The Drake Equation

by Bart King

  THE LEADERSHIP KIDS (Cooperativus adolescentia)

  APPEARANCE: A tight-knit group of four student-body officers.

  VOICES: Confident and sincere.

  PLUMAGE: Varies. Tends toward bright, neon themes.

  RANGE: Extremely mobile.

  SOCIAL BEHAVIOR: Most members have good interpersonal skills and work well with others.

  STATUS: Elected by fellow students, indicating either they have high status—or nobody else wanted their jobs.

  Rainbow-T-Shirt Girl looked up from her fern. “The day after that power pole broke, our leadership group went on a field trip to the Hand Fan Museum. And that’s where Nyla spotted that.” She pointed to the blue quincunx in Sanjay’s hand.

  This is totally unbelievable! “So you’re saying there’s a whole museum just for hand fans?”

  “Yep.” Nyla walked over to the pool. Balancing on a jutting rock, she leaned over the water. “I found our Thingy under a palm frond.”

  “‘Thingy’?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” said Knit-Hat Boy. “We figured out how to use it on the bus ride home. So we call it the ‘Cooperative Thingy’—or just Thingy.”

  Nyla held out her hands. “Hey, Sanjay, can you please pass the Thingy over here?”

  Sanjay wound up, cocked back his robot arm, and threw their Thingy. The glittering blue disc flashed through the air. It was obvious that Sanjay had a good arm but bad aim. Instead of going to Nyla, it hit the rock next to her—

  —then, somehow, the Thingy bounced softly off the rock, landing gently in Nyla’s hand.

  “Whoa!”

  “We learned it could do that when I accidentally knocked it off a desk.” Nyla tossed the Thingy up and down in her palm. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  Knit-Hat Boy was impatient. “Anyway, where’s yours? Sanjay said you were using it in the bathroom. Or do you even really have one?”

  I should’ve been more careful, but that little squirt made me mad. So I yanked my quincunx from my pocket, and held it out. “See?”

  So yeah, I showed him. (No, really. I showed him.)

  The kids all leaned forward and “oohed.” Even Knit-Hat Boy was impressed.

  “So yours is green and purple,” Rainbow-T-Shirt Girl said.

  “I call it the quincunx,” I said. “That’s the word for the pattern of five holes on its back.”

  “Hey, our Thingy has those too,” said Sanjay. “When we put our fingers in the back—”

  “Dude!” interrupted Knit-Hat Boy. “Let’s not tell him everything.” He looked at me. “So, Noah, have you ever gotten in trouble for using your ‘quincunx’?”

  Knit-Hat Boy’s tone was so innocent, it made me wonder. Why isn’t he acting snotty? What’s going on here? Over at the pool, I saw that Nyla had her hands poised over the Thingy—like she was ready to select a command.

  I realized the obvious. This is an ambush!

  Were they going to jump me and try to take my quincunx? Or was Nyla going to use a Thingy menu choice against me?

  I was in a tough spot. If I lied about getting in trouble, that could be used against me (and all of humankind) in T’wirpo’s report. But if I told the truth, Nyla might zap me with her Cooperative Thingy!

  “Um, there’ve been some hiccups. But overall, finding the quincunx has been…a positive experience,” I said unconvincingly.

  Nyla looked impressed. “I don’t know what he just said, but Noah should be in leadership class.”

  “So you haven’t wrecked stuff or broken laws with it?” Man, Knit-Hat Boy didn’t give up easily.

  “Why would I do that?” I asked in a way that hopefully sounded like No, I haven’t broken the law.

  Sanjay exhaled loudly, and Nyla relaxed and set the Thingy down on the rock beside her. Knit-Hat Boy looked disappointed, though.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We just had to be sure,” Nyla said, like it was totally obvious.

  So these are the good guys? There had been a lot of trouble in Santa Rosa the last few days. It seemed the leadership kids’ suspicions had fallen on me. And since they were all about sharing, a person who used a quincunx all by himself must have seemed shady.

  “You seem okay, Noah,” said Sanjay in his froggy voice. Behind him, Nyla’s handlebar streamers fluttered suddenly in the wind. “I think you should join us.”

  “Huh? But he wasn’t even elected!” protested Knit-Hat Boy. “Besides, he could be a spy or something.”

  “I’m not a spy,” I said.

  Knit-Hat Boy pointed at me. “Aha! That’s exactly what a spy would say!” Then, seeing that the other leadership kids weren’t convinced, he tried a different angle. “Okay, so say Noah did join us. But why? Besides having that quincunx, what’s so special about him?”

  Mentally, I ticked off a list of things that made me unique.

  —I can use chopsticks.

  —Sometimes I’ll drop my pencil and then catch it before it hits the floor.

  —I’m excellent at identifying bird species.

  —I know how to play air hockey.

  Okay, so it wasn’t much of a list. I looked at the group in front of me. Yes, Knit-Hat Boy was annoying, but they all seemed trustworthy. And these kids needed to know the most important thing about their device.

  “Let’s worry about who’s on whose team later,” I said. “Right now, I have to tell you where your Thingy came from.”

  “Aliens!” yelled Rainbow-T-Shirt Girl.

  I ducked my head and looked around. “Where?”

  “She means that aliens made these,” explained Sanjay. “They want to destroy us and take our planet.”

  “Or they want to enslave us and take our planet,” said Knit-Hat Boy.

  “Or they might want to eat us!” chimed in Nyla. “And then take our planet.”

  T’wirpo never said anything about this stuff. “How do you know they want to take the planet? Who told you?”

  Rainbow-T-Shirt Girl said, “There was a message on—”

  “Nobody needed to tell us,” interrupted Knit-Hat Boy. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. People couldn’t have made these. No matter what the aliens do, we’ll be ready.”

  “So you guys are like a team of little…survivalists?” I asked.

  All four nodded.

  Oh boy. I really need to talk to T’wirpo!

  “WOW, WE HAVE A LOT TO TALK ABOUT.” I made a point of looking at Sanjay’s wristwatch. “But first, I need to take a short walk and call home.”

  “Sure thing.” Nyla nodded to Knit-Hat Boy. “But Ricky’ll go with you. Things aren’t safe right now.”

  What does that mean? I wondered, walking over to the trailhead that led down to my neighborhood. Shadowing me was my fourth-grade bodyguard, Ricky, armed with a knit hat.

  “So, Ricky,” I said, trying to be friendly, “what did you get elected to?”

  Ricky picked up a small dead branch and held it in front of him, one hand at each end. “Class secretary,” he said, and on the second word, he snapped the branch in two. He threw the broken pieces away and gave me a look, like Try anything funny and I’ll mess you up.

  Ricky was standing uncomfortably close to me. “Look, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to run off.”

  “Yeah?” asked Ricky skeptically. “Well I believe in keeping my friends close—and my enemies closer.”

  Sheesh! “Wow, I bet your birthday parties are real fun.”

  Ricky ignored that, but he did wander off a short distance away looking for other sticks to break. As soon as he did, I turned my back and tried the “five-finger rhythm” trick on my quincunx. I tapped the screen and quickly got it up to my ear before the “Greetings!” song could start.

  “T’wirpo!” I whisper-shouted as the connection was made. “I just met a group of kids who have their own quincunx. Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?”

  “This is a bolt from the blue!” T’wirpo said. “I had sus-pecte
d one of my classmates of pilfering my quincunxes—”

  “Well, these Earth kids figured out how to use theirs pretty fast,” I said quietly. “Look, they haven’t communicated with you, have they? It sounded like they got a message.”

  “No, not from me.” Pause. “My hope is that the little earthlings have used their device’s Adeptness menu but nothing more.”

  So aliens aren’t going to destroy humankind after all.

  “That’s a relief, T’wirpo. Those kids thought—well, never mind what they thought. I was just worried we were in trouble, after you said we’re one of the worst species in the whole galaxy.”

  Through a gap in the trees, a large, dark, long-winged bird flew past. Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura), I thought absently. “I mean, I was just starting to feel positive about things here.”

  “Agreed. Let us think in a positive manner, No-ah.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “As I wrote in my project report, you humans are the best at what you do. No other life-form—not even the Brain Spiders of Mingrop—has ever driven more species on its own home planet to extinction.”

  “Um…”

  “You are the champions of thinking of no one but yourselves. For pollution, you win top honors. For destruction, none are your equal—”

  “Hang on, hang on,” I said. “Sure, we have our problems. But we can’t be worse than the Ice Lampreys!” I didn’t even know what those were, but they sounded horrible.

  “The Lampreys are pretty bad,” T’wirpo admitted.

  “I know humans have made some big mistakes,” I said. “But we—I mean, my whole species—are still learning how to be responsible. Just look at me! It took me a while to learn how to use the quincunx.”

  “I believe your species is in a race between your best and worst impulses. And it faces so many questions. For example, can humans survive long enough to colonize outer space?”

  “That sounds good.”

  “It does not sound good to everyone. You see, humans would infest the galaxy.”

  An infestation of humans? “T’wirpo, if your project results aren’t positive, and I—you—we—flunk this ethical test, will it affect your grade?”

  “No. My project’s results are what is important.”

  “Good. So if I flunk, it’s not the end of the world.”

  “Not exactly. But your low ethical score would add to the evidence for the removal of humans. Many are watching. So please continue behaving as you have been—”

  “‘Removal’? Wait, what are you saying?” Hearing footsteps running toward me, I paused. “Hang on, T’wirpo.” My bodyguard was waving his boney arms around to get my attention. “What’s up, Ricky?”

  “Noah, we have to go back! Come on!” Ricky sprinted up the trail, back to the waterfall.

  “T’wirpo? Hello, T’wirpo?” Nothing. I looked at the quincunx, and the screen had disappeared. Did “removal” mean extermination? But T’wirpo said all life is precious and should be protected. Plus, talk about pressure. The way T’wirpo described it, this could be the end of my world…and everyone in the galaxy was watching me!

  On top of that, the leadership kids were having some kind of emergency. But whatever it was, it couldn’t be more important than my news.

  My binocs bumped on my chest as I ran after Ricky.

  * * *

  The fourth graders were facing me as I burst into the clearing.

  “You guys,” I panted, “you’re half-right. There are aliens, but they don’t want to take over the Earth. This is all a test! And we’re failing it—”

  Nobody was listening. They were looking up at the sky behind me.

  “Noah, can’t you smell it?” asked Nyla, pointing.

  A thick column of smoke rose above the trees at the trailhead. My heart lurched as I realized what I was seeing. The extermination program has already begun! I reached for my scar.

  “Is it the aliens?” asked Nyla. “Or is it…her?” The kids shared a scared look. Even Ricky shuddered.

  “Who’s ‘her’?” I demanded.

  “‘Her’ is the reason we worried about you,” said Sanjay. “‘Her’ is probably who made that power pole by your friend’s house fall down.”

  “Plus, her—I mean she—is the one who started that earthquake,” said Rainbow-T-Shirt Girl.

  I stared. “The earthquake?”

  “Yes, the earthquake. Maybe you noticed it?” Ricky was annoyed, but that seemed to be his permanent state. “We know she started it, because we stopped it. And we’re telling you, aliens want to take over the planet—and they’re using people like her to help them.”

  “If we don’t stop her,” cried Nyla, “she’ll destroy us all!” The other kids looked a little embarrassed. “Okay, sorry about that. Drama class makes me overdo it sometimes.”

  “But who is it we’re talking about?” I asked.

  “Hi, kids,” said a voice from behind us. We whirled around—but nobody was there.

  A familiar sound rang out. You know the Lord of the Rings movie? There’s a part where drumbeats roll out, and they sound like “DOOM…DOOM…DOOM.”

  That’s what we were hearing. “DOOM…DOOM…DOOM.”

  THE WIND CHANGED DIRECTION AND my eyes stung as the air grew gray with smoke. The leadership group huddled closer to Nyla. Grim-faced, she had their Thingy out, ready. Meanwhile, DOOM, DOOM, DOOM kept sounding from somewhere above us.

  I scanned the trees. “I’m guessing this isn’t an orc attack,” I whispered.

  “We wish,” said Sanjay.

  Something high up in the branches moved. I lifted my binocs—

  A girl?

  She was perched about fifty feet up on the branch of an evergreen tree, with her back to me. And that’s where the loud DOOMs were coming from!

  The girl tapped something round and glittery. The drumbeats stopped. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said. Then she zipped her backpack and leaped into the air.

  “Look out!” I yelled.

  She landed easily in a neighboring tree. In the blink of an eye, the girl was climbing down the trunk—not slowly, hugging the tree and picking her way down, but darting like a squirrel, head down and fast. She was almost dropping, her hands and feet scrambling on the bark, her mane of hair streaming in front of her.

  At the base of the tree, she planted her hands, flipped to her feet, and landed with all her hair flopping over her face.

  “Ugh, I hate it when that happens.” She whipped her head back. Flaming-red locks of hair fell perfectly into place on her shoulders. “Next time, I’ll just braid it.”

  “Anemona!” She was the dreaded “her” the leadership kids were talking about!

  She gave a little shrug and looked over at the fourth graders. “Look how adorable you all are!” Anemona made an exaggerated wave at the smoke in front of her face. “Now, I don’t know if you children noticed, but there’s a fire nearby.”

  “Yeah, I wonder how that started,” said Nyla, sarcastically.

  “I don’t know,” warned Anemona. “But in this heat it’s going to spread awfully fast. And something tells me that the fire department isn’t going to be putting it out.”

  Nyla leaned into the group and everyone whispered. They quickly reached an agreement. Sanjay looked over. “Noah, we’re going to stop that fire. Will you be okay?” He gave Anemona a pointed look.

  “I’m sure everything will be fine,” I said, unruffled. But I was totally faking it. The fact that Anemona was jumping around with her own quincunx was bad enough. On top of that, it seemed her hobbies were starting earthquakes and setting fires.

  And that meant Anemona couldn’t be trusted—especially near the black swifts.

  As the leadership kids trooped down the trail, I heard Nyla call out, “Be careful. There are like, crazy spiderwebs here.”

  Anemona waved good-bye, then put her hands on her hips and looked at me. “So, Noah—we’re alone at last. Hey, you’re the nature expert. Do you kno
w what ‘sciurus’ means?

  I had an idea. “Is it something to do with squirrels?”

  “That’s it!” Anemona raised her eyebrows and looked impressed. “I had to look that one up when I found it on this.” She tapped the quincunx in her bag.

  I have to admit something. You already know I had a crush on Anemona. But when she’d stolen my quincunx, she’d crushed my crush. Yet as she stood there, with the smoke swirling around her, Anemona looked like an angel. So I wondered: Was she really all that bad, or was Anemona more like Coby—just misunderstood?

  I tried to look tough. “Anemona, tell the truth—did you break the telephone pole in front of the Brights’ house?”

  “What? No!” she protested. “Didn’t woodpeckers weaken the wood or something? And why would I do that, anyway?”

  “Okay, okay.” I relaxed a little bit. Call me a sucker, but Anemona’s answer actually sounded sincere. “So you probably didn’t really have anything to do with the earthquake that hit our school either?”

  “Oh, that.” And to my astonishment, Anemona laughed and nodded. “I was in a bad mood. Maybe I felt guilty because of what happened with you and Coby. But mostly, we had a test in math that I didn’t want to take.”

  I buried my face in my hands. “You started an earthquake to get out of a math test? But it was only worth fifteen percent of your grade!”

  “So?” She shrugged. “I only destroyed fifteen percent of the school.”

  That was exactly the kind of attitude that was giving us humans a bad reputation.

  “ANEMONA!” I SAID IN A SHOCKED WHISPER. “Don’t talk like that.” I tried to quickly explain T’wirpo’s project, and how our species was skating on the thin ice of extinction. “See? If we’re not careful, it could mean the end of…everything.”

  “Wow, Noah.” Her face softened in understanding. “It’s like you’re speaking to me from your heart.”

  I nodded, relaxing. Thank goodness. I think I’m getting through to her.

  “But actually, it’s from your butt. The only reason things are messed up right now is because of your alien.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Anemona waved her hand dismissively. “You know, this ‘Zorcha T’wirpo’ character. I heard you in the woods just now, so don’t act like you don’t know what I mean.”