by Zanib Mian
“I want chocolate for dinner,” said Esa.
“Well, these chocolates are for all the different families we will visit in Pakistan. The chocolate they get out there is nowhere as good as this stuff,” said Dad.
“Pleeeeease . . . I will say shukriya?” said Esa, making his puppy eyes.
Everyone laughed at his suggestion. Usually Esa would laugh, too, but for some reason he stood still, thinking. Then he asked very carefully, “Mom? How do you laugh in Urdu?”
That was the best thing Esa had said in a while.
In the end, Dad allowed us to have some of the chocolate if we could prove he had a brain. He likes to play games with us like that.
“You do have one, obviously!” said Maryam. “Otherwise, how could you be a scientist?”
“That’s not proof. Mrs. Rogers isn’t a scientist; does that mean she doesn’t have a brain?” teased Dad.
“You have one because you’re talking and walking and things!” I said.
“Good!” said Dad, winking my way. “I’d definitely need a brain for that.”
“OK, you have one because you’re human, and all humans have brains. We know that because scientists have looked at lots of human bodies,” said Maryam, trying harder.
“Excellent!” said Dad, and he rewarded us with a bar each.
Maryam doesn’t like science like the rest of our family. She’s always grumpy on
which is when we do fun science experiments in the kitchen. And one day recently when Mom was tutoring Maryam on science, she seemed super bored, and then she suddenly burst out crying. It was a painful crying, like something really, really bad had happened.
“Maryam, what is it?” asked Mom, jumping to put her arms around her. “Has something happened in school? Tell me.”
Maryam continued to cry, like she was being tortured.
“Maryam, sweetie, please tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me,” pleaded Mom.
“YOU’RE TRYING TO MAKE ME GOOD AT SCIENCE!”
Mom looked shocked. “I thought that was nice of me,” she said. “Pardon me, young lady, I thought I was helping you!”
Mom tried to be angry when she said that, but she found Maryam’s reason for crying very, very funny and she couldn’t hold it in for long. She burst out laughing, which made Maryam cry even more.
Mom hugged her and told her that she was already good at science, but if she loved other subjects more, the way she loved art, she could be something creative instead of being a scientist.
It seemed like that made Maryam feel a whole lot better.
CHAPTER 16
With a one-week countdown to our trip, I started to get about having a break from Mrs. Crankshaw. Why? We didn’t suspect her of being a supervillain for no reason.
It had happened on a day when we were learning about South America. Obviously, Mrs. Crankshaw had made it boring with her super-boring-making powers. She had asked us to read about it from a textbook and “take notes.” Daniel finds that kind of thing impossible, so instead of getting on with it, he busied himself by leaning on the two back legs of his chair and smiling over at Charlie and me.
We had a whole
Sheesh, this is boring, smiled Daniel.
Super definitely, I smiled back.
Can’t wait till lunchtime, smiled Charlie.
Can’t wait till summer, smiled Daniel.
But that was his last smile for a bit, because just then, there was a big
as the two back legs of Daniel’s chair gave in, and he went tumbling into the book display behind him. What was it with Daniel always falling off his chair?
“Enough!!!” screamed Mrs. Crankshaw.
And she stamped her pointy heel on the ground like she was an army general and wrote
on the board.
We were miserable during lunchtime. Why did Mrs. CrankyForSure have to be so mean?
We tried to think of the reasons:
“Maybe she was bitten by a mysterious bug from Mars that makes people grumpy for the rest of their days,” I said.
“Maybe she has Grumpy Nut Cornflakes for breakfast every morning,” said Charlie.
“Maybe she farts toxic fumes that make her angry and mean when she accidentally breathes them in,” said Daniel.
We had a good giggle at that, which cheered us up a little, and we decided to spend some of lunchtime in the school library so we could check the inbox for an email from NASA. Operation Moondust was always on our mind.
I logged in, without much hope, because the last thirty-eight times I had done this, there was no email. But as the page loaded, our eyes fell on an email with the subject line:
I nearly fell off my chair, and Daniel gave Charlie an excited whack on the back, which was way too hard and sent him off on a sputtering coughing fit.
When we all recovered enough, I said, “Let’s open it . . .”
It read:
We were utterly gobsmacked. Even Daniel didn’t say a word for a long time.
“Poor Mrs. Hutchinson,” I said eventually.
“I can’t believe it,” said Charlie with sad eyebrows.
“I will destroy those aliens! said Daniel, who thinks eating avocados is the worst punishment imaginable.
“How can they eat them after they’re dead?” asked Charlie.
“Oh, they will!”
“I guess this only confirms what we already know,” I said. “And since we don’t have a rocket, we will have to keep waiting for help from the real astronauts. They have to help! Maybe they are, secretly, already?”
Still, the pictures that email had put in our heads were terrible. It made everything more real. And now we had a description of the aliens. Green and gooey. Mrs. H must have been terrified. I imagined what her hair looked like when she was scared. Probably the way they show it in cartoons when someone gets an electric shock. All the curls rigid and standing on end.
CHAPTER 17
We spent the whole rest of the week not smiling in class. Even during the last lesson on Friday, which meant a weekend was beginning and everyone would normally be During that lesson, though, it sort of looked like Mrs. Crankshaw might be smiling. Her mouth was turning up at the corners ever so slightly, but as if it hurt to do it. I guessed that she was happy because she had managed to invent the most miserably boring lesson possible.
Charlie noticed it first and pointed at me as we tried to keep our eyes open. “Hey . . . is Mrs. CrankyForSure
“No way . . .” I whispered.
“Should we ask her if the smile ban has been lifted?”
That made me laugh. I had just taken a sip from my water bottle, and it came out of my nose. Never, ever laugh with a drink in your mouth.
If I was an alien who had come to Earth for the first time, and I came to Mrs. Crankshaw’s class, I would think that all teachers were grumpy and boring. But they’re not. I know that because of Mrs. Hutchinson. She really, really is
* * *
We left for Pakistan the next day, from Heathrow Airport.
Mrs. Rogers waved us off from her front yard with a tear in her eye.
“We’ll be back before you know it, Mrs. Rogers,” said Dad.
“Oh, I disagree. I’m afraid I’ll miss you all too much!”
We gave her hugs and thanked her for the treats she had baked for us to have on the way.
“I’ll bring you back something Pakistani,” I said.
“You’re the only Pakistani thing I need,” she joked.
I smiled at the thought of her finding the little notes I had left around her house when she fell asleep on the sofa the evening before we were leaving.
In her teapot:
Halfway through the book she’s reading:
Behind a sofa cushion:
Inside her special gardening shoe
s:
On the plane, we did what we always do. Maryam and I fought for the and Esa and I fought to sit next to Dad. We each had our own backpack full of things to keep us busy, and as a special travel treat, Mom made us pack books to read and puzzles to do, because she didn’t want us to continuously watch movies for the whole eight-hour flight.
Even with all the stuff to do, the flight was
I felt odd being stuck in one seat for eight hours, with nowhere to go except a smelly bathroom that made a scary noise when you flushed the toilet. I looked out the window and wondered how much farther up I would have to go to get to space. I imagined my dragon, H2O, picking me up from the wing of the plane and flying us both upward,
Then I thought about the second message we had received from the same person to our MrsH email address. I had seen it just before we’d had to rush to the car that morning, so I hadn’t had a chance to tell Daniel or Charlie yet. It said:
I saw her swallow an alien by the way. And I know where she is.
Who was this person? How did they know so much? Was it her neighbor? Or the funny man at the corner store?
We finally started seeing Pakistan from way up high, before we made a smooth landing at Lahore International Airport. That’s a big city in Pakistan.
My uncle came to pick us up from the airport. He isn’t really my uncle uncle—he’s my dad’s older cousin—but in Pakistan we knew to call all the adults in the family and and all the kids He had a mustache like Lancelot Macintosh’s, and no hair, which made me giggle, because he looked like an
I kept that to myself, because I knew Mom would absolutely not be proud of me for making fun of the way someone looks. Well, it wasn’t making fun if I only thought it inside my head and didn’t put it into anyone else’s head.
On the drive to my uncle’s house, I decided
It was different from anyplace I had ever seen. The cars were all beeping and bouncing into whichever lanes they wanted, and every so often, there was a random donkey pulling a cart in the same lane as all the cars and three-wheeled vehicles, called rickshaws, which looked like they were part of a circus act! It was noisy and crowded, but it was
CHAPTER 18
Well, at least my uncle’s was, and all the others I saw from the car. There were maids at his house, too, who cleaned up after us and served us
which was better than my mom’s Pakistani cooking.
I asked Mom if everyone in Pakistan had a maid, or if my uncle was a billionaire like the queen or something. She told me that it was quite common and laughed at the idea that our family was I couldn’t believe it!
I had twin cousins, called Amber and Ambreen, who always wore matching shalwar kameez, which is the traditional Pakistani outfit of a tunic over soft trousers. which they enjoyed very much.
“You talk so fast,” they kept saying in their Pakistani accent. And they would giggle forever when Maryam and I got into a squabble and called each other names like
and
My aunty didn’t say much, but she always made a point to tell her daughters to stop giggling.
Early in the mornings, It sounded like a man’s voice, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. It wasn’t the call to prayer, which is called because I knew exactly what that sounded like. I heard it lots when we went on vacation to Turkey once, and I was hearing it in Lahore, too, coming from the mosques. But I needed to know what this other morning call was.
So, one day, the minute I heard it, I ran to the balcony. I saw a man pulling a cart full of fresh vegetables, calling out:
I asked Amber and Ambreen what he was saying, although I could tell it was something about the vegetables.
“He’s saying, ‘Get potatoes, get onions, get carrots!’” They both giggled almost at the same time, finding it hilarious that I didn’t understand Urdu.
So I said, “Shukriya,” for fun. Because it was about the only word I could remember at the time.
After a few days, we went to meet Yusuf, the man who was getting married—the reason I was missing school and had come all the way to a place I had never been to before. He was my mom’s aunty’s son. about whether that meant I should call him a cousin, even though he wasn’t a kid. But Mom said he could just be “Uncle,” too! Apparently, Mom used to go to Pakistan on vacation a lot before she got busy being an
and had us kids, so she had been quite close with this part of the family, and it was out of the question for her not to be here to share the joy. Although, I think Mom was just excited to have an excuse to show us the country her parents were from. (In case you’re wondering, my grandparents had decided not to come on this trip. My nani said we were all representing them at the wedding, so we had to be on our best behavior.)
Uncle Yusuf was really nice, so I was glad we had come. “This is the groom—Yusuf,” Mom said proudly.
said Esa.
Yusuf laughed and pulled out all sorts of presents for us. He was a giant man, even taller than Dad, but he had a super-gentle voice. Esa looked tiny in front of him, and when Yusuf picked him up, he did it as carefully as if Esa was made of
“What have they been feeding you at Aunty and Uncle’s?” He laughed as he popped Esa on his shoulder. “Shrinking powder? This little man looks about the same size as my head!”
After meeting him, I was looking forward to going to his big wedding. I wanted to see what the bride was like.
CHAPTER 19
One evening, when were all sitting around at my uncle and aunty’s house, my aunty announced that the special wedding outfits she had arranged to be made for us had finally arrived.
They were wrapped in colorful cotton sheets, which she excitedly opened up, one by one.
the shirt for me looked really uncomfortable, with a rock-hard collar. They were the same type of thing that my cousins wear every day, except extra fancy.
Maryam liked hers a lot, probably because it looked like a princess dress, with sparkly patterns and beads. She even got some gold shoes to go with it.
Of course, I was forced to try mine on, so I took it to the twins’ room, which was closest. I put it on the bed and wasted some time before having to put it on by They were always laughing at me for not knowing how to speak Urdu—maybe I would find something to tease them about . . .
There wasn’t much around. Only some books and board games. But just when I was about to give up on finding anything interesting, my foot tapped something hard. I looked down.
It was a telescope! What were Amber and Ambreen doing with a telescope?
I threw my wedding outfit on in a millisecond (it didn’t actually look too bad) so I could go and ask them about it.
“To look into outer space, of course,” said Amber. Who knew they would be so cool!
right on the spot.
Maryam and I begged them to let us try it.
“Pleeeease show us how to look at the planets!” I said, obviously thinking of Mrs. H. It was a long shot, but maybe I would see an alien spaceship or something. Maybe there would be more clues that would help our search.
As it turned out, Amber and Ambreen knew lots about space. They were huge space geeks.
They let us take turns, excitedly telling us what to look for.
“I’ve been on another planet,” said Esa.
“No you haven’t, Esa,” I told him.
“Yes I did go!” Esa protested.
“No,” said Maryam.
“I did! When I wasn’t listening, Dad said, ‘He’s on another planet.’ So there!”
Amber and Ambreen giggled and pulled Esa’s cheek.
“You’re sooooo cute,” they said.
It was my turn to look. I took hold of the telescope carefully.
“Have you ever seen a spaceship or an alien?” I asked, trying to be casual.
Maryam said, “Of course they haven’t, pineapple pr
ickles! Because aliens don’t exist.”
said Amber.
“They probably do,” said Ambreen.
Maryam rolled her eyes.
“Wow . . . did you see something?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes, we see strange things all the time, but we don’t know what they are.”
“Do you think they ever come down to Earth?” I paused. “And . . . er . . . take stuff?”
At that, Maryam exploded with laughter and let herself fall to the floor to roll around holding her belly, to show just how funny it was.
she teased.
“No!” I lied. “Of course not!”
But Maryam fanned the air, pretending she couldn’t even breathe with how hilarious it was, and then walked out of the room.
“Who’s Mrs. Hutchinson?” asked Amber.
“Never mind . . .” I whispered with a lump in my throat. And I quickly walked away before they noticed how sad I was.
CHAPTER 20
I liked Yusuf so much that I didn’t mind putting on the uncomfortable fancy wedding clothes when it was time. When I looked in the mirror,
Like my own Pakistani twin.
Amber and Ambreen were wearing matching outfits. Maryam had put on her princess clothes and looked very pleased with herself. She was trying to take selfies on her phone to show her friends.
The house was busy with people running around looking for their shoes or putting on lipstick. My dad was standing at the door shouting about getting into the car already, which my uncle found hilarious.
