Coming of Age on Planet Earth

Chapter 8

It was a snowy day and all the cool kids were having a snowball fight in the playground. The boys were running around hooting and laughing while girls screamed and squealed and shielded their faces from the flying snow.

Aaron and I were at the far end of the playground, behind the honeysuckle bushes, making snow angels. I didn't know how to tell him what I had to tell him, so I just spat it out.

"My mom says I'm not allowed to play with you anymore."

Aaron sat up and looked out over the snow-covered pastures, where in warmer months we'd sneak off to explore. There's a stream down there with a little oxbow lake where we liked to sit and imagine shapes in the clouds or hunt for unidentified species of insects. He scratched the back of his scaly neck with a gloved hand.

"Why?" he asked.

He didn't look surprised. In fact he even nodded, like he'd been expecting this.

"My mom says that—that because your mom's friends with Madeline—that now I can't

be friends with you."

Somehow the way Mom explained it made more sense.

Aaron took off one of his gloves, exposing a scaly hand, and dug his fingernails into the back of his neck. Snow had gotten into my boots and I was starting to feel the cold, but Aaron, the only guy in seventh grade who still wore a one-piece snowsuit, probably didn't feel the cold at all.

The school bell rang and I shivered as he got up and walked away, without looking back. I hated myself for doing that to him. And I hated Mom for making me do it, and Dad for breaking Mom's heart.

Next day during lunch hour, Aaron ignored me and tried to hang out with Jamie McAlister, the next least popular kid in our grade. For a while, I followed the cool boys around the playground, half-listening to their talk of hockey and girls and dirt bikes. But it never felt right. I felt like an imposter. I missed Aaron and I worried I might never have a human friend again.

~

Today must be the hottest day of the year. It's like being in our sauna back in Orville, except here you can't just step outside when the heat becomes too much. By the time I get halfway down the road, I'm dripping sweat from every surface of my body and every breath is an Herculean effort. As I pass the base, a shirtless palm wine tapper shouts and waves down to me from the top of a palm tree, and I wave back, realizing that if I was here with Waldo I'd have probably just ignored him.

At the junction, a white pickup comes flying down the road toward me with rap music blaring from the cab and a man standing in the back, waving what looks like a rifle. He points the rifle at me and I'm about to run when I realize it's just a stick, and then he shouts something that I can't make out but I can see that his front teeth have been filed to points. We saw a guy like that on the way home from church the other day, and Dad said it's some tribal ritual. Whatever it is, it's fucking terrifying.

The truck suddenly swerves toward me and the demon-man cackles as I leap off the road.

"Fucking assholes!" I shout from the ditch, covering my mouth with my T-shirt, and then praying they don't turn around.

I fucking hate how girly I sound when I shout. How can anyone take me seriously with a voice like Theodore from Alvin and the Chipmunks? As I climb out of the ditch and wipe the gritty sweat from my eyes, I see another man staring at me from across the street and I want to give him the finger, but instead I just clench my fists and walk on.

As I'm walking past the row of vendors, they all smile and say hello, hoping I'll buy something. When I get to the vendor with the purple headscarf, the one Waldo says is the sexiest black woman on Earth, a bead of sweat rolls down the bridge of my nose. Ever since Waldo said that I've started feeling nervous around her, and even admiring her a bit. She does have a nice face and great boobs.