall.
“Hello?” Momma says into the receiver.
Baby Kay screeches again and claps her hands. “Oonton! Oonton! Mo! Mo!”
“Yes, Mrs. Manuela,” Momma says. “Of course, yes…yes, we will be there. Pardon me? The Battle of Los Angeles?” Momma shoots Daddy a couple of eye daggers left over from their private talk in the sitting room last night. “No, I don’t think I’ve heard of that.”
Momma listens some more while Daddy goes back to his paper.
“A weather balloon?” Momma asks. “You don’t say. Well, the Army Air Force isn’t saying anything about a weather balloon this time, are they? A capture of a real flying disk is in black-and-white now for all the world to see. Yes…yes. We will see you then. Thank you for calling.” Momma places the receiver back in its cradle.
“What was that all about?” Daddy asks without looking up.
“She says she’s been trying to get through for hours. The phone wires are jammed and Mary Anne Kane, the telephone operator in town, says there are calls coming in from all over the world to the base and the newspaper and the radio station, wanting more information about that flying disk.” Momma sighs. “But she phoned to say that Father Kevin has called a special church meeting later today to talk about what’s being reported in the papers. Mrs. Manuela said there are a lot of people feeling uneasy about this being a sign it’s the end of the world.”
Daddy’s eyes meet mine again and I watch him roll them to the ceiling and back down.
And then…he smiles.
Not just any smile.
That bright white one.
The one where I can see that his one front tooth laps just a smidge over the other front one. It’s the smile he used to smile while he strummed the guitar on the porch or was fielding balls on the field we built together out back. He’s an even better fielder than Clark Kent because he can actually catch them before they hit the ground.
It’s been a long while since I’ve seen that smile. I’ve seen the straight-lipped one for folks at church, but not this one. This smile gives you the feeling that everything will be okay. No matter what.
I smile, too.
He leans in close to me. “If they met her”—he motions toward the Moontian—“they wouldn’t be carrying on about all that nonsense, now, would they?”
“Yaaaay!” Baby Kay cheers.
I watch the Moontian hiding behind Baby Kay’s high chair, every few seconds peeking her watermelon-sized head around one side and then the other to surprise the baby.
Baby Kay screeches and claps her hands each time. “Oonton! Oonton! Mo! Mo!”
I turn back to Daddy. “No,” I tell him. “They sure wouldn’t.”
July 8, 1947—3:00 p.m.
After lunch, Momma, Daddy, Baby Kay, and I all pile into Daddy’s truck and head over to pick up Dibs. I leave the Moontian up in my bedroom with a stack of comic books. On the way to Butte Rise and Shine Pig and Poultry, Daddy tells me I’d better keep quiet about the Moontian for now.
“Even to Dibs?” I ask.
He looks over at Momma, who’s trying to sway Baby Kay’s curls in one particular direction. Baby Kay isn’t sitting still for it. “No! No! No!” The baby shakes her head.
“He’s family,” Momma says. “There’s no way to keep it from him.”
“For now, let’s keep it between us,” he says.
What Daddy means to say is on account of Dibs’s big mouth, he could get us all in some big trouble. I heard Momma and Daddy through the floor last night after we all went
to bed and the Moontian went back out to her fence post to talk to the moon. Daddy said this was top-level security clearance kind of information and none of us should have it.
The thing is…Dibs isn’t just anyone. He’s my best friend in the whole entire universe.
Even if he has the biggest mouth in all the land.
I want to tell Daddy I can’t make any promises, but I stay quiet instead.
I pull a comb through my Brylcreemed hair in front of Daddy’s rearview mirror, checking to make sure the side part and the comb marks are straight while Daddy bounces the truck up the dirt road toward Butte Rise and Shine Pig and Poultry to pick Dibs up for a special Tuesday church meeting called by Father Kevin. Momma rang him earlier to let him know we’d be coming for him.
We smell pig stink when we hit the halfway mark.
Daddy pulls up the drive, sets the brake, and climbs out to fetch Dibs while I pull at the collar of a fresh Sunday shirt wind-dried out on the line.
I’m already melting in the sun.
“Stop messing with it,” Momma warns.
“It itches me,” I complain.
But she’s still too busy trying to find a direction to comb Baby Kay’s flyaway curls while the baby wrestles for her freedom.
“No omb! No omb!” Baby Kay demands, shaking her head from side to side.
While Daddy stands at the front door of Dibs’s house, a loud engine roars up the drive behind us, and through the back window of our truck, I see Mr. Butte pulling up in his rusty Ford pickup.
“Uh-oh,” I mutter under my breath. “He’s home.”
“Mrs. Manuela had plenty to say about him this morning, too,” Momma whispers to me. “She said they finally had to just throw him out of Jake’s bar last night and he ended up sleeping on a bench out front.”
“He left Dibs home alone all night?” I ask.
Momma stays quiet.
Mr. Butte pulls up next to us with a real ugly scowl stuck to his face.
The ugliest.
“Uh-oh,” I say again. “He looks mad.”
The Truth About Martians Page 14
