Roswell Fanatics

Title: The First day of School

Disclaimer: the events of my story were alluded to in the three years of episodes. I wrote from Max’s POV looking back to his childhood. I am just making an exercise in filling in what might have happened before the pilot through to when Liz told Max about the sheriff’s pictures in the first of the pilot. At the end I tried to return to the TV story. Everything is with great respect to my enjoyment of the show and characters.

Rating: These are children so it is extremely Child rated.

The First day of School

It was the first day of school. We had never been to school even though we were starting in the third grade. I held Isabel’s hand tightly. I was so scared. All around us there were children. I did not find comfort in them but rather felt fear. We had been home schooled since Mom and Dad found us. For the first year we seldom left the house. We did not know how to sit up to a table or use the bathroom or talk. All of these would have made a lesser couple give in and send us to foster care. Our parents, Diane and Phillip Evans, wanted children so badly. They called us their special children. Maybe they could not have been there at our birth but they wanted to be responsible for as much as possible in our lives. True, we learned fast. We had phenomenal memories and it usually only took us a few examples to master things. After we had been with them for about a year we could talk at our apparent age level and were house broken enough to be considered normal children of about six or seven. Because we picked up on things so quickly, there was discussion that we might be older than we appeared but no one claimed us. The Evans were so protective of us, the question was dropped. The court defined us as their children, gave us the last name of Evans and gave us ages even though they decided to make Isabel one year older because she seemed to pick up things faster than I did. They never knew that Isabel and I talked to each other not through language but rather through thoughts and feelings; a skill that diminished as we developed spoken ability, Today we can feel each other’s presence but rely on talking to communicate. This was an advantage as we grew older, since it allowed us to keep some of our thoughts private.

Mom and Dad taught us to wear clothes and gave us many of the appetites and possessions of upper middle class children. We always remained close to them because we had that terrible fear of being alone and lost. Phillip was a lawyer and that is why they were able to adopt us with as little fuss as possible. I went fishing with Dad and Isabel learned to go shopping with Mom. I am afraid she was better at shopping than I ever was at fishing. Dad and Mom played sports with us and we were the kind of kids that gave them as little trouble as possible. Perhaps, it was because we still had a fear that if they did not like us or became disappointed in us, they would no longer want us and we would again be alone. We just never went out around other children very much. We were always afraid that we would do something that would cause us to be taken away. At first we did not know what those things might be, but as we grew older we learned we could do things others couldn’t.

We learned to watch our parents and anything that seemed to disturb them we concealed. There was that time when we found the hurt pigeon. It had broken its wing against a power wire. I had been fixing up bumps and bruises on Isabel and myself for some time. We were always healthy. The usual traumas of childhood I had just fixed without thought. I picked up the bird and I could feel its pain. I just looked it in the eye and saw the broken bones in its wing. It was so easy to just nudge the pieces together and make them whole. The problem was my mother was screaming for me to keep away from the poor bird, because it might be diseased. There was another problem. My Dad had just gotten a video camera and was taping every thing we did as dotting Dads will do. Isabel and I later talked about this and we watched to see if anyone else could heal like I could. We decided that this was one of those things that we must conceal so we would still be wanted. We still hadn’t started school yet.

Isabel was more daring than I ever was. She would experiment with things and started to learn to change things such as colors and shapes. We watched our parents and when we were in the park, we watched other children to see if they could do these things. When we decided they couldn’t, we added them to the list of things to be hidden.

Those first years Diane taught us in home school as much as she could. We quickly learned to read and learned the facts she felt were important. Isabel picked up everything quickly but it was only to please Mom. I, on the other hand, started to wonder why were we different. Why did other families have pictures of babies and our parents had none? It was explained by Phillip and Diane that we were found wondering in the desert. They felt we were a gift for a family that had wanted children for so long. No one knew anything about our beginnings and they didn’t care. They loved us and that was it. I still wondered. Later when we were older, I was watching Isabel change the colors of her doll dresses or with a wave of a hand change her hair, I wondered how we could do these things. I remember in school we learned that science was the study that answered questions.

There was one thing that Diane couldn’t give us; the experience of being with others our age. We would talk to them but when they would bring us around other children, we would usually hide. I would that is. After a time, Isabel would approach other children and she learned to laugh and giggle just like they did. I asked her about this and she said it was called “fitting in.” I just couldn’t do it. When we were introduced to adults, we were very polite and tried to do the things we thought would ingratiate us with our parents. Isabel would continue and talk to them as she watched her mother and as Mom beamed with pride Isabel learned to play the part. I, on the other hand would turn back into that private world that was warm and comfortable as soon as possible. Then Diane decided we should go to public school. I was terrified. Isabel looked on it as an adventure.

As we walked down those school bus steps, way too high for a third grader, I held on to Isabel tighter. I was swept with fear but Isabel, as soon as we were on the ground, shook off my hand and joined a group of giggling girls. I was alone. There were several little boys wrestling and hitting each other laughing and shoving. I started toward them, but something warned me away. There was a beautiful little girl with long soft brown hair and large soft brown eyes. She was not with the group that Isabel had joined but all of those around her seemed to like her. Her voice was so soft I was reminded of the pigeon. The bird that had so soft a voice and flew so gracefully once I let him free. I heard Isabel laugh like the others of her group and I cringed. Later she told me she was only trying to fit in. Remembering the pigeon that once healed had flown away, I was afraid to approach that soft brown-eyed girl fearing that she would fly away also.

The bell rang and Isabel left her group to catch my hand and we went to class. We were put into the same class at first because the school had no idea of where we belonged. They chose the third grade because that fit the court given age and it appeared we could do third grade work. They explained to my Mom that they could change us later if things didn’t work out. Having the same last name we sat in the same row. The dark haired girl who I learned was Liz Parker was on the other side of the room. The girls were giggling and the boys were pushing and shoving until the teacher entered the room and then they all quieted down. I quickly looked at Liz and saw that she had been ready for class from the first time she entered.

School wasn’t too bad, at least in class. We read stories about people doing things and we talked about things that had happened a long time ago. That is they did, I just listened. That is pretty much the way my school always went. If called upon I always knew the answer because we always did our homework and many times we would talk about it at home. I just never felt safe raising my hand. It seemed to me that being too visible was dangerous. Dad and Mom might find out we were different and they might no longer want us.

Science class was in the afternoon. We learned that the earth was a planet and that there were other planets around the sun. We learned the sun was a star and like so many other stars in the sky. I did not know why this was so important at the time. We learned about the weather and about the Earth and about the different countries on the Earth. I started thinking that here was where I would find my answers. The dark haired girl, Liz, also liked science. She was so interested in why every thing worked and would sometime ask the teacher so many questions that the teacher would just simply give her a book out of the library to read.

Recesses and noon times were terrible. At first Isabel would sit with me and we would eat quietly together. Sometimes the little boys would tease me but they learned that Isabel’s wrath was something they didn’t want to face twice. There was the time that several boys caught me alone. They surrounded me and started to tease me calling me a sissy and other things that I really didn’t understand. It flashed in me that I could break any bone and hurt them severely. I was a healer and I did not want to hurt anyone. I just couldn’t understand why they wanted to hurt me. I let one of them knock me down while I was trying to think what to do. I also was worried about what I could to do without showing our hidden abilities. Suddenly Isabel weighed in. There was no stopping her. She was not a healer. She was a shield maiden protecting her brother. She grabbed the boy that had pushed me down and with a quick foot behind his knee she tripped him. She slapped one boy who was laughing at me and turned around to the group daring them to do anything. The teacher saw the group of students and quickly sought out the problem. They confronted a blond angel who had her arms wrapped around her brother. Isabel simply said, “They tried to hurt him.”

That this little girl could do so much damage was not a subject the boys wanted to discuss so they took their punishment and went to detention. Isabel went back to her group of friends who were a little astounded with her action, but they quickly forgot it and accepted her again. By this time the group had begun to consider Isabel’s presence as something to be desired even if she might go on a tirade to protect her brother. Later she asked me why I let them do this. “I am a healer, I do not like to hurt. I also was thinking about what I could do and not break our rules. “

I forgot there was another thing that happened. Liz came by and knelt beside me in the playground dirt and asked in a voice so soft, “Are you all right.” She smiled, “Isabel really loves you a lot doesn’t she.” I went over to one of the tables and dusted myself off. I could barely think of anything to say in reply.

Liz asked me, “Why do you never say anything in class when it is obvious you always know the answer?”

It is hard for me even now to answer this and at that time I was just in the third grade. Isabel and I had talked about this many times. The only safe thing I could say was, “If I know the answer it is enough. It is best to let the others have their turn at reciting.”

Liz frowned for a moment, then smiled, patted my arm and walked off. I felt that my life was over and complete. I remembered again the first time I had seen her. Her smile had been for those all around her. This time though, the smile was for me alone.

How does a third grade boy fall in love? First of all he thinks of that which is most precious to him, in my case it was companionship. I, who so many times, was alone or only with my sister so deeply wanted someone to confide in. I needed someone else to share secrets with and someone that I knew would be there when I was alone. Most of the third grade boys were so silly. They said “girls have cooties” and made fun of anyone of their group that ever spoke to a girl. When I was grown, I thought about this and realized that it was natural behavior for some young males. There were others that always enjoyed the soft company of girls especially when they never liked the boorishness of so many of the boys. There were also those that had been taught by their parents to be polite and respectful, something that would be helpful in later life. At the time I could only think of Liz sitting beside me, and how sweet her voice sounded. Later talking to Isabel we discussed Liz. Isabel was thoughtful but guarded. “Max you cannot talk to her like you do to me. I am sorry but our secret is too important to ever let out.”

We had, by then decided that it was not that our parents might not want us as much as that people would be angry that we could do things they couldn’t do.

There was another boy in the third grade that changed our life completely. At the time we didn’t know it. Isabel was in the cafeteria the first day of school and there was a disturbance. Some teachers are so insecure in themselves, they have to find someone else to take it out on. That was Mr. Trevers. There was a boy named Michael. He was also a loner, but we didn’t pay much attention to him. His clothes were hand me downs from I do not know how many times. His manners were crude and for the most part he was very rude to everyone. He was always in trouble. Mr. Trevers, a pathetic man, had the boy by the collar. He was angry because Michael wanted to pay for his lunch with food stamps. He was berating Michael and calling him names. Michael was furious but there was not much he could do about it. The teacher was even more angered when Isabel asked Michael to eat with her. The teacher sputtered but when Isabel glared at him, he quickly left. No one wanted to face the shield maiden.

That night Isabel came to me. “I never felt a power so strong,” she whispered. It was a messy feeling like the floor in the first grade room at the end of the day. I couldn’t understand it, but when I invited Michael to sit with me, it calmed.”

“Is he a danger?” We had only faced imagined dangers at that time. “Who is he?” Michael was around from time to time after that. We both talked to him. There was something about him, but he wouldn’t open up to us. Isabel and I seemed to remember something about Michael, but we could not remember clearly.

The rest of the third grade was pretty much the same. Occasionally, a group of boys would come close but they would glance over their shoulders and see the fiery sight of the blond shield maiden and would go elsewhere. No self-respecting boy wanted to go to the principal and say that that darling blond angel just kicked the crap out of him. Isabel had perfected the role like a movie star. She would even be crying as she explained that her brother was all that she had. Liz would come by a few times when I was eating alone and we would talk. These times put me on the highest of clouds. When she was there, I was the happiest ever. Liz never sat with me when Isabel was around, so I began to worry that maybe I was just like a lost puppy that Liz felt sorry for. Often Isabel complained that I just couldn’t see people superficially the way she did and not get involved with emotions. Summer came and we went to Florida. Both Isabel and I were having a little trouble with dreams. We kept seeing a shape. Later we learned it was a double spiral. Once on the beach, without even talking about it, we made the spiral in the sand. Dad with his ever-present camera recorded it for us. On returning Isabel played with some of her school friends but I didn’t make any friends so I spent it alone. I read. We saw Michael a few times after we got home from Florida.

How do you learn about your self when you are in the third grade and you cannot ask your teacher or your parents? I read science books but no one talked about changing colors or healing something. I found a couple religious books that talked about divine healers but I wasn’t divine. These men all prayed and asked someone else to heal. I did not really even know how to pray. Mom occasionally had me say that scary prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” It was all about dying and I cried, asking her if I was going to die before morning. There was nothing about healing.

One Saturday afternoon I was alone watching television and the afternoon movie was about fearful aliens, when they were shot they would heal the wound and get back up. They smashed doors and did so much damage, I ran to my bedroom crying. That night Isabel came into my room after Mom and Dad had gone to sleep. The whole family was frightened and worried when they came home to see me crying. I wouldn’t tell them why. “All right Max what is wrong?” Isabel asked.

I just sobbed, “We are nasty aliens.”

“What?” was all Isabel could reply.

I put a Kleenex box on my bed and sent it scooting across the bed into the wall. “See, we are just disgusting Aliens.” I was still sobbing.

“Max where did you learn to do that and why do you think you are an alien?” Isabel asked.

“On television. I watched aliens smash things and destroy things. Mom and Dad will never want us now.”

Isabel was very quiet for a minute. “Max we must never tell anyone about this. This must be very high on our list of secrets.”

Iz went back to her room and I cried myself to sleep. Summer was almost up. I asked Mom to take me to the library. I went to the children’s section and checked out several books of science fiction. The children’s books were about boys going to space academies and young men visiting the stars. They did not have much about aliens. About this time Dad brought home a video about Star Wars. The alien here was a wooly big fellow that growled a lot. There were also some strange creatures that did not do much. They traveled about the universe but except for talking about the force, they didn’t do much that was strange. My mom had signed a card that allowed me to check books out of the adult section of the library. I finally found a magazine that had drawings of aliens and stories of alien wars where they blasted each other. I tried to show them to Isabel, but she was refused to talk to me about this.

I remember when school started again. We were in the forth grade. I saw Liz. This made my day. Few of the other boys bothered me or even wanted to speak to me. Isabel was Isabel. She went back to her groups, all the while keeping an eye on me. Michael started coming around, especially when Iz and I were eating together. He sometimes would have a rumpled lunch sack and other times Isabel would give some of hers. Michael would ask us questions about where we came from. There was still something about him. It was like maybe we should remember him. One time after he had a particularly bad experience with one of his teachers, he sat down and with a loud “Damn,” he brought his hand down and there was a crack as he blasted a hole in the little table. Isabel quickly gathered up the pieces and held them as I pressed them back into place. In a moment, it was repaired. Michael just looked at us. I placed a small rock on the table and moved it with my thoughts. Michael just looked at me. He took a rock and tried to move it but it spun out of control shooting across the playground. We both look to see if the teacher had seen us, but we were safe. Throwing any sort of rock on the playground was against the rules.

Well, nasty alien or not, we now had another. The more we were with Michael the more we remembered about the time we were found by the Evans. Michael was with us. He had run away frightened by the lights of the car.

Michael wasn’t at school one day and Isabel had some project with her friends so I just ate alone. That is until with a soft voice and smile that brown haired girl, Liz, sat down. “I think it is very nice for you and Isabel to be friends with Michael,” she said. “He is so alone and seems to be seeking something.”

As usual, I couldn’t think of any thing to say. I stuttered, “ He just comes by some times.”

“Others do not seem to care about him and I think he is so lonely. He is rude because he is afraid,” she returned. She looked at my books and smiled, “You like science fiction?” she asked.

Still stuttering I asked, “Do you believe in aliens?”

I wasn’t prepared for her laugh. “My father owns the Crashdown restaurant. It is an ‘alien theme’ place. Don’t you know that everybody in Roswell believes in aliens?”

“Do you believe they are nasty things that blast and destroy?”

She smiled, “Like the boys that used to bully you, some might be mean but I imagine there would be others that would be nice.”

That gave me something to think about all day and that night I told Isabel. She did not want to talk much about this, but she nodded and then went back to bed.

Michael came home with us one night. He was not talkative, but he did not seem to want to go home. Mom fed him and offered to drive him home when he was ready. She returned with a very sad story about where he lived. After that, he came home with us a lot. His manners were not the best, but he was so hungry that Mom thought he was not being carried for very well. On Saturdays Isabel, Michael and I would sit around out of sight and talk. We began to fill in some of the blanks in our memories. He had spent a lot of time in foster homes and he remembered us that night so long ago. Michael trusted no one, but as we found how we were so much alike, he began to trust us. He finally got to the point where he could tease Isabel without her getting mad.

There was another boy that came to Roswell in the year of the fourth grade. His name was Alex. He was very smart, but very different from many of the other students. The boys picked on him. He did not seem to have anyone to protect him. He seemed used to the bullying. He never seemed to let it go very far and usually had some quip to say in return. He was not in the least bit shy. He sat with me once but I did not have much to say to him. He did have eyes for Isabel. I do not believe she ever saw him. He commented on my science fiction books but they weren’t very much in his interest. He was interested in computers and music. I think Michael scared him. He never came near us when Michael was around.

I watched Liz. She did have one friend, Maria. Maria was a pretty girl but not smart in the way Liz was. Maria was seldom serious. She laughed a lot, but she had a terrible temper. I witnessed this when one of the boys splashed mud on her new dress. She chased him, hitting him with her lunch pail. Then she turned around, smoothed her dress and returned to sit with Liz who was laughing hysterically. I never went over to sit with Liz. We were together only when she choose to sit with me. I just didn’t have the nerve to go up to her.

Well that was pretty much the fourth grade. I studied science, tried to read about aliens and thought of Liz. I kept remembering her saying, “Some aliens must be kind and nice.” Dad didn’t go on vacation that summer. We went fishing a few times. Once when he wasn’t looking, I took my fish off the line and healed its mouth, then let it go. He wasn’t against letting them go. You know, “catch and release.” Occasionally Isabel and I would find some animal that had been hurt and always looking around first, I would heal it. That and the scrapes children always get into kept me in practice. Michael was added to our group and he always had scrapes, usually unexplained ones, to be healed.

Something did happen that summer. We got a new librarian. She sniffed at my collection of books and flipped through one. It was about an alien raping a human. She removed the book from my stack. “Nasty little boys do not need to be reading about this,” she snarled.

This little boy did need to read this. I wanted to try to understand why an alien would do something like this to a human. She also called my Mom and told her I was picking out books that were not suitable to a boy of my age. This caused Mom and Dad to start a sex education program they thought we needed. Now we had that talk at school about conduct that children of our age were supposed to avoid. We had that book given to us by our parents as we being prepared at home for school titled, “Where we come from.” It showed rudimentary pictures of sex and the results. It showed pregnancy and drawings of a baby developing in the womb. It showed drawings of children being born from their mothers. It talked about the care children needed from their parents immediately after birth. Trouble was we had no model on which to understand. We had no memory of a caring mother until Diane Evans. What happened to us from birth until we were found?

Dad brought home a science kit. “Hatch a Chick” was designed to teach children about the emergence of life. A single egg, bought from a mail order company was put into the Hatch a Chick. It was clear plastic and we could view the little chicken emerging from the egg. Suddenly, it hit me. We weren’t aliens, we were birds. That night Isabel and I talked about memories of coming out of some sort of shell. She didn’t buy the idea of us being birds, but the next day I asked Mom to take me to the library again. I found several biology books on birds. One book was about how birds came from Dinosaurs. Did that mean we were dinosaurs?

I look through the books, but we were nothing like birds that I could see. So I was going back to “Where We Come From.” It explained the belly button. The navel was a connection where the mother nourished the baby. Isabel and I had belly buttons. I guess we just weren’t birds. We still didn’t have any memory of being nourished by any one when we were young. I changed my reading. The writers of science fiction didn’t know anything about people like us. I started to read some of the literature around town about the great crash of 1947. I also decided that I must study science because this was the only way we would learn about how and what we could do.

Isabel learned to heat the leftover pizza we were eating in the back yard. I read about heat and they said it was caused by fast moving molecules. I tried this with my cocoa. I though about the little parts moving against each other and guess what? It got hot. Michael tried this and his pizza burnt to a crisp. He went home mad and we did not see him for several days.

By the time school started again, I was excited. We were in the fifth grade. I wanted to be back in science class. The more I studied science, the more I could understand and thus the more I could do.

Fifth grade, in our schools this was the last grade of elementary school. I needed to get as much as I could out of this year. Michael was even more delinquent in his absences that before. When he was at school, he was even more eager to learn about what we could do and not his studies. When we couldn’t be seen, he was always asking us to show him things we could do. He tried, but he just couldn’t control himself. He broke things instead of moving them and burnt things instead of warming them. Isabel was eternal. She was even sought after by her group. She was always so perfect, so clean, her dresses were never dirty no matter where she was playing. The other girls started to follow her around the school. I spent a lot of time with Michael and watching Liz, I learned her life had also changed. Liz and Maria had found a new playmate, Alex. They would run around the grounds with Alex in the middle and Liz and Maria on either side. I longed to talk to Liz, but except for when we were doing projects in science class, she was always with her other friends. Maria didn’t like science and Alex took every opportunity in science to get on the computer, so sometimes Liz would come over and work with me.

“Have you met any nice aliens yet?” She asked.

I jumped and must of turned white. I stuttered, “What do you mean?

“Well last year you were reading about aliens in science fiction books. I just wondered if you had found any nice ones yet.”

I regained my composure, “No I do not think those writers know what they are talking about.”

Liz looked at my stack of books. “Well let’s see, Physics for Grade School, Sam’s Book of Physics, and The Beginnings of Life. Max you surely are interested in many things.”

I did not know what to say, so I guess I just looked stupid. I so much I wanted to tell her about the questions I had. Isabel wasn’t interested in my reading and neither was Michael. I just had to be silent until she went away. I had to keep my questions to myself.

I can’t say much more about fifth grade. Michael wasn’t even in class the day we signed up to try out for advanced math and science classes next year in Middle School. Iz wanted into the class because that was the in thing to do. I wanted in these advanced classes because I was impatient to learn more about the three of us. Maria was another one that said she just didn’t want to waste her time in more difficult classes when they had the same credit as the regular classes. I just do not think she enjoyed working that hard in school. The rest of us took tutoring after school and at noon to prepare us for the entrance test for these classes. Michael came home with us some evenings and sometimes he would drop by on Saturdays. We ended the year with a ridiculous graduation complete with caps, gowns and diplomas. After graduation one teacher came down and told us to throw our hats in the air. I couldn’t see why.

Middle School, Junior High, or Three Years in Hell, it was all the same. The girls were different. Some of them begin filling out. I could see what magazines meant when they were talking about curves. Isabel one afternoon remarked that some stupid boy she passed was “sure hot!” I looked at her, but she just tossed her head and went down the hall. I was sitting alone on my lunch hour when this pretty red head with sparkling blue eyes sat beside me. I though she wanted to talk so I asked what she thought of Darwin’s evolutionary biology compared to fixed creationist biology. She looked at me as if I really was an alien and left in a huff. Later Isabel told me that was not the right way to talk to a girl that was clearly interested in me. We started Algebra and I found that it was interesting. We were taking Earth science. I enjoyed learning about this. I saw Liz in class one day and I asked her what she thought about Darwin’s Evolutionary theories compared to creationist biology. She replied, “I think there is much in each. The creationist approach is what we have today and evolutionists ask how we got there. “

I was never so pleased. Here, was an answer that I could think about, agree or disagree with, and Liz didn’t think I was some strange alien, even if I was.

Girls were talking about going out and Mom told Isabel that she could only go out with a group because she wasn’t old enough to date. I watched Liz to see if she or Maria were going out with Alex. I couldn’t tell. They were together but as far as I understood it, they were not on a date. I didn’t ask any more girls about Darwin but when they choose to sit beside me I did not have much to say. I found that Isabel, was now two people. At school most of the time she was snooty and not very pleasant. Occasionally she would sit with Michael and me and then she was the old Isabel. She would come into my room after our parents were asleep and we would talk about fitting in and our powers and our fears. She still was worried about my infatuation with Liz. Sometimes I felt she sent some of those girls to my table deliberately. Isabel started using make up. She found she could apply it with her powers and get results that other girls envied.

This was Middle School. The classes were much better. I learned more, studied more about our lives and thought of more questions about our beginnings. Toward the end of the eighth grade, I though my heart would break. Liz and Maria had started holding hands with boys. Sometimes they were with Alex and it was always just the three of them, but then they would be walking and laughing with just a certain boy each. My heart fluttered. A few words and smiles in science class was all that I had anymore from Liz. Michael thought I was wasting my time and Isabel was fluttering her own eyelashes at boys time to time. The only good thing I noticed was that the flirtation of Liz for any boy didn’t last more than a few weeks. There were middle school dances, which I avoided and Michael didn’t even consider. Michael was becoming agreeable to the fact we must be aliens. He took one of my Roswell books and skipped school the whole day. He came by that evening sitting in my room with Isabel and myself. “I think maybe we did have something to do with the Roswell crash,” he stated. Isabel just stared at him. I swallowed and asked how he came to that conclusion. “Well it is believed that something happened and remember that Hatch a Chick machine? Well I keep having dreams about coming out of some pod or cocoon. What if this is a memory of some sort of storage or protective device to keep us until it was safe for us to appear. So far we are the only three people that can do these strange things.”

This was a long speech for Michael. Those days he had been absent, he had been thinking and this was the end result. Isabel wasn’t arguing, but she really didn’t want things to change. She had learned to play games and play people. She was a little bit happy for the first time since we were small.

The last of eighth grade was now upon us and we are preparing for Advanced Placement courses. Seems strange, but if you do not take the right classes in Middle School, you cannot take the advanced courses as a senior in High School. Isabel and I both got into special classes and they really weren’t too hard. You had to study and keep up but most regular classes have so much repetition that we did not need that we kept our grades up with out too much trouble. Liz, of course took all of these courses. She once said that her family was so proud because she had a chance to do better than any one else ever had done before her. I learned that it was not exactly true. Our Mom and Dad were proud but they were never sure how much potential we had so whatever we did was praised. Alex took some of the courses but he was more selective in his classes and he worked hard on his music. What I wanted most of all was the advanced biology and physics. I had almost exhausted what I was able to understand in both biology and physic. I needed help to increase my knowledge. I saw Liz occasionally. She was dating and my heart dropped every time I saw her going to the movies or walking down the street holding hands. This never seemed to bother Alex because when Liz was not on a date, she and Maria were with him. They seemed more like siblings. Isabel just called me pathetic. Isabel went on one date at the end of the eighth grade. I saw him and tried to remember if he was one of the boys that had bullied me so long ago, but I couldn’t tell. Isabel wanted a decoration, not a relationship at her age. I guess he was pretty, but he sure wasn’t in one of our Advanced Placement classes. When Isabel, Michael and I were together, alone, it was like old times. We kept trying to add to our dreams and visions and memories. We had a pretty good idea of what happened that day we first appeared. Michael probably got out of the pod first. He was lost and he was scared. He ran off. Isabel and I got out about the same time so we had each other. We could even draw what we remembered the pods looked like. We think Isabel called to Michael, but he was afraid of the lights on the Evans’ car. Summer came and we spent a lot of time together. We went to the Crashdown. Believe it or not, it was Isabel’s idea. Some of her friends hung out at the Crashdown. Even though she was only fourteen, Liz was helping out at her parent’s restaurant. It was a combination neighborhood diner and teen soda joint. Michael griped at everything he saw on the menu. The names were ridiculous. Men in blackberry pie and alien blast were examples. We took a booth and were served by a waitress, not Liz. Maria, Alex and a couple of other teenagers were in a far corner talking and laughing. They were not loud and I got the idea that the Parkers welcomed the young people, but they had to behave. The waitresses were wearing light green short dresses with silver trim and bobbing antenna things in their hair. I suppose the trim represented aliens. Michael kept looking over his shoulder and clearly he was expecting to be jumped any moment. Liz didn’t wear a uniform, I guess because she was still to young to officially work, even in her fathers place. She was helping out, taking orders and passing out food. In between duties, she would sit with her friends and they were talking and having a good time. How I envied them sitting so carelessly as a group. We were almost ready to leave when she saw us.

“Hey Max,” she said. “Is this the first time you have been here?”

I lowered my head, embarrassed but looked up with my eyes. “I was just looking for aliens.”

Michael hit me hard with he is elbow. Liz though, laughed and made anything Iz or Michael said later worthwhile. We quickly left but I didn’t care. I had made Liz laugh. Because Isabel’s friends talked about the place, this was not the last time we went there. Isabel promised to find alien hunters and turn me in if I ever said anything like that again. I just wanted to watch Liz as she flitted about like a butterfly.

The summer was upon us, with another stupid graduation. I guess it is for those that do not make the real one at the end of High School. Dad was having a hard time at the office so Mom had to help him and left us alone many times. Michael came over a lot. Isabel would be there and it was like normal. Then she would go out with her friends and she was a completely a different girl. We both were careful because now we were deathly afraid Mom and Dad might want to get rid of us if they found out we were nasty aliens. Isabel told me I had to quit saying things like that. “If we are aliens we definitely are not nasty. In fact, we were pretty sophisticated. “ She tossed her hair changed her nail polish twice and went out with more of her friends.

Late that summer, Dad asked if I would like to take a ride? I thought this was a good idea and we drove to a nearby town. On the outskirts of the town we pulled into dirt driveway and drove back behind a house. There was an old army Jeep. It was pretty ugly but standing beside it was an even uglier and scarier character. The guy’s Levies saw better days two owners ago. He was wearing run down boots and a slouch cowboy hat. He had a multi-blade utility knife in a holster at his belt on the side and a hunting knife crosswise in the back of his belt. His forearms were tattooed and his face was scarred. Dad looked at the Jeep and told the man, “All right.” Dad handed over three one hundred dollar bills and took a rented tow bar out of the trunk of the car. The guy was rough, but pretty nice as he helped Dad hook up the jeep to the tow bar and to the car. He handed us a paper and we left. Dad smiled at me and said, “I always wanted a jeep when I was a kid. It will be a father and son project for us.” He laughed and said, “We should finish about the time you can get a license or graduate, which ever.” I worried for a few minutes.

“Dad weren’t you scared?” I asked.

“Of Jose? No, I have known him since High School.” Dad mused a second. “Max there are two lessons you can learn here. First you, do not always judge by appearances and then remember also that others, will judge you, by how you look. Jose is a hard worker and a loyal friend. He takes good care of his family and when he heard I was looking for a jeep he found one for us”

Dad always made me feel very good. The Evans have always been very good to us but would they if they knew the truth? When we got it home he gave me assignments, remove a part and then we would either get it repaired or replaced. We were not in a hurry and the jeep slowly took shape.

Later that night I thought about what Dad had said. I had judged his friend Jose, without knowing any thing about him. I thought about Michael and how people judged him as a loser when he was so smart. Then I thought of Isabel and how she was trying to hide behind appearances and did not want people to really see her. As always I ended up the think session thinking about Liz and how she seemed to be exactly what you saw, a sweet caring person. I hoped no one ever hurt her. Because I was the one to ultimately hurt her, I later felt sad.

Elementary school was oppressive, Middle School was scary but High School had potential. The potential to be oppressive, scary but also potential to take me to the places I wanted to go and answer the questions I needed to ask. Most of my classes were for Advanced Placement preparation. They were designed to be hard, but if you did your work they weren’t too bad. Isabel wore her classes like a badge of honor. I saw them as freedom to explore, but Michael with his poor attendance record found the regular classes he was made to take boring. This led to even worse attendance until they finally called in his foster parent and threatened to take Michael away along with the monthly check. Hank his foster father yelled and screamed at Michael and Michael tried to at least attend sometimes. It was so tragic. Michael was as smart as Iz or me, but he saw no reason to apply himself. He was even reading James Joyce and some other pieces of good literature. He knew what he was talking about, and it seemed he could almost memorize everything he read.

Liz was in many of my AP prep classes. Most of the classes were alphabetized so we were always on opposite sides of the room. When we had laboratory work, she usually chose me. Once I asked her “Why me Liz?”

“Because when we work together, we seem to be stronger in our work. Our individual abilities seem to be complements of each other.”

I didn’t really understand but the pleasure of being with her made me ask no more questions. Of course at the end of class one of her boy friends would meet her at the door and with some slight kiss or other gesture as they left, would plummet my heart below the floor. The only thing was after a few weeks, as usual, it would be a different guy. Isabel, once in a now rare show of pity, told me that as long as she changed often I would know she didn’t have any serious relationship going. Isabel didn’t dislike Liz, she just worried that I wanted more than we could afford to give. I was still her brother, but Isabel was widening her world without depth. She knew I couldn’t do that. I really wanted someone I could confide in and be with and totally trust.

Isabel was becoming the most beautiful girl at school. She was perfect in every detail though no one else knew of her powers to dispel any speck of dirt, of lint or blemish. I was growing and filling out. I was a bit shorter than Isabel but that was because girls just grow faster than boys. Michael was getting strong and big. His foster father made him work a lot. He still had run down clothes and a sour attitude but to Isabel and myself he was family. Maria was filling out and, although she was not flashy like Isabel, you had to say she was beautiful. Alex was just growing up. He did not seem to be any bigger in the waist than when he was in Middle School but he was tall and wiry. Liz wasn’t filling out as fast as Maria, but one sound of her voice and you just knew she was an angel. She was also so smart. I never said anything about aliens again, but she would sometimes hand me a clipping she found. She knew that I was very interested in the beginnings of life. Sometimes we would talk about some animal or plant that had been shown in class. We got to use microscopes and look at microscopic life. Liz gave me a clipping about life growing around a volcano under the ocean. She also gave me clippings about scientists discussing life on other planets.

I only talked to Liz in class or when Isabel, Michael and I went into the Crashdown. We would pass in the hall and she would wave if she saw me, but many times she was gazing up at the boy she was walking with. One time Isabel was off with her friends and Michael was absent, as usua,l and I was eating alone. Liz came by and sat down, just Liz, no Maria, no Alex and no boyfriend.

“Max don’t you have any friends other than Isabel and Michael?” she inquired.

“Well, I have a great lab partner.” I replied.

We sat and talked for the whole hour. I do not even remember what we talked about. I guess I didn’t make a fool of myself but I sure enjoyed that hour.

The next day I saw Alex with Maria on one side and Liz on the other crossing the common area and I ate alone. I became depressed. At home Mom and Dad were worried like any parent, about Isabel growing up too fast, but they were also worried about me not taking any interest in outside social events, meaning girls. I guess in his eyes, Dad had been “around” as he said it. Mom just winked at me when he would talk about dating and going out. They were both worried that I only went out when I was with Michael or Isabel. I played a little sports but like the episode of Smallville when Superboy had trouble with sports, I was always worried about hurting someone by using my powers without thinking. I just couldn’t explain that I didn’t just want to go out, but rather there was only one girl I wanted to go out with.

At the end of the year, true disaster struck. Liz started going with Kyle, the sheriff’s son, the hero of all of the school sports, the boy that could have almost any and every girl at school. They would walk around holding hands, the other girls looking at Liz with jealously. I do not think Liz even saw this. Maria and Alex seemed to be pushed back for a time. Liz still hung with them in the Crashdown but much of her other time was taken by Kyle. It was obvious that Maria and Alex were not impressed with Kyle.

Summer was coming up and the Liz-Kyle relationship was still going strong. I had the jeep to work on. I was up for my driver’s license. In New Mexico it is possible to get it after you are fifteen, if you take driver’s Education. I was studying and trying to learn to drive on Mom’s car, as was Isabel. She probably could have gotten her license earlier because the court declared her a year older. The fact that I would have a jeep was a sign of independence to Isabel. I tried to stop by the Crashdown every day or so. I do not know what the labor law is in New Mexico, but for families in small businesses, it is more relaxed. Liz started wearing the green dress and silver alien apron along with Maria, surprise, surprise. It was usually slow in the heat of the afternoon and this was about the time I was exhausted from working on the jeep. One time when neither Michael nor Isabel was with me, I just sat in my regular booth and read or rather pretended to read. Liz was the only person working the dining area, although I think her father was at the grill in back. Liz literally flopped down across from me. She was hot and tired as she usually took shifts that her dad’s other waitresses did not want. There were no customers in the diner at the moment. We started talking about school. I learned that it was incorrect that her other relatives had not gone on to college, but that her grandmother had been a professor and a writer until she met her grandfather who had started this restaurant. It was her father that had not been able to attend college. She knew he wanted to go, but she didn’t know the reason he couldn’t.

“What are your plans, Max,” she said.

I shrugged and said, “I guess I just want to learn more about myself and those around me.” Was that lame or not? She never said anything about her relation with Kyle or any of her other boyfriends for that matter. Whenever we were together talking, it was almost as if no one else existed. We always talked about science and school subjects. I remembered her laugh and wished we could talk about things that would make her laugh but I didn’t know how to do that again. Isabel said I was a stalker and she made it sound like something bad. She knew that I would not be able to just go out with someone but wanted someone to confide in and trust. She never let me forget that I could never do that. Michael wanted me to learn more about what we could do with our powers. I did not realize it, but Michael was getting desperate and scared.

Isabel was using her powers continually. She microwaved with her hand every fast food we bought either heating or cooling seeking her own idea of perfection. Her clothes were spotless and her makeup and hair were perfect. She could date almost any boy she wanted but they only got one or two chances to adore her, because she was always moving on to someone new. No one ever dared criticize her activities, or lack of being serious with any one boy. Maybe they still remembered the shield maiden. She could direct light to a CD and translate it into sound. She always did her chores at home when Mom and Dad were out. With her powers, it was only the work of a minute or so.

I read books on science and literature, worked on the Jeep and I guess you would say, I was stalking Liz. I enjoyed just knowing she was around. I began to feel that she was way beyond me and I was starting to feel happiness for any good thing that happened to her, even for the boyfriends that liked her. If you think about it, that was a terrible depression to be in.

Isabel and I started to drive, Maria got her license and was driving her mother’s car. Liz got her license also but only drove when she borrowed Maria’s car. Kyle got a new bright red Mustang. Like most of the older kids in New Mexico high schools, we were now mobile and ready to become sophomores.

Classes were great. In my advanced Biology class, we really did experiments and used equipment to study life. In advanced English, we were reading and learning about the way mankind thought and I wondered if somewhere someone was reading and learning how aliens thought. Math was not really my thing. but I was learning to use it to better study physics. The ideas of geometry and how you could prove things made me think that someday I would have to prove what I was to myself. “Oh,” I almost forgot. Liz was my permanent lab partner. We were allowed to choose our partners and she chose me.

“We have worked together too many years to not continue.” she said. She was still dating Kyle, I think.

Isabel uhged and grossed her way out of taking any more biology. I was still with her in some other classes, but she was not interested in science. Michael borrowed my reading list instead of his own and only came to school when, and to, the classes that he wanted to attend.

Heat was caused by moving molecules quickly. Cold was caused by slowing the movement of the molecules. Color was caused by the reflective properties of molecules and crystals. Healing broken bones was caused by seeing the wound and moving the parts around and then encouraging the body to heel itself. I found a couple of other things I could do. I could dissolve impurities in a system and flush them away so the system could heal itself also. I could stop bleeding and cause wounds to close so they could heal themselves. We all had an instinctive understanding of handling molecules but I was the only one that was interested in why we could do these things. I also seemed to be the only one that could really heal. Michael though, was like using a blowtorch to light a candle. He lacked control.

Isabel came up with something new. She was trying to remember how we used to read each other’s feelings and emotions before we learned to talk. She tried it on me one night, but there were so many thoughts of Liz, it shut her out. She then tried it on Mom. That was a disaster. She came through too strong. She drowned out all of Mom’s dreams and Mom thought she had seen a ghost and she came in screaming that Isabel was dead. Dad got up and we all spent the rest of the night convincing her she had just been dreaming. She would go back to bed but not to sleep because the dream had been too loud and vivid. It took some time to make her believe it was just a dream.

Isabel wasn’t one to stop, so she picked someone out of her freshman yearbook. This person turned out to be one of the girls Isabel hung out with. Isabel went in very carefully like she was hiding or something. She was able to see that person’s thoughts and dreams about being cheerleader. The girl was thinking about leading a cheer in front of the football team. Suddenly the girl appeared naked and Isabel ran away waking up with a start. From then on this became her hobby. She called it dream walking. It was not mind reading but rather picking up the bits of thoughts and fantasies her friends had. She learned that she really didn’t like them very much as she learned their true thoughts. I think this is similar to my healing. Where I am looking for pain and broken body parts Isabel is looking for ideas and fantasy fragments. I have no more explanation for how she does this than I do for how I sense pain and suffering and know how to heal it. Isabel tried Michael. This was a disaster also, because when she got into his mind, she found confusion, anger and frustration. It was almost more than she could handle.

I felt it was like my stalking. Isabel said firmly, “No it wasn’t.” Except at first, she wasn’t doing it to someone she wanted to get close to. Later she had to dread those words. Anyway she practiced this until she could get in and out, never leaving a trace for the person to know of her trespass.

In a way, I wondered what Liz was thinking, but then if I knew the truth, I might loose all hope forever. If Liz didn’t have any feelings for me, or if she thought of me in some other way, I could not stand it. If Isabel did dream walk Liz, she never told me about it.

That day. The day when it all started and almost ended. Michael and I were eating at the Crashdown. Liz was working and I, as usual, was watching. I do not know why I kept hurting myself by being there. The room was crowded with tourists. Michael and I were trying to hurry, because Mr. Parker was a little impatient with the teenagers when the place was crowded. Usually he was a cool guy but I guess you couldn’t blame him when there was money to be made by getting as many customers served as possible. Michael and I were in a booth and that meant we were taking up the room of four. When the gun went off, every one was shocked. Maria screamed and two mean looking men scrambled out the door. Almost every one ducked under the tables at the sound, as if that would do any good. The shot had already been fired. Maria screamed, “Liz!”

That was the first thing I thought of. All we could see was Liz’s legs sticking out from behind the counter. Michael grabbed me. He pleaded for me not to do anything. I couldn’t even see him through the tears, much less listen to him. Once I had passed him, he ran interference for me. Later I might think about this. Michael was at my back even when he disagreed with me. We got Maria to call an ambulance. Now I have to explain slowly. Remember this all only took a few minutes. I went to Liz. The blood was flowing. Something had been hit. I got her to open her eyes and I could first see the bullet lodged in the walls of her stomach. And all around it blood and bile was oozing out. I took a deep breath, she would only last a few minutes. First I disintegrated the bullet. Then I pulled the edges of all of the torn tissue together. I had never done anything this difficult before. It took everything I had learned in biology about human anatomy. After making the wounds come together and fuse, I had to remove the bile and prevent infection. This was something I was not sure about. Mainly I was removing anything that was not human flesh. I just hoped I did not make a mistake. I had to work very fast. Two years ago I couldn’t have done this. All of my AP classes were being used. Michael was keeping everyone back and he heard the ambulance coming. He demanded the keys. I had to leave and it was a prayer to Liz, the only one I ever believed in, that I had not made any mistakes and for her not to say anything about what I had done. In hindsight, it was stupid to try to cover it up with ketchup. I ran to the door and fell into the jeep as Michael barely slowed at the door. Michael got me home and into my room before he left. Mom, Dad and Isabel were not home yet. I fell into bed exhausted. I begged off being sick to keep from facing Mom, Dad or Isabel.

I was more than exhausted. When I entered Liz’s mind I was flooded with all of her surface memories. I had to ignore them to work, but now they were coming back and I had to make sense of them. It wasn’t like a movie. It was more like flashes with emotion attached to each memory. This was what Isabel saw when she dream walked but with Liz dying I saw her whole life. There were some disturbing visions. Some were not complete enough to understand and some were shouting so vivid that they were almost blinding. I wish I had had Isabel’s skill, but I had no intention of sharing any of these memories. They were too private. The few minutes I was there were stretched into hours of repeated and redundant visions. The human brain is not ordered like a database and Liz was dying. There were the visions of all of her boyfriends and they were not very clear. I felt Kyle but why did he look like a poodle? Most disturbing was I saw my self and a longing that I did not understand. I saw her childhood and felt so warm as I saw her parents. I saw her doing so much for others.

Next day I had to return to school. I delayed as long as I could entering our Biology class. I had seen Liz from a distance, but now I had to sit beside her.

The first thing as I entered the class was, “We’re going to examine our own cells.” I would have liked to do this in a safer environment, but this was with Liz and before the whole class. Upon sitting down, I asked for a bathroom pass, both to get out or the room and for an urgency that had developed all of a sudden. As an “A” student, I was allowed a lot more freedom than others might get, but it did me little good. Liz caught me quickly after class. She pulled me into the almost deserted band room. She even ran Kyle off so we could talk. She had found some of my cells on a pencil I was chewing on and she saw they were not normal. She was willing to give me a chance for a logical explanation.

I told her the truth. I could have lied. I could have made more reasonable claims. There are so many safer ways I could have used. I just couldn’t lie to my dream of so many years. The look on her face was what I had feared ever since I decided I must be an alien. I begged her not to tell and tried to explain our lives were at stake. Later talking to Isabel and Michael things were worse. Michael was doomsday in his thinking. He could not be reasoned with at all. He stomped off. Isabel, on the other hand, was calculating. Until she figured out that I had told the truth she was trying to figure out someway to explain our selves. She was also terrified. I think some of those stories I had told her about aliens and what humans did to them, had always frightened her.

That night I had to talk to Liz. I had placed not only my safety in her hands but that of Michael’s and Isabel’s also. I had given her a loaded gun and was relying on the discretion of a 15-year-old girl to not destroy us. I had violated her thoughts and her privacy. Granted it was to save her life but would she understand? I used the dress she had worn in kindergarten as a safe example that I had had visions about her. The first response she had was did I read minds? “No,” I didn’t read minds but her body was preparing to die. I had seen more than anyone should ever see about a person. I tried to explain. “We might be able to reverse the process. I have to touch you.”

She barely nodded. I think she, at first, was terrified. I was not good at this like Isabel but I had prepared a short view of our history. I started naked in the desert and proceeded through the first time I saw her in the third grade to watching her in High School. I was fearful but I kept the part in about how beautiful I thought she was and how important she was to me. This was not a movie but an emotion. It was a lot scarier for me to bare these emotions than for her to think I read minds. I gave her a lot more of me than I probably intended. So I waited. She seemed to calm down and accept me.

A few days later she confronted me. The sheriff had interviewed her and I think he scared her a lot. We met in the art room. She started off with a threat. She would turn me in if I didn’t cooperate. This was scary but I had already told her almost everything about me. She quickly became so serious I almost laughed. She even had a hand written list. I was surprised that she didn’t have a check-off space along with it. Her first question was one I could not answer clearly. “Where do you come from.?"

We had no idea who we were or where we came from or even why we were here. I explained as best I could that we were from the 1947 Roswell crash and that we had been in incubation pods. I am afraid I also implicated Isabel and Michael. I was a bit surprised but she accepted my answers. This was Liz, the professional scientist, willing to realize some questions didn’t have exact answers. Later I was to think how different from the interrogation of the Unit who thought by yelling louder and louder they could find answers that did not exist.

“What powers do you have?”

I was guarded. She already knew about us connecting with people. I answered the other one that I understood from elementary physics. “Moving things, changing shapes by molecular manipulation…”

“Wait what does that mean?”

For us this was a simple explanation of what we could do but for someone that had no experience, manipulation, sounded almost like magic. I tried to show her that by looking at something we could imagine it one way and it would change. Imagine it back, and it would return to original form. The mechanics I left out because, at that time, I do not believe even I had enough science to truthfully explain this.

Her reaction was surprising. Not incredulity but rather wanting to know who all knew about us. I tried to explain how neither friends nor parents knew about us and how much our lives depended on secrecy. Her next response was even more surprising.

“When you healed me, you risked all of this getting out. Why?”

In one phrase I summed up all the stalking, longing and hopes since I had seen her in the third grade. I am sure it was inadequate, but “It was you.” This was all I could say.

Liz then dropped the bombshell about what the sheriff had told her about the body in 1959. Back to the pilot episode.