Member-only story
Moving Among Aliens
When Constance meets Quinn, friendship isn’t her first thought
The bell for second lunch echoed in her ears like a fire drill and Constance grabbed up her backpack and lunch and moved toward the lunch room imagining herself an alien snail-like creature leaving a slime trail that would allow her to find her way back to her locker and her eventual freedom from the school day. Sure, there were things she enjoyed, like art class, but even in there she found many of the other kids too loud or out of control. In just about every class, Constance imagined herself an alien visitor attempting to decipher the ways of the creatures in a strange galaxy.
But nowhere did this feel more true than during lunch.
Her mother, Alice, was quick to empathize with her daughter’s middle school challenges, but they both knew it wasn’t quite the same. After all, her mother was an organic member of this alien species of creatures. Unlike Constance. Constance pictured her mother developing photos in their shared darkroom at home and longed to be watching the images appear in the developing solution instead of watching the kids in the lunchroom push, shove, tussle and jostle one another for the next 41 minutes.
Whispers of the alien species leaders ticked off commands in her brain. Make eye contact. Remember, try and…
