Asimov's SF, August 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Sonya tells Yoolie she's sick. Finally they go home. Yoolie tucks her into bed with Boo and puts that sticky on her neck that's supposed to make her feel better but it won't work this time because she isn't that kind of sick. When Yoolie leaves her room she crawls way back under the bed and gets out her hair ring. She wears it every night now. It feels weird to have her own hair around her own finger. All of a sudden it occurs to her that when she gets adopted she won't have fingers to wear the ring.

  She tells Boo the family story again. “Long long ago before they got us, they knew they were going to get us but we weren't here yet, did you know they went to a class so they could learn how to take care of People hair?"

  "Yes,” says Boo. “I did know.” He always says that. What Sonya says and what Boo says back is like a nursery rhyme.

  Boo is soft and furry. He's a bear. That's an animal that used to be on Earth or on Layayx, she isn't sure which. He's blue, blue Boo, except for white feet and white around his eyes and a shiny black nose. Boo isn't a real bear because there aren't any. But Sonya knows he really is real.

  He says, like always, “Do you like that story, Sonya?"

  Sonya cuddles Boo and whispers to him, “I like that story. It makes me happy."

  "What else, Sonya?” He says her name right. She's the one who taught him.

  "Sad."

  Boo says, “Good girl, Sonya,” so that must be the right word for what she's feeling. She's happy then, she's a good girl, she thinks she can go to sleep.

  But she can't stop thinking about how sometimes People aren't very nice to Alayayxans and Alayayxans aren't very nice to People. People kids stick out their tongues because they can and Alayayxans can't. Alayayxans wave all their hands and feet and they always wear hat things outside because of the sun and they hiss about how disgusting People hair is. Sonya keeps losing her hats. People say the way Alayayxans move is creepy and they try to do it themselves to make fun but they don't have enough feet and their bodies are too thick and it looks really funny. Sonya can do it a little and pretty soon it'll just be how she moves and she won't have to practice and it won't hurt her back.

  Alayayxans call People “twenties” and “fringies” because of fingers and toes, and “hairies” because of hair, and other stuff in their own languages that Sonya can tell isn't very nice. People call Alayayxans “squids” and “flips” and other stuff Sonya doesn't understand even when it's in English or German or French or Mandarin. “Buttheads” she knows is because of their big long mouths that go sort of slanty up and down. That's a really bad word. Axan is a really really bad word, the worst one you can say. The People kid who called Ib Axan butthead and called Sonya Axan-lover that time got expelled, and Yoolie made that sound, kind of like a broken mouse bot, that means an Alayayxan is really really upset and Sonya wanted to beat up that kid but that would just upset Yoolie even more.

  Sonya sits up. Boo says, “It's bedtime, Sonya."

  She ignores him and says into the cooled darkness, “House. Water, please.” What she really wants is mixl. She never had mixl till she came to live here, and at first it was disgusting but now she loves it. But water's the only thing she's allowed to have after bedtime. At first GoPHER couldn't understand most of what she said, but Ib made them practice together. Here it comes now. It's got two flippers wrapped around a little cup of water. That looks silly and she laughs. You can't hurt GoPHER's feelings. She used to be scared of GoPHER but now mostly she's not.

  "House,” she says, just to see. “Mixl, please."

  HI says back, “No, it's too late for mixl.” She knew it would say that. It's programmed to say that. It doesn't mean there won't be any food. GoPHER's still standing there. She remembers she has to say thank you so it'll know to go away. “GoPHER. Thank you,” and GoPHER goes away. Sonya takes a few sips of water.

  The night after the kid said that really really bad thing to Yoolie and made him rattle like that, when she couldn't sleep, Yoolie put one of his big long smooth flipper hands next to her small ugly bumpy one with fingers and he said to her, “Isn't it just marvelous that there are so many kinds of beauty in the universe?"

  That did make Sonya feel good for a while. She said, “I love you."

  It was the first time she ever said that to an Alayayxan. Yoolie turned that greeny color that means they're something like happy. He put all his flipper-hands on her, really soft, and she sat really really still. “I love you, too,” he said to her, and then he said it in his language and she said it after him, “Emanet lor,” and he said she got it right the first time. She didn't tell him she'd been practicing. Then he called her the Alayayxan word for “my child,” something like brigl diaymeni. Yoolie and Ib and Zama don't have any real kids. When Yoolie calls her “my child” Sonya feels real, and that makes her scared and mad and something like happy, but her skin doesn't turn greeny. It will be nice when she can tell what she's feeling by the color of her skin.

  Sonya's getting sleepy. She knows it's safe here to fall asleep but sometimes she still doesn't know it. When she gets adopted and she's like them she'll really really feel safe. She sings an Alayayxan song to Boo and he sings with her. Then Boo starts that People song about the star and they sing it together.

  She's getting sleepy. It's safe here to fall asleep. She runs her tongue back and forth across her teeth. One of them's loose. She falls asleep.

  It's nineteen, fifteen, twelve days till Adoption Day. A bunch of scary things happen. Some are nice and some are not nice and they're all scary.

  Zama and Ib and GoPHER cook a lot and the house smells good and smells weird and Todd tries everything and Sonya tries a couple of things and the mice bots buzz around cleaning up. Pictures of the Alayayxan relatives keep being on the screens and she doesn't know any of them, what if they're mean? There's a huge fire someplace and a huge flood someplace and wars and hungry kids, and what if the judge dies before Adoption Day? There's an earthquake, far faraway but it's the same Earth, and what if the Earth falls apart? Todd gets in trouble at school. Sonya gets the highest marks in the whole class. The hair ring falls apart but she's still got hair so she can make another one but she doesn't. Ten days till Adoption Day.

  Oh.

  Maybe it's in Alayayxan time? Ten Alayayxan days? How long would that be? Maybe it's today and nobody told her. Maybe it's a long long time. Maybe it's never. Maybe it's already happened and she forgot because time's all different and that's why her body's still People. She wiggles her loose corn tooth with her People tongue. She spreads her fingers. Then she wraps her fringie fingers around a bunch of her hair and pulls hard but she doesn't get any.

  Then her tooth comes out, a little bloody white kernel between her two fingers. She wraps it up and puts it under her pillow. She's awake but she pretends she's sleeping when Zama sneaks in and takes the tooth and leaves two red bills, five dollars each, that's ten dollars, she can buy a couple tubes of mixl. What happens to her corn teeth that fall out? She imagines them all in a little box somewhere, grinning. She imagines them in the garbage, growing. Her tongue can just barely feel the pink-white edge of a brand new big tooth like a straw that's going to be right there in the front of her mouth in nine and a half days.

  After Zama leaves the room Sonya gets scared she'll really fall asleep and she'll miss Adoption Day. Very very quiet, she gets up with Boo in her arms but he might make noise so she tucks him back in bed and she tiptoes by herself out of her room and down the hall to where the calendar screen hangs in the air. It's flashing ten days till Adoption Day. She counts. Ten days. “Can't sleep?” says Ib behind her.

  Sonya jumps. Her heart hurts. “How many days?"

  Ib puts many arms around her. “Ten. See?” Ib's pointy flipper points to the little flashing circle.

  "Nine and a half. What kind of days?"

  Ib doesn't get it. Then, “People days. We're here on Earth so it's People time.” Then the flashing circle jumps to the next day because it's the next day now, and they both say, “Nine
days!” and they both laugh.

  While Ib's taking her back to bed, Sonya's half-asleep and she mumbles, “Nine days."

  "Yes,” whispers Ib, rubbing her back and her head. “Nine days."

  "Nine days till we get adopted."

  "Yes."

  "Nine days till we're yours."

  "Oh,” Ib says, “you're already ours."

  "Nine days till we look like you."

  Ib stops and looks down at her. “What do you mean, Sonya?” She likes how Ib says her name. Maybe she'll just keep that.

  "Till almost all our hair falls out and our skin gets your color and we don't have fingers and toes and we have lots of arms and legs and our mouths go like this.” She leans her head back so chchch can see how she squirms her mouth around till it's as slanty as she can make it right now. “Nine days. Right?"

  Ib sets her down. She's done something wrong.

  "Nine days till we turn into Alayayxans!” Sonya yells. “Just like you!"

  Ib says something like, “Ohhhhhh."

  Sonya whispers, “When I get adopted,” and it's nine People days till she turns Alayayxan, and Ib takes her back to bed and sits with her till chchch thinks she falls asleep.

  Eight days. Seven days.

  Something's wrong. Yoolie keeps touching her. Zama wants to brush her hair all the time.

  One day right after school: Scream.

  Something screams like a lost baby, more like a lost big kid, an Alayayxan big kid because it isn't a People voice. Sonya covers her ears. Sonya makes her voice sound sort of like the other voice and they're both wailing. Then the other voice stops but she can't stop and GoPHER brings her her pen, she didn't even know she'd lost it, she wraps both hands around it. She wishes she had her other hands already and she'd wrap all them around it. The pen's thick and quiet now and it's smarter than she is, it knows more than she does. Sonya keeps on wailing and wailing and Zama holds her for a long time smoothing her hair while mice bots whir around their feet, cleaning for company. Sonya's two feet and all Zama's feet make a tangle. She keeps shaking for a long time and Zama holds her for a long time. Another tooth's loose.

  Six days now. There's a bump on her shoulder that's going to be a flipper. There's a place on the side of her knee that's kind of gray and feels different, not soft or smooth or rough. She can scrunch up her mouth so it's almost slanty and Ib tells her don't do that but she can't help it that's how her mouth is now and it's hard to eat so she doesn't eat much and she's not even hungry. Her tummy hurts. Her loose tooth hurts and she wiggles it with her tongue not a pillowy thing yet.

  Zama's making her a dress to wear when they go to see the judge. “Will it fit?"

  "HI knows how big you are.” Zama's feeding the old green too-small and worn-out dress into the copier. Her face and her head are kind of greeny, too. Zama gets that color a lot. Sonya's happy, too, she thinks this is happy, but she doesn't think any of her own skin gets that color. It will, though.

  That used to be Sonya's favorite dress. She didn't mean will it still fit now because I'm bigger. “When the judge bangs the hammer and I get adopted,” she tries. “Will it fit me when I get adopted?"

  The new dress slides out. It's got the bow Sonya wanted and it's got more flowers. Zama holds it up. “Let's see.” It does fit, and it's really really pretty, and Sonya can't help smiling.

  But that isn't what she meant, either. “When I get tall and skinny like you, will it fit me?"

  "We can just change the settings as you grow. But I don't think you're going to be tall and skinny. Your birthparents—"

  Sonya's whispering like she's telling a secret. “Can we put lots of sleeves in it?” She sees Zama understand.

  "Oh, brigl diaymeni!” Sonya can tell she doesn't want to hear what Zama's going to say next, and Zama says anyway, “Oh, brigl, you aren't going to turn into an Alayayxan. Is that what you thought?"

  Sonya whispers, “You're a liar!” and hits her.

  Zama reaches for her but Sonya backs away. “Sonya, Sonya.” That's closer than any of them have ever said it before. “You're People. You're a beautiful People child, you're our child, and emanet lor—"

  Sonya runs to her room. Behind her Zama is still saying Brigl. Sonya grabs Boo.

  Yoolie works high up somewhere. Sonya's never been to his work. She gets off at the eighty-first floor and she tells a People guard she's looking for Yoolie and the guard says nobody by that name works here and Sonya should go home but she goes to the eighty-second and eighty-third and eighty-sixth floor and eighty-ninth and on the ninety-firstth floor Yoolie's waiting for her when she gets off the elevator and she runs into all his arms.

  Yoolie doesn't lie. She didn't think Zama would lie, either. Yoolie doesn't lie. He picks her and Boo up and carries them into a little room where there's a long Alayayxan chair with arm rests and leg rests like the wheels on the bike Daddy used to ride her on and it was always breaking down and they had to walk and walk on the city streets. There are screens everywhere and stuff on them she doesn't understand, things that sort of look like letters and numbers but they aren't letters and numbers, lines and squares popping out, and there's lots of little noises.

  Sonya presses herself into Yoolie and presses Boo into herself. Nobody says anything for a while, and she's starting to relax, she's almost sleepy, and then Yoolie's stroking her ugly hair and he says quietly, “Be proud of who you are, my child. Zama and Ib and I are proud of who you are. You'll always be People, and that's wonderful—” and she bites one of his hands hard and she pretends it was Boo who bit him and Yoolie makes a noise and she knows he hates her and he's a liar and she runs away with Boo but Yoolie catches her and she knows she's in trouble and he'll hurt her and he'll hate her but he doesn't and they go down to the house and she won't talk to him and when he tries to touch her again with his flipper things she thinks she might barf and she says don't touch me don't touch me ever again and he says her name wrong wrong wrong and she calls him butthead and she runs into her room and he doesn't come after her. So he does hate her.

  Five days. Relatives come. Not her relatives. Todd's talking and laughing and playing like they're his family, but they're not. Sonya is Todd's only family and Todd is Sonya's only family and she needs to tell him that but he's too busy playing with the flips the squids.

  Sonya plays Dancing Doughnut. She yells and she jumps around and her hands go all over the place and the hole and the doughnut go all crazy and they don't come anywhere near each other. Ib tries to play with her but she tells chchch go away. She won't eat. GoPHER comes with a tray of food. Sonya throws Boo at GoPHER and knocks stuff off the tray and Boo's in three pieces and her heart hurts but she doesn't care. GoPHER picks up the stuff and puts broken Boo on her lap in a pile. GoPHER leaves. A mouse bot buzzes in and cleans. She kicks at it and misses. It doesn't care. Ib comes in again. “Go away. You dirty squid."

  Ib breathes funny but doesn't go away. “Emanet lor,” chchch says, and then “I love you” like she doesn't know what emanet lor means. She's not stupid.

  "I hate you! You nasty old flip!” Her tummy hurts. Her head hurts. Her tooth is hanging on by just a piece of skin. Maybe she'll swallow it. She laughs. Ib leaves. The door slides shut, it doesn't make any noise, she wishes she could slam it, she remembers doors slamming. She's by herself. She tries wailing but she won't ever get found.

  After a while she has to go to the bathroom. She could pee and poop in the corner, that'd show them what she thinks of them. But she's not a baby and that would be disgusting.

  "House, open door, please.” You can't whisper to HI or it won't hear you. The door slides open into the wall. Can they hear that? She hears them, lots of Alayayxan voices and Todd's People one all happy. “House,” she whispers. “Burn down.” But HI can't hear her and it doesn't. So she just says out loud to close the door.

  When she comes back and says to open the door, it doesn't. She says it louder. She tries to open the door herself with her fingers. She kicks the do
or. She yells. She's locked out. Somebody locked her out, HI locked her out, the house doesn't want her here.

  "Are you my cousin Sonya?” It's an Alayayxan girl. She says her name almost right, and Sonya wants to beat her up.

  "No. I'm the Tooth Fairy."

  "There's no such thing as the Tooth Fairy. That's just a stupid People story."

  Sonya jumps on her and claws her gray face and the girl pounds on her with about a zillion hands and feet. They're both yelling. Grown-ups come and pull them off each other and make them stay away from each other. Axan grown-ups.

  Four days. That social worker comes to talk to Sonya and Todd and Yoolie and Ib and Zama about Adoption Day. Todd's all happy. “I don't want to be adopted,” says Sonya, very loud.

  Todd punches her. “Shut up!"

  That social worker says, “Oh,” and then, “Why?"

  Sonya just stares at her fingers wiggling in her lap. She pushes her loose tooth with her tongue but it still hangs on by one piece of skin like a hair. “She's just dumb,” says Todd.

  Ib says, “She's not dumb. She's hurt. She's scared.” Sonya hates chchch.

  Zama says, “She thought she would turn Alayayxan when the adoption is legal.” Sonya hates her. Sonya wants to say not Alayayxan, Axan. Axan. But she doesn't dare.

  Todd says, “That's really dumb."

  That social worker starts to say something and Sonya stands up and screams, “You're a liar! You're all liars! I don't want to be an ugly stupid butthead Axan!” She's never said that word out loud before. It's like one moon in a hot black sky.

  Todd kicks her. Ib leaves the room.

  Mice bots buzz around, cleaning up after everybody, but they can't clean up after Sonya.