Not Your Ordinary Alien Story

CHAPTER ONE

The redwoods look otherworldly to me, like they don't really belong on this planet, like maybe giants planted them here a long time ago - giants that disappeared. I turn from the window. My mom is driving the car. "I can't believe this is your last summer, Zoe," she says to me.

"It's not my last summer."

"Your last one before you leave for college."

"You act like I'm going to the ends of the Earth or something. It's San Francisco - and it's only an eight-hour drive from here."

"Yeah, right, only."

I roll the car window up. My hair feels all blown away. I have what you might call 'big hair,' long and thick, the color of a copper penny. It's the kind of hair that plumps out even more when it's wet and rainy out, and it's wet and rainy here half the year. A wood sign flashes by. Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Evergreen trees, ferns and wildflowers vibrate in a hundred shades of green, violet, crimson and umber. Even the air appears to be quivering.

Mom glances over at me. She wears those kinds of eyeglasses with round frames that went out of style years ago. With her short hair, her round face, and the way her ring-shaped glasses catch the light when she turns her head, she looks like an owl.

I turn back to the window. I can see like, a gazillion colors, colors that have no names. I don't know when I realized I could see colors that other people could not, or exactly why for that matter. Was it something about my eyes? More than once, I've been asked if I'm wearing colored contact lenses because my eyes are a startling shade of turquoise-green.

"It seems like it was just yesterday you were a little baby and I was holding you in my arms."

"It wasn't just yesterday."

"I know. But it seems like it was. I remember the first time I held you in my arms. I never wanted to let you go."

"How old was I?"

"When?"

"You know, the first time you held me. I mean, sure, I was a baby, but how old was I? A week? A month? Six months?" Mom told me I was adopted as soon as I was old enough to understand the concept. But I've never asked her much about it because in the past, when I did ask, she would always give me a canned answer that sounded like it came from some book for parents of adopted kids. Then she would look uncomfortable and clam up so I got in the habit of not asking about it.

She turns to me, her eyes meeting mine. There it is again – that uncomfortable look. She stares back at the road. For a few long seconds, she doesn't say anything.

"How old was I?" I ask again.

"The doctor said maybe about two months. Maybe three months."

"Maybe? Didn't they know?"

She ruffles her hand over the top of her head making her short hair stick up on top. "I should have told you before this, Zoe. Yours wasn't your normal adoption-agency adoption."

"What do you mean?"

"You see, you were found..."

"Found?"

"Yes, by hikers in the forest." She pauses and adjusts her glasses." They found you in this oval structure with a blue awning. The prettiest blanket was wrapped around you. The two hikers were young men, in their twenties. I have their names written down somewhere."

"But... but... Mom, that's crazy. People don't just find babies in the forest!"

"That's what the young men thought too. They looked everywhere near where they found you for people, for any signs of people, but there weren't any. Finally, they brought you to the closest place which was the Post Office in Gasquet where I was working."

"So... these two guys just find me in the forest? And they bring me to the Post Office?"

She nods her head. "Lucky you were found by the hikers rather than by a bear or a mountain lion. But there you were, my little survivor." She smiles at me. "You were the most perfect, beautiful baby I'd ever seen in my life. I fell in love with you the instant I saw you. GranAna did too."

A steep rocky wall rises sharply on one side of the car where the road cut into the mountain. The Smith River with its clear water and tree-lined banks flows down below the road on the other side. This is weird. Really weird. It 's like a made-up story but I know Mom wouldn't do that. She wouldn't make something like this up.

"I brought you to Child Protective Services in Crescent City. They called the police. The police brought the hikers in and questioned them for a long time. But they let them go when they were convinced, they really had just found you, and the hikers had nothing else to do with it. Of course, later they did background checks on the two young men. The FBI got involved. And no, those two young guys did not have a girlfriend, or a sister, or a friend who had just given birth to a little baby girl. They really had just happened along and found you."

I raise my eyebrows, tilt my head down, and stare at Mom. "I was found in the forest."

Mom nods her head. "GranAna and your Granddad and I became your foster parents while the search for your biological mother went on. I was secretly glad when nothing came up. Glad, hell, I was ecstatic! By that time, we all loved you so much, Zoe. It would have been so hard to give you up. Nothing made GranAna and I happier than the day we were able to officially adopt you."

I turn back to the window where the river tumbles in a white froth over a series of low falls. Mom reaches over and touches my arm. I look over at her. "Why didn't you ever tell me this before?" I ask.

"We were waiting for you to be old enough. And then I just kept putting it off. Sometimes I half-convinced myself there was no reason for you to know."

"But... this is too weird. How come I never heard about it before? I mean, everyone in Gasquet must know."

"Actually, no one in Gasquet does know. Except for GranAna and me. I didn't tell anyone. I brought you straight to Crescent City, to CPS. A tsunami had just hit Crescent City. The whole town was a mess. It was the largest tsunami to ever hit the Pacific Coast. You heard about that, right?"

"Yeah."

"There had been over eight-foot waves. The harbor had major damage. Buildings were destroyed. Over a hundred people were injured. No one was paying much attention to a little baby found in the forest. The tsunami was all everyone could think about or talk about. The Crescent City newspaper never even mentioned a baby being found. So hardly anyone knew. GranAna and I decided to keep it that way."

I stare at her. When I realize my mouth is hanging open, I abruptly shut it. My bottom lip quivers.

"I mean, sure, people knew you were adopted. It's just that no one knew all the details."

"It feels weird."

"What?"

"Having someone just leave me like that." My voice sounds thin. "In the middle of the forest? Who does that?"

"I know, I know."

"No, Mom, you don't." I look down at my hands clenched in my lap, my hair falling to the sides of my face like a curtain. "You don't know how I feel."

She's quiet for a while as she stares at the road straight ahead. "You're right," she finally says. "I don't.

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