Roswell Fanatics

Two hours later, the Green Geckos were playing the Jaguars in their first soccer game of the season. The assignments to teams had been done randomly…it was just bad luck that the only two players that had never before played were on the same team.

Neither Isabel nor Max was doing much helpful for their four Gecko teammates. In fact, they were mostly getting in the way. In fact…the only reason they were still in the game was that Liz Parker was playing an awesome game.

Isabel watched as Liz passed the ball to Max….smiling at him as he attempted to get it down the field. As the opposing player closed on him…he would kick it in panic back to her. Unfortunately, that seemed to be his only play…and the other team soon figured it out. Soon they were double-teaming him…cutting off the passing route to Liz. If he tried to pass it to her…the Jaguars would intercept it…if he tried to keep it, they’d steal it away from him.

The Jaguars had found the weak link on the opposing team…or at least one of them. Isabel was even less effective than Max was, so nobody ever gave her the ball. The third time it happened….the second time the Jaguars drove a ball taken away from Max by the Gecko goalie for a score…she saw the look in his eye and quickly went over by him.

“Max Evans,” she hissed under her breath, “…don’t you even THINK of doing it.”

That was the second time that day that someone he cared about had called him by his last name. Apparently it was just going to be that kind of a day.

“I’m not…it’s just…” he didn’t say any more…just thought it. It was just that he was letting his friend down. She was playing an awesome game, and she deserved to win. She deserved better thn to have someone like…him…as a teammate.

Just then Liz stole the ball from a Jaguar and got by the first defender. She slowed only briefly..faking a pass…then shot by the second defender. All at once she was in the clear…just her against the goalie…until the guy she’d stolen the ball from caught up and almost tackled her. She fell to the ground hard and the referees whistle blew….the Geckos would get a penalty shot. The coach took a short timeout to make sure that Liz was OK.

After she was checked, Liz came over by Max. “Max..,” she said, “… it’s like a word problem…everyone out there is part of the problem. You have to remember what they can do…what they are good at..and what they are bad at. The same for ALL your teammates…not just me.”

Immediately Max started to feel bad…but her eyes…they weren’t angry with him…and she had a kind smile on her face. Of course…she was 65# of young girl who had sweated through her jersey, her face, arms, and legs were covered with dust from the desert field, and her long brown hair was stringy with sweat. Max wondered why he’d never really noticed how cute she was….or at least…would be, if she ever got rid of the girl cooties.

Liz made the penalty shot…and that kept them close. Max started to play a little better, but it was clearly Liz that was carrying the Geckos, and the Jaguars knew it. The guy who she’d stolen the ball from kept fouling her…any time the officials weren’t watching closely. Max thought it was an accident the first time…the second time he started for the boy…only to be held back by Isabel.

The Jaguar goalie was Kyle Valenti. He’d been following the ball on the first foul and missed seeing it…but he hadn’t missed the second foul…or Isabel’s pulling Max back. The next time the ball was dead he grabbed the guy who had fouled Liz and got into his face. “I’d leave her alone If I were you, Braxton.”

“Or what, Valenti? You don’t scare me..”

“Or I go play on some other team where I won’t get hurt, Braxton. Do you have any idea who that kid is whose sister just stopped him from going after you?”

“Just some dork who doesn’t know how to play soccer…”

“Well, he may not know soccer, …but he’s the guy that broke Billy Souto’s arm….after Souto hurt Liz …that’s all.”

“I heard that was just an accident…” replied Braxton, although already eying Max warily.

“Yeah….an accident…..right… I was there, Braxton. Souto had chased Liz…made her break her arm. Max went up to him and said he was going to get even…ten seconds later Souto has a broken arm…the same side as Liz had broken. I think the only reason you’re still standing is that his sister protected you. You want to bet on getting away with it again? Good luck with that…I’ll leave.”

“Yeah, Braxton..” said one of the other Jaguars…you’re the dork, not that kid….picking on a girl…just because she’s a better soccer player than you are…”

“She is not…” Braxton said. Still, he had to admit…it was kind of low beating up on girls…especially when they had a friend who was good at beating back. He decided to back off.

Max did improve and the Geckos came back to tie. And that’s ultimately how the game ended. They didn’t have tie breakers in the junior coed league. That would be the last year Max and Liz would ever play in the same league. Some girls start to develop in fifth grade, and someone decided that the sexes should be separated then. But Max would really enjoy his first …and last season of soccer.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen three hotter, sweatier, smellier, more grass-stained children,” said Diane Evans as she sat next to Nancy, watching the kids in the next booth drinking their drinks.

‘Funny,’ she thought. ‘Usually it’s little Max that’s sitting in the corner trying not to be seen. Tonight it’s Izzy.’

“Well,” said Nancy. “Welcome to the rough-and-tumble world of fourth grade coed soccer….”

Aug 15 1991 11:15 PM Camp Greenwood, 10 Miles Northeast of Las Animas, Colorado

The last songs had been sung by the campfire, the last S'mores consumed and MOST of the marshmallow and chocolate cleaned from their faces. All that having been done, the campers had been sent to their pup tents almost 45 minutes previously, but like most of their fellow campers, the night hadn't ended there for Liz or Maria. Yeah, they were tired..the canoeing on the river and the swimming in the reservoir...they'd taken their toll on both of the girls. But when you are that young...and only a week away from starting fourth grade...you've got a lot of staying power...and a lot of things to talk about.

"So what about Max?" asked Maria. She was actually laying on top of her sleeping bag, it was really too warm to be inside of it.

"Max Evans?" asked Liz.

"NO Liz...Max Headroom.....OF COURSE I mean Max Evans...your once a week milkshake date."

"That is so not true, Maria. I'm not dating anyone. His mother just likes to have tea with my mother...and sometimes Max and I have drinks at the same time they do....but that's just because we both get thirsty."

"Uh-huhhh," said Maria...obviously not convinced.

"Mariiia...I don't date...you know that....boys have cooties...."

"Not Alex...Alex doesn't have cooties..."

"Well....Alex doesn't count....he's sort of like family."

Maria nodded. Neither Maria nor Liz had a brother but somehow in their second grade class, the three had been inseparable. Alex was, for both girls, sort of the brother they never had. But she wasn't letting Liz off that easily. They'd been friends for so long that Liz was getting easy to read. Maria could sense the anxiousness she had for a day or two before those meetings ...as well as the contentment that Liz seemed to feel the rest of the day after Liz would have the weekly meeting. It might be that Liz was just chilling out from the endorphins formed from drinking a good root beer float...but Maria doubted it.

"Liz...have you ever thought about...doing it with some boy?"

"It?"

"Yes...IT. Don't play games...your mother gave you the same talk that mine gave me. That 'IT'."

"EWWWW!," Liz replied. "Guu-ross!"

"Yeah," Maria said..."Super gross.... I can't imagine that either. That just seems so........"

"EWWWWW!," the two girls said in unison. And of course it was, Liz knew. The whole idea of doinng something like that was more than a little revolting. But as they lay there side by side in the little pup tent Liz couldn't help but think...even fourth graders have their fantasies about someday being a mother with a family of her own...and logically...the EWWW stuff was likely part of that. And in all those fantasies recently...well. .. the kids had always had amber eyes and their father had always had a real strong resemblance to...Max.

September 2nd (Labor Day) 1991 The Evans Home, Roswell New Mexico.

“I just don’t get it, Isabel,” Diane said. “Most kids rejoice when school’s out…and have to be dragged back at the end of summer vacation. Your brother, on the other hand…”

Her mother really didn’t have to finish the sentence…what she was referring to was obvious. Max had moped for weeks after the last day of school…at least until he went to swimming lessons and soccer…and he had nearly driven them out of the house with his grunge music the two weeks Liz had been at camp. Now he had packed and repacked his backpack for the first day of school about six times.

“You don’t think this has anything to do with a fourth grade classmate of his….maybe with initials, ‘L P’?” Diane asked, smiling.

But Isabel didn’t smile.

“You don’t approve, Isabel?”

Isabel looked at her mother, really wishing she could have a heart to heart talk with her…but it’s hard to bare your soul to someone about a personal problem when you’ve never even mentioned to them that you aren’t QUITE the same species they think you are.

Diane noted her daughter’s hesitance. Isabel was clearly better socialized than Max…and maybe because of that, Diane knew that she sometimes ignored the fact that Isabel still was pretty much of a loner herself. What friends she had were incredibly superficial…as was their friendship itself.

‘You can’t ignore Isabel’s needs,’ she told herself, ‘…just because Max is even less well adjusted.’

“Isabel honey….I think we need a girl’s day at the mall shopping. We’ll drop Max off at the office. He can read his books at my desk there as well as he can read them anywhere…and if he packs that backpack many more times…he’s going to wear it out.”

An hour and a half later Isabel was sitting in the chair across from her mother at the Food Mart at the mall, having a salad and lemonade. She had two new dresses for school…and they were awesome dresses…but Isabel knew there was going to be a price to be paid for this shopping trip, and as Diane gave her an indulgent smile, she sort of figured that the time was probably now.

“Isabel…is everything alright with you?”

“Alright?...Sure Mom…..great.” She took a sip of the lemonade…suddenly it tasted really bland. The interrogation had started. Diane smiled and tilted her head slightly. Isabel was starting to learn how to read her finally. ‘Mom isn’t convinced…’

“Honey….I could tell that earlier when we talked about Max and Liz…well, you seemed upset. Don’t you approve of Liz?”

“Uh…Liz is OK, I guess, Mom.” Isabel was starting to get scared. For someone that had never really borne a child…hadn’t been a child in quite awhile…Mom sometimes seemed to be able to guess stuff…almost like dreamwalking them while they were still awake. Isabel wondered where this was going.

Diane was used to reading body language. She did it everyday…reading the body language of the judge…to determine if she had made her point in cross-examination…reading the body language of witnesses…even jurors. Neither Max nor Izzy had body language quite like anyone else, but they were after all her kids…and she was pretty good at deciphering hers. Isabel was obviously concealing something and an increasingly paranoid mother began to question the worst.

“You don’t think Max and Liz are doing something…wrong….together I mean?”

It had only been a few months since Diane had had ‘the talk’ with Isabel. She’d largely ignored it, knowing it would never apply to her, but the question suddenly brought a vivid thought picture into Isabel’s head…starring her brother and Liz. Unfortunately, it caught her in mid sip and startled her so much the end of the straw came out of the lemonade and a strawful of lemonade quickly flew up and hit her epiglottis only to disappear down her trachea. Antareans, it would appear, were no better adapted to breathing lemonade than Earthlings.

The fit of coughing lasted for thirty seconds before a choking, blushing Isabel could finally choke out her reply. “MU-ther…please….I mean….EWWW…how can you even THINK such a thing.”

At least partially reassured, Diane persisted. “Well…what is it then, honey. What about her bothers you?”

Isabel looked at her mother. She HAD to tell her something. She couldn’t let her believe Max and Liz were actually involved in something like….THAT. She might as well tell her the truth…as much of it as she could, anyway.

“Mom…I worry about Max….I worry about him a lot. He has such a hard time being happy…feeling like ….well…..feeling like he’s at home.”

Diane nodded sadly. She worried about him too. “Why is that Izzy….can you tell me?”

Isabel felt exasperated…she really wished she could. But maybe she could sort of talk around the real issue. “Max …Max just feels like he’s so different…like he could never fit in. That’s why he doesn’t make friends easily.”

‘Not that you do either,’ Diane thought…but Isabel was at least trying to open up to her a little. “Well could you tell me what your concern is with Liz? He seems to be friendly enough with her?”

Isabel idly picked up a bottle of Tabasco sauce and added it to her lemonade before taking another sip, bolstering her courage. Diane shook her head smiling gently, ‘I can’t believe the kids can stand that stuff in lemonade.’ “Izzy…you can trust me…I won’t tell Max what you say…”

“Well….well it’s just that I’m so worried about what could happen, Mommy. Max doesn’t just like Liz…it’s like somehow he NEEDS her. If she ever did anything…Mommy…I read all these advice columns in my magazines…see what terrible things people sometimes say and do to their friends….if she did that to Max…I don’t think he could go on Mommy. He gets so lonely sometimes…has such scary lonely dreams…if she hurt him Mommy…I’m afraid of what he would do..” There. It was out. Maybe Mommy would know what to do…even if she could never know all the truth.

Diane smiled at her daughter lovingly. “Isabel…caring about people does leave you vulnerable…that applies to everyone. Your concern for your brother…the reason you are upset and afraid…is because you care for him. When your father and I met we had to decide if we could risk caring…even risk being rejected by the other. And that’s not just about girls and boys…but about every friend you make.

When you let someone in…let them become an important part of your life, that means that you do care about them…which means you can certainly get your feelings hurt if things don’t go right. But without that risk, honey, you’ll always be alone.

When your father and I adopted you …made you part of our family….when we fell in love with you and Max…we did it knowing that there might be problems, and knowing that we would be hurt if things didn’t go right. But the risk is worth it, dear. If we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have the great pair of kids we do right now….”

‘Yeah,’ thought Isabel. ‘Alien kids…different kids…kids you could never accept if you understood what they really were..’

Max had once told Isabel he believed their parents wanted real children….like the woodcarver Geppetto. Instead they’d been stuck with imitations. Except that Geppetto knew that, and Mommy and Daddy didn't.

Max had been right. Isabel couldn’t tell her mother any more…if they ever found out they’d been tricked, it would break their hearts. And Isabel loved them too much to do that.

Isabel poured some more Tabasco into her lemonade and smiled as she looked up at her mother.

“About Max, Mommy…. I’m sure it will all work out…”

Isabel didn’t altogether believe that, but she really hoped that it would…despite her doubts. But she wanted to reassure her mother….because talking with her like this was almost like what she was afraid of Max doing with Liz. And she was as afraid of her mother finding out as she was Liz…..

“You will let Mommy know if you ever get worried about Max again, won’t you,” Diane asked her daughter.

Isabel took another sip of lemonade and looked up at her mother. “Of course, Mommy…” she said, making sure Diane didn’t see the crossed fingers….

September 6, 1991 1:00 PM Miss Graham’s Fourth Grade Class, Monterrey Elementary School, Roswell New Mexico.

Attention boys and girls….I want to introduce you to someone new. This is Mr. Raff. Please say hello to Mr. Raff.”

A chorus of children’s voices responded in unison…”Hello Mr. Raff…”

“Hello boys and girls… as Miss Graham said…I’m Mr. Raff….and I’m one of the science teachers at Poco Mesa Junior High School. We are trying something new this year….one-half day every other week you are going to have a science day. You see, science is important in our lives…and it’s becoming more important all the times. You were selected by your third grade teachers because you seemed to have some interest in science or math…and we are going to give you a chance to discover how interesting science is with classroom work…and even a few field trips.”

The last few words quieted the class considerably. This was, after all, a fourth grade class and they had already figured out that time spent on field trips was time they wouldn’t have to spend sitting at their desks. A hand quickly went up from the back row….Kyle Valenti.

“Yes?”

“Who is taking us on the field trips…and where are we going.”

“Well, as to who,” said Mr. Raff, "..it will be me and Miss Moodey…one of the other science teachers at Poco Mesa. She’s giving this lecture right now over at Woodbridge Elementary.”

That answer wasn’t strictly true…although probably close enough. Yes, someone calling herself Miss Moodey was indeed giving such a lecture, but Miss Moodey really didn’t exist any more. That was just her professional name. Her real name was Mrs. Raff. Miss Moodey and Mr. Raff had tied the knot shortly after school had let out last Spring. But that information wasn’t necessary today for the fourth graders. In fact, the kids would get a lecture on such things in the future…but that didn’t come until sixth grade.

“Today we are going to talk about something called….geology," he said, writing the word on the blackboard. "Next week we will go on a field trip…out to a place where we can actually see some of the things we are going to discuss today. But first of all…how many of you were born in New Mexico?”

Mr. Raff watched as the hands of most of the people in the class went up.

“Well let’s learn a little bit more about New Mexico. Should we?” asked Mr. Raff with a smile.

Liz looked back to Mr. Raff. She had already decided she was going to like this…she enjoyed science. But she was a little puzzled as she looked back at Max. ‘If he can’t remember anything…how does he know he was born in New Mexico?’

But Max was so shy…maybe he just wanted to fit in…a little white lie. Mommy called it. It would be OK. Besides…she wanted to concentrate on the lesson….

“Once upon a time in what was known as the Paleozoic period…..” he wrote that on the blackboard…. “much of New Mexico….including Roswell..” said Mr. Raff… “..was once a sea floor..”

He projected the slide on the screen at the front of the classroom.

“It had a variety of life forms…many of which are captured in the local fossils that we can see in some of the local arroyos, where thousands of years of running water from thunderstorms have eroded…”

Mr. Raff wrote the word e-r-o-d-e-d on the blackboard as well…

“…the desert floor…that means it has carved deeply into it…and exposed fossils that date all the way back to when this area was underwater…. This…” he said, as he held up an object…. This is a trilobite. It was found only about twenty-five miles from here. It’s a very early inhabitant of New Mexico…and while it’s unlikely we’ll find specimens this big….on our field trip we’ll find an awful lot of smaller specimens…seashells…primitive fish…”

The screen quickly showed s variety of fossilized fish, and small shells.

This last one, for example…is very closely related to the chambered nautilus….an animal still alive today. It's almost a living fossil.“

Mr. Raff, Liz decided, was an excellent teacher. She looked over at Max…he was as mesmerized as she was. ‘I think I’m going to like Science,’ she told herself…..

Max watched…fascinated by what he was learning.

“But just as much of New Mexico was once an underwater seabed that got pushed up by what we call plate tectonics,’ Mr Raff said, as he showed the slide and wrote those words too on the blackboard, “.. the same movement of these huge plates under the ground caused volcanic activity in other parts of New Mexico. Here is a pictureof an area in central New Mexico….does anyone recognize it?”

Jaime Alvarez’s hand went up almost immediately, and Mr. Raff nodded for him to speak. “That’s the malpais…”

“That indeed is the malpais…” said Mr. Raff. “The early settlers called it that…the badlands, because it is a relatively new lava flow…perhaps only four or five thousand years old. They considered it bad because the lava was so treacherous…it would cut up their boots….there was little vegetation…only what had grown in pockets of dust that had sifted into the cracks in the lava. They really didn’t have much use for the areas like this…mostly rattlesnakes and scorpions…and the small rodents and insects they feed upon…although such areas are a fascinating ecosystem in their own right. Perhaps if you join the geology club in High School. you’ll get to see some of these areas.
But even right here near Roswell there are splendid examples of how geology works…..areas where those moving plates have thrust up small mountain ranges…where centuries of running water have carved out a trail through the desert…a trail that let’s us look back through the centuries at the sediment of that ancient seabed…like the arroyo we will be going to next week.

The afternoon passed all too quickly for Max and Liz….as they watched the slides and listened to Mr. Raff. Already they were thinking about the field trip next week…when they’d all get into a school bus and go out of town to the arroyo. As the final bell rang, the permission slips were handed out to be taken home and signed by a parent for the field trip.

“Gee Max…this is going to be a great year…going on field trips and everything.”

Max looked up from his backpack…where he was putting the permission slip…Liz had such beautiful eyes…Sometimes around her he could even forget for a moment who he was….what he was….

“Uh…yes, Liz…it ought to be…well just great.”

“Well…you’d better hurry, she said, smiling up at him, “…you don’t want to miss your bus….and Maria and Alex are probably waiting for me too.”

He watched her go out the door…the smile frozen on his face…it was so nice to have a friend…even though he knew she could really never be his friend….at least, not if she knew. But he’d be careful…never let her find out. It wasn’t fair, perhaps, to deceive her like that…but it wouldn’t harm her…and it gave him more than joy…it gave him a reason to go on.

He put his books in his backpack and started for the door…only then seeing the permission slip still sitting on her desk. He picked it up quickly…then went out the door…running not toward the bus, but rather toward the bicycle rack.

It was only after Liz unchained her bike that she remembered about the problem with it. It wouldn’t be a problem for long…but it was definitely a problem now. After her Barbie bike had been smashed, her mother had let her use her bike….the one she seldom used. But she’d really wanted a mountain bike…and THAT her mother’s bike definitely was not. So they’d gotten her one…just before school started.

The problem was an awkward one…mountain bikes…even girls ones…didn’t have the low center bar that her mother’s bike and the Barbie bike had…I mean, they were hardly the sort of thing you rode wearing a dress. But more to the point, the frame between the two tires had to be stiffened to handle the impact of off road use…and that meant the top bar needed to be much higher than on a traditional girl’s bike. Oh, Liz could ride her new bike well enough…once she was on. She usually was wearing shorts or levis anyway. But getting on and off…well, if she didn’t mount and dismount it just right she tended to get….well, high centered…and on at least one occasion, painfully.

At home she started out mounting the bike from the bottom step of the stairway back in the alley but at school it was the elevated curb surrounding the flagpole on the lawn. She slung her backpack on and pushed the bicycle over to the lawn.

As Max came out of the building he looked immediately at the bicycle rack…but didn’t see Liz. He envied those people who lived close enough to ride bicycles…if he lived that close, maybe he could ride with Liz as far as her house. His mother and father had told him they were going to get bicycles for him and his sister…and he was looking forward to that. He wanted a mountain bike…like Liz’s. Maybe someday they could ride together on the bike trails around town. He’d actually been reading up about how to ride a bicycle…it was a little complicated in concept…but he thought likely easier in practice. The key thing, he realized…was to keep the bicycle moving. If you could do that then with little movements of the handle bars you could work to keep the center of gravity constantly over the center of support. It was kind of like a word problem…he was pretty sure he could do it. But this digression into bicycle mechanics came to an abrupt end…as he spotted Liz by the flagpole.

The ground sloped away from the flagpole and it was somewhat awkward, but by standing on the curb liz could get her leg over the bar and support herself by the pedal on the other side. The trick was to push off with her right foot…and then find the pedal to keep the bike turning before her left foot was all the way to the bottom of the sprocket. But she’d had practice at this..and it would have worked this time too…if she hadn’t been distracted by the shout.

“Liz! You forgot your permission slip for the field trip.”

The bicycle had only gone a few feet when Liz braked it to a stop…Max didn’t really think that was a good idea. With zero velocity, the equations said that you couldn’t balance a bike. And the equations were right too, he decided, as he saw the bicycle wobble….and start to fall. Liz tried to get her foot down to steady it…but her foot didn’t reach the ground. As her backpack shifted he saw her start to fall…away from the curb…toward him …screaming as she fell. Without thinking twice he reached out to catch her and they wound up tumbling down the slope, bodies and bookbags entangled.

Mary Umbrage was coming back from the library when she heard the quick scream from the door by the flagpole. She was out the door in seconds. The principal’s brow furrowed when she saw the Evans boy..pinning Liz Parker down with his body on the grass. She quickly reached down and pulled him away by his pack.

‘WE HAVE A NO TOLERANCE POLICY FOR UNWANTED TOUCHING HERE, MR EVANS,” she shouted. “GO TO MY OFFICE….NOW!....you too, Miss Parker.”

As Diane pulled in to the school parking lot, she noticed Nancy’s car pulling in to the adjacent parking lot. Nancy looked quite frightened.

“Nancy…is there some problem?”

“I got a call from the office….that Liz had been attacked by some boy…She’s in the nurse’s office…”

“Well, I got a call from the office as well...that Max had attacked someone.”

“Well, considering what happened the first time, that sort of makes sense. Some one attacked Liz, and Max busted his arm or something…”

The two mothers entered the school simultaneously…Diane going to the principal’s office…Nancy to the school nurse’s office.

“Max did WHAT?” asked Diane.

“He assaulted a girl…he was wrestling with her out on the lawn…near the flagpole,” said Principal Umbrage. “I saw him myself. I sent her to the nurse’s office to be checked over. “

“I can’t believe Max would do something like that?”

“And why not? He has already been suspended for fighting once…..and there’s considerable suspicion that he intentionally broke a boy’s arm on the jungle gym. I warned you that he was a special needs child….that home-schooled children often have social problems…but you wouldn’t listen.”

”Well what did Max say…I mean…why did he say he did it?”

“It doesn’t matter…the discipline policy is clear…he had no business touching the girl at all…let alone wrestling with her. I see no option but to suspend him for another three days…and I’m going to make an evaluation by the school psychologist mandatory before he can return to class even then. I strongly believe your son should have professional counseling.”

“But Max has always been such a quiet boy…a gentle boy…”

”Well, tell that to the Parkers….You’ll be lucky if they don’t bring assault charges against your son.”

“The Parkers? You mean you think Max assaulted Liz? I don’t believe that…not for a moment.”

“Mrs. Evans…? Are you calling me a liar?”

“All I am saying is that I can’t believe this hasn’t been some sort of a misunderstanding….”

“There is NO misunderstanding….the discipline plan is clear…No unwanted touching of any kind is allowed….”

The small voice came from the doorway.

“Max can touch me all he wants…”

Nancy looked own at her daughter and smiled, “Well….I don’t know that I’d really recommend you go that far, dear….but in this case…well, I think it was probably OK. I’m afraid there has been some kind of a misunderstanding here Principal Umbrage…you see my daughter has a new bike that’s probably just a little too big for her…and when she started to topple over…Max tried to catch her to break her fall…”

“And he did…” said an indignant fourth grader, “…then we got tangled up in our packs and rolled down the hill…that’s all.”

Thirty minutes later Diane and Nancy were sitting in their booth having tea…Liz and Max in their booth….root beer float and a milkshake.

“Diane ..I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Lizzy quite so mad as when I told her what Principal Umbrage had told me….I mean…Liz just doesn’t get mad. I could barely keep up with her as she went up to the office…mad as a wet bantam hen…”

“Yeah…well I’ll instruct Max that he really can’t touch her all he wants…not that he would.”

Nancy shook her head chuckling. “Well, I don’t think we’ll have to worry… they are both way too young for that…but I think at that time Liz was ready to throw something at the Principal…a little verbal hyperbole was probably better than getting violent.”

“Liz wasn’t really hurt, was she?”

“No…of course not, just a few scratches and a bruise or two. I guess Max really did break her fall…otherwise she well might have ended up with another broken arm or something.”

“Well, Max would do anything for her…I’m sure of that. I think his sister may be a little jealous, actually.”

Nancy looked at her daughter…slurping a root beer float with her classmate. Max was sure a cute little guy. ‘Who knows….,' she thought. ‘…someday Liz will be grown up….she could probably do a lot worse than little Max there....’

The sleepover had been planned weeks previously…the fact that it occurred on the night after Liz and Max had taken their tumble down the hill was simply a coincidence….and an opportunity for one best friend to tease another.

“So Liz,” said a smiling Maria…struggling not to laugh, “..I hear you took a roll in the grass with Max today…” The phrase was a childish idiom….a double-entendre…implying that Liz and Max had been intimate under the cover of a simple description of what had happened. The effect was immediate …as a spoonful of Martian Blast Sundae going in met words of indignation coming out and Liz was caught in spasms of coughing as Maria laughed herself sick.

“We didn’t….I would never….how could you say….???”

Maria couldn’t let up…she almost never managed to get her best friend flustered this way…” Well Janey Bradley was in the office…and she swears she heard you say something about it being alright with you if Max touched you….”

Liz could see Maria was trying hard not to laugh…just teasing her. There was no winning this one. She pulled her sleeping bag over her head to keep Maria from seeing her blush and said, “MAAARRRRIA….”

“OK, OK, I’ll quit….I know it was all an accident…and that you were just mad at old Umbrage….but really, what was it like being that close to all those cooties.”

“Well it was just horrible,” Liz lied, “….but I guess it was better than a broken arm.”

"Well, knowing the Principal...he's still lucky he didn't get suspended. I can believe it was horrible...him all over boy cooties. I'm glad it didn't happen to me."


But much later on…with the lights out…as she heard Maria’s breathing become regular as she drifted slowly off to sleep……Liz looked up at the ceiling of her darkened room and remembered the feeling of him against her….it really hadn’t been unpleasant at all. ‘I don’t think Max really does have cooties,’ she told herself. And she sort of imagined what it would be like if he were there sleeping beside her…..just sleeping, not doing anything….you know,… EWWW… Somehow, she decided, that really might actually be quite nice....

It was almost a week later that Mr. Raff and Miss Moodey (AKA Mrs. Raff) took a bus full of fourth graders and one elementary school principal who was somewhat skeptical of the new science program the board of education had foisted on her on a field trip out to an arroyo 9 miles northwest of town.

An arroyo is a (usually) dry creek bed. Baked for months by the sun, the desert does not handle water well.

On those rare occasions when moist air comes up from the gulf of Mexico it cools as it rises into the New Mexico highlands. The result is a short but very impressive thunderstorm dumping vast amounts of water quickly on a flat desert that can scarcely start to absorb it. Tons of water seek the lowest places on the flat landscape and for millennia flash floods had charged down this path to carve out a channel almost twenty feet deep in the otherwise nearly flat terrain that had millions of years ago been an ancient sea floor.

Originally, the sea floor was built up in layers as sediment gradually built up over the centuries…then millennia of compression from the weight of the water and other sediment above gradually turned the bottom of the seafloor into sedimentary rock.

Trapped in this sedimentary rock were the remains of the bodies of the denizens of these ancient seas….ammonites, trilobites, fossil fish, and a variety of other ancient plant and animal sea life.

As the bus approached the arroyo, Mr. Raff explained to the students that it was always necessary to make sure there was no rainfall upstream of the arroyo prior to entering is…that several people are killed annually in flash floods in New Mexico each year. They each chose partners…and were to stay with that partner…and not leave the area of the arroyo without contacting a teacher.

As the water had carved out the arroyo bed, it had first disturbed the relatively recently formed seabed. The deeper they were below the desert floor, the older the fossils they would find. Some student pairs would explore the sides of the arroyo…some the very bottom…still others would be stationed at the top, to help measure the depth below the rim of any specimens they might find. All the kids were from New Mexico. But with one eye on Mrs. Umbrage, Mr. Raff reminded them of the snakes, spiders, and other prickly or venomous plants and animals, and told them to report any they saw…while keeping a safe distance.

Somehow, it really didn’t surprise Mr. Raff when his two best students in the fourth grade teamed up together. They wound up in the middle group….looking for fossils along the wall of the arroyo.

After descending in to the arroyo, most of the children fanned out…some going downstream, some going upstream, carefully examining the floor of the arroyo and the banks on both sides. As each found some small specimen, Mr. Raff would assist with the excavation and identification…Miss Moodey taking pictures of each work in progress.

After finding two fossils…an ammonite and a fish…Max and Liz proceeded further down the creekbed…around the next bend of the arroyo from the other students. Around the bend they found an area where the side of the arroyo was undercut, the running water from the bend having over the eons hollowed out an area under an overhang just downstream from a large curve. As Liz went into the shallow cave that had been formed she looked up to see what appeared to be the best fossil found yet…a large trilobite, much like the one Mr. Raff had showed to the class. She reached up to see if she could loosen it by hand…..and as she touched it…it was like touching fire.

The Arizona Bark Scorpion is common throughout much of the Southwest.

This species is about the only scorpion that is really capable of climbing...and the only scorpion in the US that is usually capable of causing death in humans...although usually just to the elderly and young children.. Normally a night predator, it will hide in the relatively cool nooks and crannies of rocks during the heat of the day. Scorpions are generally viviparous…bearing live young…and the female had made her nest some time ago in the small depression next to the fossilized trilobite in the shallow cave. She had protected the young scorplings through their first several moults…and it was about time for them to leave the nest….but this wasn’t the way it typically happened.

When the hand had appeared in her nest…threatening her three dozen young…the reaction had been instantaneous…whipping her tail into the nearest finger. But as she charged out to defend her brood…her scorplings now almost young adults..she not only went after the one who seemed to be attacking her nest…but in doing so knocked dozens of her young out of the nest…raining down onto the girl below…onto her head…her face…her neck. Instantly Liz found herself under attack.

An attack by a scorpion is unlikely to be fatal in a healthy fourth grader...but as simultaneous stings came from a number of scorpions...Liz was in serious trouble.