His Little Earthling

by Katie Douglas

  “Okay, I’ll give school a try,” Sarah conceded. “I only have one more question.”

  “Ask away.”

  “If your tablet does everything ever, why do you still have to go to an office to work?”

  “Because I have a lot of artefacts and other junk and it would clutter up the apartment. We use tablets now but people didn’t for thousands of years in the past. Plus I get a bit… involved in my work. I like to have a separation so I can put it down and come home at the right time. So I work in an office. But it’s down to personal preference; some people work at home, others prefer an office. Most jobs are pretty flexible about things like that.”

  “With the exception of waitressing?” Sarah observed. Ral grinned and nodded.

  “That’d be some mighty strange restaurant, if the waitresses worked from home,” he agreed, then cast his mind back to Concept Restaurants. Concept Restaurants had been a fad amongst Nidians with a lot of money, who had enjoyed the idea of spending time in a restaurant, but hadn’t had the time to actually go to one. An online company had cashed in on this, by sending waitresses, chefs, menus, restaurant furniture, and ambient music to people’s homes, where busy diners experienced the concept of a restaurant without putting their work down.

  It had been a great idea until Froufrou, the most expensive and exclusive restaurant on Nidia, had taken it all one step too far; they would appear with all the dining accoutrements, but to give people the true experience of Froufrou, they set up in people’s homes then turned the homeowners away from their own dining rooms, citing being too busy to accommodate them, before seating a large group of noisy businessmen. Other restaurants were keen to keep up with Froufrou, so they followed suit. Soon, diners got fed up of the authentic dining experience and went back to ordering takeout, and Concept Restaurants disappeared once more.

  It was about as close as waitressing had ever gotten to having a work from home option.

  “C’mon, little one, it’s time to put you to bed, so you can be up early to get your chip. I’ll take the morning off work to come to the council with you.”

  “Seriously, you still have councils in the future?” Sarah moaned. Ral sighed.

  “Someone has to run Minos Kerala city,” he explained.

  “I’m amazed no one’s invented a tablet that does it.” She yawned deeply. He followed her to the bathroom and showed her the features.

  “Where do I brush my teeth?” Sarah looked around the room.

  “At the sink. I don’t use a toothbrush. The mouthwash has plaque-destroying enzymes in it, then you just rinse a few times and your teeth are clean.”

  “Why do you have two showers?”

  “That one’s a shower; this one on the right is a drying unit. You stand in it and it makes you dry after you’ve washed.”

  “But you still have towels. I’ve got one on my bed from the doctor’s office. Why do you have this drying unit as well?”

  “Personal preference. Same reason some people have a bathtub and a shower cubicle. I just like them both. One feature my drying unit has, which you might enjoy, is this little compartment, just here, in which you can pour oils, and it will diffuse the oil so you can moisturize as you dry off.” He opened a four-inch square door on the side of the drying machine and showed her where to put body oil. It was a new feature, only found in the latest drying units, and he thought she might like it. He knew that people of the past had used oils to perfume and hydrate their bodies; she would probably find it comforting to know that the future had kept some of the best parts of the past. The idea of rubbing Sarah all over with some exotically scented oil made him blink rapidly to try to stay focused.

  “Neat. Do you have a bathtub?” Sarah looked around expectantly, like one might be hidden under the floor tiles or something. Ral smiled and shook his head.

  “I never had a use for one until now. If you’re staying a while, I’ll look into getting one if you want. I’ve got the space.”

  The look on Sarah’s face was precious; a golden smile of awe and wonder. Then she frowned.

  “I don’t want to be any trouble.” She colored red as she said it. Ral realized she’d never ask for a bathtub. He made up his mind then and there that he was going to get a bathtub installed for her. He put her to bed after she’d washed up, then he went to his own room and fell asleep within minutes, contented for the first time in years.

  Chapter Five

  After a busy morning waiting in line at the council for Sarah’s new chip, followed by a long talk in the principal’s office at the Minos Kerala Academy for Adults, Sarah was led to her first class of the afternoon; art. She felt self-conscious since she was wearing one of Ral’s shirts, which came to her knees. The sleeves were rolled back and she’d found something to use as a belt but no one else was wearing an oversized man’s dress shirt and sparkly red shoes to class; they all had neat uniforms. She felt quite anxious being separated from Ral until she saw Laila stood behind an easel.

  “Class, this is Sarah Bryan. She’s just started today, so I want you all to make sure she is welcome,” the principal said. Sarah was keen to avoid all the attention, so as soon as it seemed appropriate, she scuttled to the empty easel beside Laila.

  “Hey, you’re here!” Laila declared.

  “Yup.” Sarah confirmed the obvious. She couldn’t think of anything witty to add, so she examined the shelf under her easel instead. It was covered in dried-on blobs of paint and held a palette, several brushes, and a selection of pencils. Sarah felt distinctly uneasy being here.

  Sarah hadn’t taken art since she was in high school, when she had failed it. Her imaginativeness produced Technicolor horses, back-to-front portraits, and Escher-like impossible landscapes. The teacher’s idea of creativity was to draw things exactly the way they looked, or to copy some other artist’s style, with grades usually dished out based on how much something looked like something else. Unfortunately, the teacher’s word was final. Sarah had found refuge amongst math and science, where the facts were irrefutable, provable, and not subject to interpretation.

  All the programs of study at the Minos Kerala Academy required a common first year where students took a broad range of subjects at an appropriate level, as Sarah had been told by the principal this morning. Being faced with mandatory art classes was her personal idea of hell, and she wouldn’t have agreed to go back to school so readily if she’d known this would be on the timetable. She didn’t like getting graded on things that were so subjective.

  The art teacher arrived and addressed the group. Sarah quickly looked at her new timetable, and saw the woman’s name was Miss Juniper.

  “Class, it’s time for us to choose a new topic. I want to show you a movie, so you can get an idea about your next piece of work.”

  To Sarah’s surprise, Miss Juniper turned her tablet sideways and it projected a film onto the wall of the classroom, automatically adjusting itself so they didn’t need to close the blinds or turn off the lights.

  The film showed snippets of Andy Warhol, Natalia Goncharova, Henri Matisse, and M.C. Escher, along with Salvador Dali and Frida Kahlo. When it finished, the teacher addressed the class again.

  “Your task is to produce a project that brings together some element of Earth’s twentieth-century art and something from our modern times. You will need to research, plan, and write out your reasons for doing your work the way that you chose, and the hand-in date is four weeks from now.”

  Everyone around her started work. To her surprise and terror, Sarah found herself putting her hand up to ask a question.

  “Miss, how can I find out about modern art?” she asked. Miss Juniper wound her way between easels to talk to Sarah.

  “We are going on a field trip to an art gallery next week, but otherwise, look online if you want to start earlier. If it’s too much to learn all at once, do a project linking twentieth and twenty-first-century art instead. You should have a head start on that; what I’m looking for is whether you can produce
something new using specific styles that appeal to you.”

  Sarah nodded. This class wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  The bureaucracy of the council offices had taken up most of the day, so Sarah’s only other class this afternoon was science. Laila had something else, so Sarah had to find the room on her own. She went inside the classroom with some trepidation. It was a standard chemistry lab, with perhaps a little more glassware in it than Sarah would have expected. The teacher, Mr. Tarik, didn’t seem very interested in Sarah’s arrival and instead went straight into a demonstration of an endothermic reaction. While she was staring at a pink liquid bubbling in a conical flask, a thought occurred to her: How did Miss Juniper know Sarah was from the past so quickly? News surely traveled fast around this school.

  * * *

  When the bell rang, Sarah went outside and saw Laila perched on the safety rail around the ramp that led to the main door.

  “Hey, I’m waiting for my daddy to pick me up,” Laila greeted her. Sarah hopped up beside her.

  “Aren’t you bored?” she asked. Laila shook her head.

  “I’m thinking about all the things I’ll tell my daddy when I see him,” she explained.

  “Really? That’s how you think? If I were waiting here on my own, I’d find something to do. Climb a tree, find a shop to look around, whatever I wanted.”

  “This city’s dangerous. You can’t just go off without someone knowing where you are,” Laila said.

  “I don’t buy it. This place is like a giant holiday resort. I went to college in New York. You want danger? That place had it in spades. I didn’t care, I still went out for walks on my own late at night.”

  “I got kidnapped in Minos Kerala once. I’d only left my hotel room to get a hot chocolate from the vending machine.” Laila spoke in a soft voice. As Laila recounted her story, Sarah decided that Minos Kerala was only dangerous for people who had drawn the attention of gangsters.

  “So… anyway, what classes do we have together?” Sarah asked, changing the subject before she inadvertently said anything that might hurt Laila’s feelings. Clearly, Laila thought Minos Kerala was dangerous and Sarah didn’t want to argue with her.

  On their tablets, they pulled up their timetables and compared them.

  “We have art together.” Laila pointed to the square on her timetable.

  “Did you color code your classes?” Sarah looked at the fluorescence of it. Some things were the same around the universe, apparently. Laila nodded shyly.

  “I like colors,” she smiled, still looking at the timetables. After staring at Sarah’s timetable for a long minute, Laila put her finger to the tablet and seemed to be using it to read. Sarah decided to help her out.

  “You take completely different classes to me, except art. It’s a shame you’re not taking any science subjects.” Sarah saw Laila’s face fall, then regretted saying anything.

  “I’m mostly in kindergarten. I’ve got a lot of remedial classes for literature and math, as well as regular play therapy sessions. There wasn’t much room for optional subjects.” Laila looked at her timetable sadly.

  “They’ll have frequent progress tests, though, right? So they’ll put you in regular classes when you pass them. Unless school here is totally different to what I knew.” Sarah tried to reassure Laila, whose face seemed to brighten again.

  “You think? I never went to high school before, so I wasn’t sure.”

  Sarah didn’t know what Laila’s entire story was, and she didn’t really want to pry, but Laila was slightly odd; she never seemed to think of things that were perfectly normal. Although Sarah was from three hundred years ago, she thought Laila seemed even more old-fashioned in a lot of ways; she didn’t seem all that stupid to talk to, but she couldn’t read very well or do basic math. Laila was patient, though, and was the only person Sarah had met who didn’t find it funny when Sarah got confused by her own tablet, which was often. All things considered, Sarah decided she liked Laila.

  “Well, if you need any help at all, just let me know. I was a straight-A student at school.” Sarah remembered there was a reason she’d been enrolled in the academy again, and wondered if she’d get good grades any time in the near future. High school literature and math couldn’t have changed much though, surely.

  “Thanks, sometimes I can’t catch up with all the homework. Ooh, that’s my daddy! See you later, Sarah!” Laila skipped off toward Basil, and Sarah was left on her own. She was a little bored waiting to be collected, and after a few minutes, she decided to walk home, since it wasn’t very far and the weather was so nice.

  The street was leafy. In this area, huge hanging baskets were suspended from the sides of buildings, giving the impression that the trees were floating far above the street level. The sunlight dappled through the trees and Sarah watched the occasional flying car hover down the road as she strolled along. At the end of the road, she stared around, wondering which way to go next, but the features were unfamiliar. This was such a bad idea, she wondered if she should return to the academy and wait for her daddy to collect her. Determined to get the hang of the layout of Minos Kerala city, she stubbornly set her jaw and turned left, figuring she could always return to this crossroads if she didn’t recognize anything further down.

  Walking further and further from the school, turning occasionally when things started to look half-familiar, Sarah finally had to admit she was lost. How could she fix this?

  Her tablet buzzed and she pulled it out. Ral was trying to get in touch. She ignored it, wanting to get back to him when she wasn’t failing at simple directions. Maybe if she’d taken a right instead of a left at that last junction?

  She was walking back to the offending left turn when her tablet buzzed again. Why couldn’t he just give her time to solve this? She was sure the right way was around here somewhere. Instead of letting it time out, she hit ‘reject’ on the tablet’s screen and kept walking.

  “He just doesn’t know when to quit!” Sarah complained, as her tablet started buzzing again. Perhaps answering wasn’t the worst idea ever?

  “What?” she snapped, as she hit accept. Ral’s face went from concerned to angry in a nanosecond, as Sarah realized this was the worst idea ever, after all.

  “Where in the world are you? I’m outside the academy and you’re not there!”

  “I wanted to walk home,” Sarah replied, rolling her eyes. Why was he making such a big deal out of this?

  “So where are you?”

  “Um… maybe a few blocks away?” she hazarded, having no idea whatsoever. He didn’t need to know that.

  “A few blocks away from what?”

  “A few… blocks… away… from… uh… stuff?” Sarah imagined her conscience was sitting on her shoulder right now doing the slow sarcastic clap. She had blatantly messed up.

  “Street name. Give me a street name.”

  Sarah looked around the intersection.

  “Corner of Grandle and Kal-El Street.”

  “I’m going to come and get you. Don’t move from that exact spot.”

  “What if someone’s coming down the street in a wheelchair or something?” Sarah asked.

  “Don’t be facetious, young lady, you’re in enough trouble for walking off like that.” He ended the conversation and her screen returned to its pinky-purple background.

  Was it really a good idea to stand still and let a grumpy daddy come and get her? Sarah was sure he was furious with her. Turning around, she set off down Grandle Street in the hope that she’d find her bearings again soon. Unfortunately, about five hundred feet down the road, the surface of the street changed from the usual shiny black to a weird brownish stone, looking more like sandstone than anything else. It was definitely not the way home. Sarah thought this part of town looked more like parts of New York than anything else. Intrigued, despite knowing that she didn’t live in this part of town, she wanted to look around.

  A couple of men were walking in the opposite direction, and wh
en Sarah tried to move aside, they copied her, stopping her from getting out of the way.

  “Excuse me, I’d like to pass.” She didn’t know what else to say; maybe if she acted like everything was fine then it would be.

  One of them reached out and stroked his hand up and down her neck. She tried not to cringe.

  “No collar, baby. You’re fair game,” he leered at her, and Sarah closed her eyes. Ral had even warned her about this when he had spanked her for running away from the tentacle monster.

  “I think she’s into you!” the other one laughed. Sarah realized she didn’t even know if there was anything like 911 here.

  “Leave me alone. I just want to walk.” She felt ineffective against this ridiculous situation.

  “We’re not stopping you. Are we stopping her walking?” The man stepped closer, his hand still touching her skin. She felt repulsed by him.

  The quiet hum of a flying car got louder, and pulled up alongside them. Sarah hoped they weren’t going to make her go with them, but to her surprise, the passenger got out and attacked the two men, who were dwarfed by his stature. She realized it was Ral as he kicked the man closest to him.

  “Hey, man, chill out! We were only being friendly,” one of the harassers whined as Ral elbowed him in the stomach.

  “Put a fucking collar on your property, asshole!” the other wheezed from where he was doubled over on the pavement.

  “Either of you so much as walk on the same side of the fucking street as my little girl, and I’ll hunt you down, y’hear me?” Ral turned to Sarah, who opened her mouth to speak. “Get in the car right now, young lady, you are in big trouble.”

  Sarah got in and sat down on the single wide seat that could accommodate three average-sized people. Ral squeezed in beside her and set the navigation for their apartment.

  “I’m sorry, I just wanted to see what was there, this area looked so interesting, I—” she began, but Ral cut her off.