I never expected being embarrassingly good at a Japanese card game would get me into the First Annual Interplanetary Peace Camp. But when I applied to act as the U.S. representative, the board of interviewers asked, “Isa Flores, how would you befriend someone as unlike you as an arthroid?” And I already knew my answer.
Back in Goldwater, Texas, every high school dork and their dog played Majikku. I spent every study hall whipping them one-by-one. After my Kaiju Claw power deck beat every duelist in the county between the ages of four and fifty-five, I went to Dallas and won State.
That next semester I was too busy buffing my deck and reading up on how to help myself and harm my opponent to do much homework. I almost failed World Lit, but I scored first place at nationals. And a year later—even after I swore off Majikku forever and buried my cards in the cow pasture—my love for games gave me a special interest in the Arthro.
The Arthro are different from us, all right. They look and act a lot like shrimp, with whitish, almost see-through shell armor, stilt legs for wading shallow shorelines, and pokey tails that curl under their arched bodies. We only share a window planter’s worth of common ground: we’re both hunter-gatherers, we both live in communities, and we both get math. The scientists on NOVA said that was a lot more than they hoped for.
Still, whether you’re an animal, a machine, or a human, you play games. Anything with a brain understands risk and reward. Whether someone prefers offense or defense, what they’re willing to sacrifice, even how they define a victory, says so much about who they are. So to get to know a race of crawdads, I told the board I would bring along a pack of playing cards.
The day the Greyhound dropped me off at the Aquila River Campground in Colorado, I found our species clumped on opposite sides of the courtyard like an awkward school dance. So when the Bolivian representative played her little charango guitar and Nigeria’s top pick rolled out a soccer ball, and I sat down and taught the Arthro Crazy Eights.
The first arthroid I met wasn’t like the others. All the juveniles were about the size of a beagle, but he was more like a chihuahua. He seemed younger than the others, since his tail had swimmerets leftover from his aquatic larval phase. Something about molting complications. But he picked up Crazy Eights right away, and after a round or two he was beating me easy and even teaching me some Arthro games they played back on his river.
The counselors paired us as buddies the next day, and that’s how I hit it off with Baby. Two months of crafts, ghost stories, and team-building activities tied us like twins. By the last day of camp, even in the swarm of teenagers and arthroids gathered in the amphitheater for morning announcements, I knew I’d find Baby up front. He always showed up early to avoid getting crunched by sandals and sneakers.
Sure enough, he saved me a seat in our usual spot. I broke open some trail mix I kept in my jacket pocket, picked out the raisins, and set them on the bench between us. He took a raisin in his tiny claws and nibbled away. He was still growing and couldn’t wait for lunch, so we made brunch part of our morning routine.
On the stage below, a human counselor in a yellow Peace Camp tee waved a baton with glittery streamers and star beads. “The scavenger hunt is the last game for the spirit stick,” she signed in our common language of snaps and finger flicks. “Remember, some items are worth more points than others based on the challenge. The first one back here with thirty points wins. Let’s look at the leader board.”
Baby and the other arthroids applauded, but only a few human teens sent up some halfhearted whoops. Hopefully their buddies couldn’t sense their stress. Even at the end of the summer, those big, dew-drop stalk eyes had a hard time reading faces. For all they knew, we always looked pale and stiff.
A projector shone down onstage, displaying the current standing of buddy pairs.
A few kids winced. One guy behind me whisper-swore in a language I didn’t know.
I scanned the symbols for my given sign name, Good Game, and Baby. And when I found us, a bolt of excitement lit me up.
We tied for second with an arthroid called White-Black, because of her dark thorax, and her human partner, Jeoung Hyo. The Indian candidate, Raj, and his buddy held first all summer, but if we won the scavenger hunt . . .
Baby dropped his raisin and turned his brilliant stalk eyes on me. His antennae quivered. “We could win the stick.”
It took a moment for me to respond. Even after months of language learning my signing was sucky and slow, but Baby never complained. I don’t think he had many friends back where he came from—something we had in common.
“We’ll have to fight hard,” I signed. “The others want it. Bad.”
“But maybe,” Baby signed.
I tried to suppress the Pop Rocks twinkle in my chest. “Maybe.”
The spirit stick was so glittery and goofy-looking, not even the Tooth Fairy would accessorize with it. But I bet some campers would fight a biker gang for the ultimate prize it came with. Tonight, one lucky power team would win a chance to attend a year of school together on Arthron.
For me, it was first place or nothing. It’d been a long time since I had a best friend, and the idea of being separated from Baby by an ocean of star stuff made my throat tighten. I’d do anything for another year together.
Jeoung Hyo sneaked down the aisle and took a seat next to me. “Good Game. Congratulations.” Around camp she was known as Fast Hand because she signed perfect common. “Do you have a plan for the scavenger hunt?”
Weird. Hyo usually ignored me because of my caveman vocabulary. “I think,” I signed. “We’re going to try our best.”
With her camp shirt cut-up and tie-dyed pink and her hair done up in a braided bun, she looked Pinterest perfect. But I could tell by the rings around her eyes she’d lost sleep over the spirit stick. She was scoping me out.
Across the aisle, Hyo’s partner White-Black clicked her tiny claws and flagged with whippy antennae. “You two make a good team. You must have a special friendship.”
Baby’s claws blushed blue. “Thanks.” It didn’t take a xenobiologist to notice he looked at White-Black like a teen heartthrob.
“Don’t forget to pick up a scavenger hunt list on your way out,” the counselor signed. “And remember, the Goodbye Bonfire happens tonight at the observatory, so wear your hiking shoes for the climb.”
Buddy pairs filed out of the amphitheater to mess, taking scavenger hunt lists from the counselors at the end of the aisles.
When I stood, Hyo put a hand on my shoulder.
“I know how badly you want the spirit stick, Isa.” Her spot-on English—and my real name—made me freeze. “But it doesn’t matter how much you want it. I want it more.”
White-Black stood at Hyo’s feet, waiting to follow her to mess like she followed her everywhere. Baby used four claws at a time to munch down his last few raisins. Hyo hadn’t signed. That was just for me.
The fangs-bared threat threw me off, but I held the poker face I earned as the Majikku Continental Champion.
Somehow, I expected this from Hyo. But I wasn’t scared. She knew my sign name. Anyone who did knew how I got accepted to camp. Still, nobody, not even Hyo, could guess the terrible things I’d done to win. As Hyo turned up the heat, it didn’t so much send sweat down my back as it stoked a fire in my belly.
I turned my back on her and marched up the stadium stairs, grabbing a list on my way to the cafeteria. “Come on, Baby.”
Mess was crowded, so I stayed close to Baby to protect him from feet. It was the best I could do since I didn’t dare pick him up.
In the eighties, when the adults made first contact in person, some prime minister had the bright idea to touch an arthroid senator. Some people thought that blunder might’ve been the whole reason we had a peace camp. Wouldn’t surprise me.
At the beginning of the summer, Canada’s representative lost his grip on the rock wall and grabbed for the first thing he could get ahold of. He caught his buddy. Well, he said he just brushed her. Either way, she barfed nasty-smelling acid on his shirt—some kind of defense mechanism. Everybody came out okay, but the arthroid was so upset they paired her with a counselor for the rest of the summer. They shut down the rock wall too, just when I was getting pretty good at it.
While we waited in line for mess, I scanned the scavenger hunt list. There were three pages. The first page had easy one-point items. The five-point items on the second page would be a little more difficult to find. The third page featured extra challenging ten-pointers.
Across the cafeteria, Hyo chatted up a table full of arthroids. White-Black waited by her feet, snacking on algae chips and looking around. I couldn’t understand why White-Black spent all her free time with Hyo if she just ended up doing nothing all day.
Baby and I sat outside together, me with mac’n’cheese and Coke, him with algae chips and a can of tuna. Usually he shoved algae into his whirring mouthparts like a machine, but today he snipped at his food like there was something on his mind.
“Are you okay?”
Baby didn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t want to leave you,” he signed.
Hyo planted a rock of resolve in my chest, but Baby just knapped it into an arrowhead. Anything he lost his appetite over was worth fighting for. So I ripped off the first two pages of the list, leaving only the ten-point items in the back.
In this game, high risk earned high reward. To beat Hyo and White-Black, we couldn’t afford to play it safe. “We can win the stick,” I signed. “But we’ll have to be smart.”
By the time we returned to the amphitheater the seats were full again. An Arthro counselor took the stage, and everyone fell silent as he explained the rules one last time. Finally, he counted down. “Three. Two. One—”
A human counselor blared an air horn. “Go!”
The amphitheater exploded in chaos, but Baby and I escaped. With him scuttling as fast as he could, I was at a jog, reading some of the items off.
“A star from the archway, a rock from Arthron, a weather vane, a cell phone dropped in Aquila Lake . . .”
Baby jumped in. “I already know where a few phones are. Your big hands drop things all the time.”
“Are you sure you can find them again?” I signed. His eyes were designed to see into deep water, but it was a big lake.
“I can do it.”
We passed the camp entrance, and I spotted a couple of buddy pairs lingering in the road under the welcome archway. The cast-iron Aquila River sign topped its peaked roof, and each letter I was dotted with a shiny tin star.
One arthroid tried to climb the slick metal support beam with zero success. The roof hung way too high for any of us earthlings to reach, so some of the campers started throwing rocks. Stupid. Those stars were screwed on. If we wanted one we’d need a major boost.
I glanced at Baby, who didn’t seem to have any ideas. If only I could chunk him onto the roof.
At least the stars didn’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry. We’d come back to this.
Baby and I ran down the trail and arrived at the lake. At first it seemed like nobody was around, until I spotted a kayak floating off the bank.
Hyo and White-Black.
I could just make out White-Black signing, “There’s one.”
“Crap.” I broke into a run and pulled a kayak down the dock.
Baby mustered all of his strength to drag a paddle to me. I pushed us off, and soon we were streaking across the water.
Baby ran in place in the back end of the kayak, click-chanting, “Faster, faster, faster.”
Every stroke spread an achy burn across my shoulders. I couldn’t sign while I paddled, but unless he planned to pick up an oar with those itty-bitty claws, he’d better shut it.
Hyo dived out of her kayak and ducked underwater. The green lake was clear almost twenty feet down—nothing like our clay-banked reservoirs in Texas. But it was still impossible to see the bottom.
For me, anyway. White-Black and Baby’s eyes flicked back and forth like they were looking through glass.
I watched as Hyo sank deep out of sight. After a long moment she broke the surface and gasped. “I can’t find it. You get it.”
White-Black hesitated, antennae slicked back, and I could guess why. Most of the Arthro probably wouldn’t get into the water. They were too ashamed of their larval phase. Swimming was for kids.
I looked back at Baby. I hated to ask him to embarrass himself in front of White-Black.
“I can see it.” He twiddled his claws, probably predicting my big ask.
“You could get down there,” I signed. “You have your swimmerets. But”—I caught his stalk-eyes twitching toward White-Black, and his antennae tinged blue—“you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
After a long moment, Baby stood—ready to jump in. “Worth it.”
Hyo burst out of the water again, still emptyhanded. And suddenly I had an idea.
“Wait, Baby. I think we can make this worth your while. But we’ll need Fast Hand.”
“She won’t help us.”
“Maybe. For a price.”
I paddled alongside Hyo and White-Black.
Hyo flopped over her kayak, breathing hard, and cut me a white-hot glare.
“Baby can get that phone for sure,” I said. “If he finds one for you, too, will you work with us to split the stars on the archway?”
Hyo didn’t check to see if White-Black thought it was a good idea. Working together was the only way we’d beat higher-value challenges with a lot of time left. If we split our earnings, we’d still earn more than the others, and faster. Giving her that edge was a gamble, but also the only way to beat the first-place team.
“That’s fine,” Hyo said, cool as a businesswoman
White-Black agreed with whatever Hyo thought, so we’d struck a deal. I nodded to Baby.
He jumped in the water. The tiny spines on his arched back poked out of the surface for a moment and he stretched his tail out. Then, with a flutter of his little swimmers, he jetted to the bottom of the lake.
I gave Hyo and White-Black a dangerous look. “Don’t tell anybody about this.”
“I wouldn’t,” White-Black clicked, and I believed her. Hyo made no promises.
Baby emerged several minutes later with a shattered smartphone and a chunky old Nokia I only recognized because of the Internet. He clawed back into the kayak like a wet cat skittering on linoleum.
“Good job.” If only I could’ve high-fived him without triggering interplanetary disaster.
Hyo held out her hand. “Well?”
“After you help us.” I put the phones in my pocket. “You know I’m good for it.”
We paddled back to the bank and ran to the Aquila River sign. By now most of the buddy pairs had cleared out for easier pickings, except one. The Norwegian rep had found and stacked a couple vegetable crates from behind the cafeteria. He reached as high as he could, and his fingertips brushed the edge of the archway.
“Quick,” I said to Hyo. “Get on my shoulders.”
I gave her a boost. We staggered over to the archway, where she hooked her arms over the edge of the roof and hauled herself up.
The Norwegian jumped to catch the roof and lifted himself partway, kicking his legs in the air like he was pedaling an invisible bike.
But Hyo was already working the first star peg out of the letter I. She popped it out and moved to the second.
The Norwegian slipped off the roof with a holler and fell butt-first into one of his produce crates.
Hyo stuffed a star in her pocket and threw the other down to me. Fair’s fair. I tossed the smartphone to her. We’d both earned twenty points.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” I said. “If we move faster than Raj, one of us will win for sure.”
The Norwegian, struggling to unwedge himself from the box, said, “Haven’t you heard? Raj got the weathervane. He’s at twenty-six points.”
Hyo and I exchanged a horrified glance. No way we’d catch up.
“Listen.” Hyo spoke in English, this time signing for our arthroid partners. “This is working, right?”
“Yeah.”
“There are plenty of rocks from Arthron in the observatory. If we each get one we’ll both be at thirty.”
The uphill trail to the observatory was almost forty-five minutes each way. By the time we reached the top, Raj’s victory would be clinched. “There’s no time.”
Hyo slid off the roof and dropped to the road. “Follow me.”
She led us around the base of the mountain, about five minutes past the main office and the nurse’s station, to an out-of-the-way part of camp I hadn’t visited in a long time.
The rock-climbing wall stretched all the way up a steep cliffside. At the top of the cliff, a short walking trail led right to the observatory.
The stillness sent chills across my neck. Nobody came around here since they removed rock-climbing from the activities list, but harnesses and helmets still hung in the nearby shed.
White-Black fiddled with her antennae. “Is this okay?”
Hyo blew her off. “It’s just a quick climb. There’s a bucket at the top of the wall, so we’ll go up and pull White-Black and Baby after us.”
Even though the staff took climbing off our schedule, nobody told us to avoid the rock wall. It wasn’t like the equipment was broken. I knew how to use the ropes on the auto belay.
I put my hands on my hips, doing the math. “So we each get a rock. We tie . . .”
“It comes down to a race to the finish,” said Hyo. “But one of us will beat Raj. That’s certain.”
I turned to Baby. “Thoughts?”
He wrung all four of his claws. White-Black’s worry rubbed off on him. “We shouldn’t be here.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. If we made another deal with Hyo, we should really both be on board.
“We’re running out of time.” Hyo offered me a harness. She already had hers buckled around her hips. “If you don’t do it, I will.”
By now, the sun had almost sunk to the tops of the mountains. I bit the inside of my cheek. I really wanted to stay with Baby. There wasn’t much time left to win. And he trusted me to make the call.
I stepped into the harness, cinched it tight, and clipped into the auto belay.
“It’s okay,” I signed to Baby.
He folded his antennae back. “This isn’t good.” But he didn’t move to stop me.
Hyo and I climbed the wall, hand-over-hand. A cool breeze tousled my hair. From up here I could see the bunks, the mess hall, and the amphitheater.
I found a secure spot on one of the rocks and paused, looking down at Hyo as I caught my breath. “Why do you want the spirit stick?”
Hyo grunted. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not so you can stay with White-Black.” I reached for the next rock and pulled myself up. “I hear some governments make kids pledge to make friends with campers from resource-rich parts of Arthron, and sign contracts to participate in the pen pal program.”
She climbed up alongside me, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye.
So I asked her straight. “Are you pledged? Did you sign anything?”
Far away, a Stellar’s jay cawed.
“Did you?” Hyo asked.
“They asked me to.” I didn’t. “But I asked you first.”
Hyo pushed ahead, her stare fixed on the top of the cliff. “It doesn’t matter. I’m still making friends.”
“To cut deals.”
“Business is an important part of peace.”
“You’re not wrong.” All kinds of wins and losses—working out a trade, picking a fight, making a friend—kept the world moving. But still, I couldn’t forget the one game I wished I could undo. “The way I see it, the why makes all the difference. When you play for the love of the game, you get to know a friend. But some of the adults that run this world, and some of the kids that want to—they only play to win. They’re just studying an enemy.”
We reached the top of the cliff and unclipped ourselves from the belay.
Hyo retrieved a five-gallon bucket, clipped her belay to the handle, and strung it down to the ground. White-Black and Baby clambered in, and I helped her pull the bucket back to the top.
“White-Black likes you,” I said after a moment. “A lot.”
But Hyo was done talking, let alone apologizing to White-Black. So we wheeled the arthroids the rest of the way in silence.
The four of us ran to the observatory. Inside a dome big enough to roller skate around, a telescope pointed toward the ceiling. The arthroids’ walking legs clicked on cold concrete like high heels, echoing around the dome. Display cases on the walls held fossils, pressed leaves, and other natural collections from earth and Arthron.
We went to Arthron’s minerals case and slid it open. Hyo chose a dark volcanic rock, and Baby picked out a pinkish crystal. That was almost too easy.
I put the crystal in my pocket and turned to Hyo. “Ready—?”
But she’d already blasted out the door. White-Black slipped on the concrete, desperate to catch up.
“Dang it.” I jumped to my feet. “Come on, Baby.”
By the time the three of us reached the cliff, Hyo was clipped into the auto-belay and halfway down. “Better hurry, Isa,” she shouted.
Heat flooded my whole body. I yanked on the harness, clipped into the belay, and slid over the edge of the cliff.
White-Black stopped at the very edge and leaned to watch me. “How do we get down?”
Baby reached an antenna out to brush her back from the edge, but she jerked away from his touch.
White-Black slipped. Plunged past me.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
Then—below—a thud. And a horrible crunch. Like a shell in a lobster cracker.
“White-Black!” I shouted. The belay whirred as I rappelled down the wall.
I snapped the hook off my harness and turned to see White-Black, curled up on the ground, scrabbling in the dirt. Her whole shell flooded black-blue. One of her walking legs had clean snapped off. It twitched on the ground. Clear fluid leaked from her broken leg joint.
Hyo stood aside, mouth open.
I knelt over White-Black, but my hands hovered helplessly in the air. I couldn’t touch her. “Are—are you okay?”
“No. No. Get away,” she signed frantically, mouthparts foaming. “Don’t touch me.”
I looked to Hyo. “Get someone.”
She glanced between midnight blue White-Black and the rock in her hand. She trembled, like some tremendous pressure threatened to crush her from the inside out. Her glassy eyes focused on the rock.
“Hyo.” No. No way was she thinking it. “Hyo, snap out of it! She’s hurt!”
“Stay here.” She backed away, white as a candle. She’d made her choice. “I’ll get the spirit stick, and then I’ll get somebody . . .”
“What’s wrong with you?” I practically screamed.
“I’m coming right back.” She stuffed the rock into her pocket and ran.
“Hyo!”
Baby snapped to get my attention from the top of the cliff. “Help,” he signed. “We need help.”
The nurse’s station was maybe a quarter mile down the trail. “I’ll go get someone,” I signed to White-Black, but she didn’t respond. The almost purple color in her shell toned down to a muted bluebell. “White-Black?” I couldn’t prod her, so I blew in her face. “Stay with me.”
She flicked her antennae, and her shell flushed blue again. “Don’t leave me.” The clear fluid was pooling under her now. “Don’t go.”
“Good Game,” Baby turned a circle at the top of the cliff. “Now. She can’t wait.”
I took a shaky breath. Right. “White-Black? Listen.” This was serious. Maybe World War III serious. But I had to do it. “I need to carry you down to the nurse’s station.”
“Don’t.” She rolled in the dirt, signing again and again, “Don’t. Don’t.”
“White-Black, think. Why would I hurt you? What kind of person do you think I am?”
She dragged away from me on tripod legs. “If you and Fast-Hand—if you hadn’t—” She bumped her head against the rock wall once, twice.
“I not—I try—” My signs came out broken and pathetic, but I finally formed the words, “I didn’t mean to.” But that’s all I could say. Because she was right. I didn’t listen to her or Baby.
Baby clicked from the top of the cliff. “White-Black.”
She looked up to read him.
“Let her help,” he signed. “It’s okay.”
White-Black balled up and folded her legs in a full-body cringe. “Do it.” She shivered like I was about to cut off another one of her legs.
“Okay.” I reached out for her. My hands shook. “Here we go.”
I rested my hands on her thorax.
She barfed up a quart of nasty acid.
The bleachy smell seared inside my nose, and the few drops that hit my skin burned cold. I gagged. But I lifted her.
Her remaining legs scrabbled in the air, until I pressed her to my chest. The clear stuff dripping from her missing leg soaked into my shirt. Her bright blue faded to dull purple, and she went scary-still, but I could feel air rushing in and out of the breathing holes on her stomach.
I looked up at Baby. I didn’t know how to apologize.
“Not now,” he signed. “Run.”
I hugged White-Black close, wrapped in my jacket, and sprinted down the trail as fast as I could. As I ran, I caught sight of Hyo cutting through the woods toward the amphitheater.
My eyes watered. Everything I needed to win was in my pockets. But I’d never see Baby again.
I ducked my head and picked up the pace. Finally, I spotted the nurse’s station, a little cabin in the pines.
I burst through the door.
The Chinese nurse at the desk stood. “What happened? Who is that?”
I could barely speak, and I realized all at once that I’d been sobbing all the way here. “White-Black,” I choked. “She fell.”
Her arthroid coworker in the back room scuttled in, tail raised and spikes bristling. “Put her down,” he snapped. He lunged at me, flashing blue claws, and made me stumble back.
I put White-Black on the floor and backed away, hands in the air.
“Get out,” the arthroid nurse signed. “Now.”
They shut me on the porch. I dropped on the steps, put my head on my knees, and fought back tears. Because I’d done it again. I had something amazing, pushed my luck, and someone got hurt. And this time my friends, the Arthro, and every person in the United States would never forgive me.
***
It wasn’t long before a counselor escorted me to the office down the road.
I sat at the end of a row of old-smelling chairs in the waiting area, watching staff come and go, wondering if I’d ever see Baby again. I waited as the sunlight shining through the open window slanted and turned orange, and frogs began chirping by the creek.
After a while, the bell on the door jingled. And in sulked Hyo, spirit stick in hand and a counselor on her heels.
She plopped down several chairs down from me, white-knuckling the sparkly baton. The counselor disappeared down the hall.
“I’m probably never going to see you after this summer,” I said.
“Probably not.”
I’d never volunteered this story to anyone. But there was something about Hyo—something like me. So I took a deep breath. “Two years ago, I went to the Majikku World Championships. And I got to the final match. There was a lot of money at stake. My family really needed it. And I wanted the title. Bad.”
Hyo stared. Waiting for me to go on.
“My opponent—he built his whole deck so he could get to one card. A card that could end the game in one turn. I knew he’d beat me. So I did something awful.” My stomach twisted, but I forced the words out. “I stole his trump card. He kept drawing and drawing for a card that wasn’t there.”
Hyo summed it up in two words. “That’s horrible.”
“I got banned from the professional ring. I lost all the money. Everybody at school heard. I lost all my friends.” My eyes welled with fresh tears. I blinked them away and wiped my nose. “So I put all my cards in a tin and buried it in our cow pasture.”
In the quiet that followed, I could barely make out faraway laughter and screams. The Goodbye Bonfire. Where I could’ve been having fun with Baby.
“I didn’t cheat,” Hyo said. Like she thought I was accusing her.
“What I mean is . . . Even if you’re not here to have fun or make friends, business is a long game. Right now, if you only play to win, if there’s no love in it, one day no one will want to play with you.” I rubbed my forehead. “This thing with White-Black? It’s serious.”
“Is she mad at me?”
“Probably.” I should’ve been terrified for both of us but crying left me exhausted. “The Arthro counselors are going crazy.”
Hyo covered her mouth, like she’d just put it together. Even if she had the spirit stick, she’d destroyed her ticket to Arthron.
“The best you can do is try to win back White-Black,” I said. “You have a chance.”
But me? I picked up an arthroid.
Down the hall, a grim counselor opened the door to a conference room. “Jeoung Hyo.”
Hyo left down the hall, throwing a final nice-knowing-you glance over her shoulder before the counselor shut the door.
Then the bell jingled again.
A counselor opened the door for Baby, who entered the office waiting room with a marshmallow in his claws.
I lowered my head and let my hair cover my face. I couldn’t look at him.
Baby crawled into the chair next to me. He put the marshmallow in my lap.
A teardrop plopped on my jeans. “This is the last night we’ll be together, so . . .” My lip trembled. I bit it, sniffed, and tried to sign again. “I just . . .”
Something cold and hard nipped my arm. For a second, I thought Baby was poking me with a plastic fork or something. But I looked over and found his claw resting on my sleeve.
I peeked at him between strands of hair. He looked right at me. It wasn’t an accident.
“Do you want”—Baby struggled to finish his thought—“Do you want—”
The next word was a sign I didn’t recognize. Like the sign for hold, but the snaps he used were the snaps for you. Hold you?
The hair on my arms stood up. Hug. There was no word for hug.
“Yes,” I signed.
He crawled over the armrest, curled up in my lap, and latched his walking claws around my sides. He hid his face in my jacket, pressing his body into my stomach. I rested my hand on his spiky back.
After a moment Baby climbed back into his chair. “It will be okay,” he signed.
“Thanks,” I took the marshmallow off my leg and stuffed it in my mouth, signing with my free hand, “I needed that.”
A while later, a human counselor opened the door to the conference room and motioned me inside. Baby came along.
Several Arthro and human counselors sat down a long table, including a man in a suit and tie I’d never seen before. No sign of Hyo. She must’ve been sent out.
I sat in the only open chair. Cold sweat slicked the back of my neck.
An American counselor at other end of the table rubbed his forehead. “Isa, what happened today . . . It’s big.”
Baby climbed up my leg and sat in my lap.
Every adult sucked in a gasp. A few half-stood, like maybe they should separate us.
I stiffened. But Baby held his antennae high, stalk eyes peeking just over the tabletop. There wasn’t a hint of blue in his claws.
Everybody glanced at each other. Eased, slowly, back into their chairs.
I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “Is White-Black okay?”
“We gave her a blood transfusion,” said a counselor. “She should get a new leg in the next few molts.”
The knot in my stomach loosened slightly. That was something, at least.
“Baby and Hyo explained what happened,” the American said. “They told us you did what you had to do. White-Black agrees.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled, slacking every muscle in my body. I signed under the table to Baby. “Thank you.”
At the far end of the room, one of the arthroids signed faster than I could read. He used words I’d never even seen, and I almost asked him to slow down when the man in the suit stood and spoke English for him.
“You accepted the risk of losing your friendship and your country’s standing with the Arthro. You put White-Black above yourself and your people. For the Arthro, touch often means danger. But you’ve taught us today that it may also mean safety and love. This is the spirit of Peace Camp.”
My brain blanked. This wasn’t the conversation I thought I’d be having. Any lines I’d prepped were apologies.
The suit opened a briefcase and removed a stack of papers, still translating. “Our people and the United Nations are collaborating to produce and broadcast an educational cultural showcase. We would be honored if you and Baby would act as hosts, hopefully for several years at least. It’s a long-term position. A very important one.”
Did I hear him right? “You . . . want us to make a TV show?” I didn’t even have a YouTube channel.
A few counselors chuckled.
“That’s right,” said the man in the suit. “To help create friendships just like yours.” The man in the suit slid the papers down the table to me. A contract. “We’ll talk to your parents, of course. But can you tell us whether that’s something you might be interested in?”
I looked down at Baby, who placed his claw on my hand. This couldn’t be real. “We’ll be together?”
“For a very long time.”
A little warmth returned to my face. “Yeah.” I worked up a small smile. “I think that’s something we could get used to.”
END