Oddest of All (2 page)

When we went back inside the president was on television, making a speech about what the country would do to put an end to the alien menace. But it was just words. The Lyrans were too powerful for us. I knew it. The president knew it. Everyone knew it.

Besides, it wasn't clear they
were
a menace. After all, with their advanced science they could simply have taken over. But they hadn't.

So maybe the choice really was up to us.

I looked at my hand and began to laugh.

“What's so funny, Johnny?”

Holding my open palm in front of my mother's face, I said, “The Lyrans have made a joke. For the first time in history, our future really is in our own hands!”

 

JULY 23

Mom and I went to the town hall today. It was jammed with hundreds of people who had come to talk about the Lyran Proposal.

“I was in the last war!” shouted a man. “I fought to protect our freedom. I didn't want other people making choices for me then, and I don't want it now. I say no to the Lyrans!”

“I was in the same war,” said a tall woman. “I saw men and women lose their legs, their arms, their eyes. I saw children with the skin burned off their bodies. We don't need another one. I say yes!”

“They'll make us slaves!” yelled someone behind me.

“They could do that without a vote,” cried someone else.

Other people began shouting, until the place was ringing with voices. It took several minutes for the mayor to bring the meeting back to order.

“Look at us,” said another man, once things had settled down. “We aren't hungry or poor. Most of us live long, healthy lives. Why should we vote to give control to the Lyrans?”

But what about the others?
I wondered.
What about the millions who are sick and poor and dying? Should we vote no just because we're comfortable?

The debate went on all day. Tonight the television showed other debates from all over the country, all over the world. Everywhere, people were asking the same questions: Should we? Shouldn't we? And—the biggest question of all—what do the Lyrans really want?

It seemed hard to believe they didn't want something. The thought was so strange it was almost . . . alien. Which made sense, when you thought about it.

Demonstrations were raging in most cities, with opposing mobs, some carrying signs like
NUKE THE LYRANS!
and others that said
VOTE LYRAN—IT'S OUR ONLY HOPE!

 

JULY 27

Mom hasn't gone to work for the last two days. She says she can't see any point in it. Nothing gets done at her office. All anyone can talk about, think about, is the Lyran Proposal.

 

JULY 29

Last night a huge screen appeared in the center of town. According to the news, screens just like it have appeared in every city in the world, every town, every village, no matter how small, no matter how remote.

They are tally screens. Tomorrow afternoon they will record the votes of six billion people as we choose whether we will rule our own future or give control to the Lyrans in return for all they have to offer.

Some people are angry that the Lyrans are letting kids vote, too. They say this should be just for adults. Me, I think the fact that the Lyrans were able to install the voting strips only on kids over the age of ten shows how powerful they really are. And I don't see why kids, even fairly little ones, shouldn't vote. It's their world, too. It's their future, even more than the grown-ups', since they're going to be living in it longer.

Though some people say one person's vote doesn't count, I've been taking mine very seriously. My mind is spinning with all I have heard this week, all the words about the poor and the sick and the dying; about freedom and power and dignity.

I don't want aliens to run our world. But when I look around, when I see what a mess it is, I feel afraid for our future if they don't. I just don't know if we're grown-up enough to take care of ourselves. Mom and I keep arguing about this. The thing is, half the time I'm in favor of the Lyrans and she's arguing against them, and the other half of the time it's the other way around.

Last night she got out the family album and we spent a couple of hours looking at old pictures. The ones that really got to me, of course, were the photos of Dad. I can't help but think he might still be alive if we had had Lyran science six years ago.

What would he have said about all this? He was a proud man—proud and stubborn. Would he have wanted to live under someone else's rule?

Do I?

 

JULY 30

I am sitting in my room, staring at the strip of alien material embedded in my palm. I am thinking of all I have seen, all I have done, all I want to do.

I am thinking of the last time I saw my father, cold and still in his coffin, and how Lyran medicine might have saved him—how Lyran science might have prevented the air crisis and saved so many others like him.

I think of our glory and our despair. I think of all we do to one another in the name of love, of peace, of freedom, of God—all the good, and all the bad.

I think of how far we have come in just a few thousand years. I think of how far there is to go and how many people will suffer and die before we get there.

I think of the stars, and of the worlds out there waiting for us to join them.

I think of all these things, and I wonder what I will do in five minutes when the Lyrans force me to choose between the riches they offer and the freedom to find our own sad and starry path.

I look at the strip in my hand, at the yes and the no, and I wonder.

I
F THIRTEEN
is supposed to be an unlucky number, what does it mean that we are forced to go through an entire year with that as our age? I mean, you would think a civilized society could just come up with a way for us to skip it.

Of course, good luck and I have rarely shared the same park bench. Sometimes I think Murphy's Law—you know, “If something can go wrong, it will”—was invented just for me.

I suppose the fact that my name is Murphy Murphy might have something to do with that feeling.

Yeah, you read it right: Murphy Murphy. It's like a family curse. The last name I got from my father, of course. The first name came down from my mother's side, where it is a tradition for the firstborn son. You would think my mother might have considered that before she married Dad, but love makes fools of us all, I guess. Anyway, the fact that I got stuck with the same name coming and going, so to speak, shows that my parents are either spineless (my theory) or have no common sense (my sister's theory).

I would like to note that no one has ever apologized to me for this name. “I think it's lovely,” says my mother—which, when you consider it, would seem to support my sister's theory.

Anyway, you can see that right from the beginning of my life, if something could go wrong, it did.

Okay, I suppose it could have been worse. I could have been born dead or with two heads or something. On the other hand, as I lie here in my hospital bed trying to work out exactly how I got here, there are times when I wonder if being born dead might not have been the best thing.

To begin with, I want to say here and now that Mikey Farnsworth should take at least part of the blame for this situation. This, by the way, is true for many of the bad things that have happened in my life, from the paste-eating incident in first grade through the bogus fire-drill situation last year, right up to yesterday afternoon, which was sort of the Olympics of Bad Luck, as far as I'm concerned. What's amazing is that somehow Mikey ends up coming out of these things looking perfectly fine. He is, as my grandfather likes to say, the kind of guy who can fall in a manure pile and come out smelling like a rose.

The one I am not going to blame is Tiffany Grimsley, though if I hadn't had this stupid crush on her it never would have happened.

Okay, I want to stop and talk about this whole thing of having a crush. Let me say right up front that it is very confusing and not something I am used to. When it started I was totally baffled. I mean, I don't even like girls, and all of a sudden I keep thinking about one of them? Give me a break!

In case it hasn't happened to you yet, let me warn you. Based on personal experience, I can say that while there are many bad things about having a crush, just about the worst of them is the stupid things you will do because of it.

Okay, let's back up here.

I probably wouldn't even have known I had a crush to begin with if Mikey hadn't informed me of this fact. “Man, you've got it bad for Tiffany,” he says one day when we are poking around in the swamp behind his house.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. At the same time my cheeks begin to burn as if they are on fire. Startled, I lift my foot to tie my shoe, which is a trick I learned in an exercise magazine and that has become sort of a habit. At the moment, it is mostly an excuse to look down.

What the heck is going on here?
I think.

Mikey laughs. “Look at you blush, Murphy! There's no point in trying to hide it. I watched you drooling over her in social studies class today. And you've only mentioned her like sixteen times since we got home this afternoon.”

“Well, sure, but that's because she's a friend,” I say, desperately trying to avoid the horrible truth. “We've known each other since kindergarten, for pete's sake.”

Mikey laughs again, and I can tell I'm not fooling him. “What am I going to do?” I groan.

He shrugs. “Either you suffer in silence or you tell her you like her.”

Is he nuts? If you tell a girl you like her, it puts you totally out in the open. I mean, you've got no place to hide. And there are really only two possible responses you're going to get from her: (a) She likes you, too, which the more you think about it, the more unlikely it seems or (b) anything else, which is, like, totally, utterly humiliating. I'm sure girls have problems of their own. But I don't think they have any idea of the sheer terror a guy has to go through before any boy-girl stuff can get started.

I sure hope this gets easier with time, because I personally really don't understand how the human race has managed to survive this long, given how horrifying it is to think about telling a girl you like her.

Despite Mikey's accusation, I do not think I have actually drooled over Tiffany during social studies class. But it is hard not to think about her then, because she sits right in front of me. It's the last class of the day, and the October sunlight comes in slantwise and catches in her golden hair in a way that makes it hard to breathe.

It does not help that eighth-grade social studies is taught by Herman Fessenden, who you will probably see on the front of the
National Enquirer
someday as a mass murderer for boring twenty-six kids to death in a single afternoon. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

I spend the entire weekend thinking about what Mikey has said, and I come up with a bold plan, which is to pass Tiffany a note asking if she wants to grab a slice of pizza at Angelo's after school. I am just getting up my nerve to do it—there are only five minutes of class left—when Mr. F. says, “So, what do you think the queen should have done then, Murphy?”

How am I supposed to know? But I blush and don't hand the note to Tiffany after all, which wouldn't have been so bad, except that Butch Coulter sees I have it and grabs it on the way out of class, and I have to give him the rest of my week's lunch money to get it back.

Tuesday I try a new tactic. There's a little store on the way to school where you can pick up candy and gum and stuff, and I get some on the way to school, and then kind of poke Tiff in the back during social studies class, which is about the only time I see her, to ask if she wants a piece of gum. Only before she can answer, Mr. Fessenden comes up from behind and snatches the whole pack out of my hand. So that was that.

Then, on Wednesday, it's as if the gods are smiling on me, which is not something I am used to. Tiffany grabs my arm on the way out of social studies and says, “Can I talk to you for a second, Murphy?”

“Sure,” I say. This is not very eloquent, but it is better than the first thought that crosses my mind, which is, “Any time, any where, any moment of the day.” It is also better than “Your words would be like nectar flowing into the hungry mouths of my ears,” which was a line I had come up with for a poem I was writing about her.

She actually looks a little shy, though what this goddess-on-earth has to be shy about is more than I can imagine.

She hands me a folded-over set of papers, and my heart skips a beat. Can this be a love letter? If so, it's a really long one.

“I wrote this skit for drama club, and I thought maybe you would do it with me next Friday. I think you'd be just right for the part.”

My heart starts pounding. While it seems unlikely that the part is that of a barbarian warrior prince, just doing it means I will have an excuse to spend time with Tiffany. I mean, we'll have to rehearse and . . . well, the imagination staggers.

“Yes!” I say, ignoring the facts that (a) I have not yet read the script and (b) I have paralyzing stage fright.

She gives me one of those sunrise smiles of hers, grabs my arm and gives it a squeeze, and says, “Thanks. This is going to be fun.” Then she's gone, leaving me with a memory of her fingers on my arm and a wish that I had started pumping iron when I was in first grade, so my biceps would have been ready for this moment.

Mikey moves in a second later. “Whoa,” he says, nudging me with his elbow. “Progress! What did she say?”

“She wants me to do a skit with her.”

He shakes his head. “Too bad. I thought maybe you had a chance. How'd she take it when you told her no?”