On the Loose: The Roswell Elementary Campfire Arc
Part III

As it grew dark, Sylvia rounded up all eleven girls and herded them off to the bathroom to change into warm sweats and get ready for dinner. The girls giggled as they changed into pajamas and sweatshirts, joking with Sylvia. She was glad that they all felt so comfortable with her.

Liz still glared darkly at her on occasion, but her best friend Maria seemed able to cajole her into good humor. Soon, the two were giggling and talking as fast as they usually did, hands flying everywhere as Maria carefully braided Liz's long hair.

"C'mon, girls. Time to see if Jimmy and the boys are done with dinner." She grinned at them as they laughed. They needed to see the softer side of her husband. It would do them all good. But poor James was almost at the end of his rope.

As they walked back to the campground, a fire was already blazing in the barbecue pit as James and Kyle Valenti carefully roasted hot dogs on spits. Most of the boys, pajama-clad, were already chowing down, mustard and ketchup leaking down their chins. Another wave of giggles ran down the line of girls, a sure sign of approaching puberty. Last year, that would've been met with a round of gags and 'eews'.

After dinner, the fire was carefully banked and the group spread out their sleeping bags. Mr. Raddish gave up on trying to segregate the boys from the girls, so Michael wound up with Max's old sleeping bag spread out between the Evanses, and Alex carefully laid out his dad's next to the two Maria and Liz had zipped together.

Then, their teacher carefully explained the fine art of star-gazing, and gave a brief but boring history of the universe as Max and Liz set up their telescopes. The class was invited to come up, two by two, to look through them at the moons of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn. Once assured that their beloved telescopes would be in good hands, Max and Liz retreated a little bit away from the class, extra blankets in hand, for their own private appreciation of the stars.

After doing their science project on the solar system, Max had come to fully appreciate how deep Liz's knowledge was of the night sky. She seemed to be almost as interested in it as he was-- for her own reasons. That gave him hope, that maybe someday, he'd actually be able to confide in her, without her running. He had heard Alex and Liz's conversation on the bus, and it warmed his heart to think that maybe, she might understand.

So when they spread out the blankets and carefully laid down at least a foot apart, Max was surprised when Liz grabbed his hand, and pointed straight up. "Look! See those four stars there? What's that constellation?"

He grinned. "Too easy. That's the box of the Big Dipper. And Ursa Minor is the inverted dipper above it." So she wanted to play a game, huh? He scanned the night sky fiercely. "That one!"

Her laugh sounded pretty in the darkness, as if it came from the stars. "Orion's Belt, silly. And there's his bow..." She studied the sky again. "That one!" He leaned closer to her to follow her finger. He saw the two bright stars that she pointed at, and the rectangle below them, and recognized it in a second.

"Gemini-- Castor and Pollux, doomed to share one body between two souls. Each got a day on earth, because they couldn't bear to be separated." He'd always felt partial to that story. Izzy loved it too-- not just because they were twins, but because of the whole romance of it. He reached out and touched her hand lightly. "This is too easy. What if we make up our own?"

She giggled. "Okay, cool. It's your turn to go first."

He looked back at the sky, trying to pick a pattern out in the vast sprinkle of stars. "That one there-- see, with Vega, following the line down to Hercules? The kinda crooked one."

She was silent for a while. "A winding snake. It's the Sidewinder Constellation, because it's a snake that has to travel sideways." He could imagine her glowing smile. "How was that?"

He grinned at her, even though he knew she couldn't see. "Perfect."

She slid a little closer to him as she stared at the sky, until their shoulders were touching. "How about that one? Those five stars there?"

He peered up at the bright v-shape for a while. It was slightly lopsided. It looked familiar somehow, and for some reason, when he stared at it for too long, his throat began to choke up.

She touched his hand lightly. "You okay?" As always, her first thoughts were of his welfare. She always seemed more concerned with everyone else than herself. It was one of the things that he really liked about her.

"Yeah." Maybe that weird v-shape meant something to his race or whatever. Or maybe someone he knew had played this same game and saw the same stars, calling it a name in a language he would never know. "I wonder... if anyone lives there..."

And her hand found his in the darkness, squeezing it. As if she knew what was bothering him. But she couldn't. She knew where her home was. She didn't look up at the stars to see where she belonged. The earth she walked was the one she was born to.

"Y'know... it kinda... it kinda looks like a carrot to me." He heard her giggle softly, which made him feel braver. "Or even... or even... the bottom of a radish."

She covered her mouth, so that her laugh wouldn't alert the rest of their class. Her small hand reached out and lightly hit him in the shoulder. "Max, you're terrible!"

He would do anything to make her laugh. Her laughter scared the darkness inside his heart away.

And then, the sky above them burst into a rain of falling stars, as the meteor shower began.

"Daddy says that when stars fall, it's like a tear from heaven." Her voice was soft as her hand found his again. He wondered if she realized that she'd even reached for him.

"Are they good tears, or bad tears?" Did his alien mother cry tears like this, when she realized she'd never see her babies grow up?

And her hand squeezed his. "All tears eventually become tears of joy. Daddy liked to believe that falling stars are the tears of joy when soul-mates find each other."

And a smile lit up his face that made the stars in heaven seem dim.

And the meteor shower was over. Mr. Raddish lit the campfire again, and the class settled around it, roasting marshmallows and making s'mores. Michael could feel her eyes on him from all the way across the campfire. Maria had some weird girl power with those really green eyes of hers. It was like she had magnetic vision or something-- she made Michael look at her. And she was drawing him to her now, even twenty feet away.

The cootiehead sat with Liz, her stupid flapper jaw going a lightyear a minute. Alex was sitting on her other side, waving his arms as he tried to get a word in. And Liz for some reason kept looking up at the sky, a weird look on her face.

And her eyes were watching him again as she snickered with her little dorky friends. What was up with that girl? She had to be nuts. She vibrated all these weird vibes all over the place. She tossed those pullable yellow curls back, and he began to trace her face in the sand unconsciously. It was like some weird reverse gravity thing. Stupid butterheaded cheese-poof brained human girl.

But when she suddenly broke away from the giggling dork-twins, his feet decided to move after her without telling him first. Max gave him a weird look. "Where are you going?" Like Max could talk. He'd disappeared for a half an hour with Liz earlier.

So he muttered something about having to pee. Which he did-- just, not yet.

He shuffled off into the night, eyes as usual going to the stars above him, wondering the same thoughts that chased each other in his head every night. He stopped for a moment, sent out his usual greeting to the stars and whatever family he might not have among them. Hey, I'm here, come get me, what the hell's taking you so long? And his usual parting: I love you. Come soon.

If it worked for Superman, it had to work for him.

And when the stars began to blur, he walked on again, scuffing at the desert floor with his worn shoes. Maybe he could snake enough money from the jar this weekend to get some new tennis shoes at Target. Hank might not notice, and his toes were beginning to wiggle through his old ones.

"Hey." Her voice was soft for once. He looked down at her, hastily wiping at his eyes.

"Hey." No bug-eater butt. No cheesehead. Just... hey.

"So you like looking at stars'n stuff?" She looked him in the eyes for once too. "They make me feel so small and lonely. Liz likes them. But she likes all that stupid science stuff too."

"So does Max. He says it makes him know where his place is. They're too far away though. Like I can't--" He blushed. Why did he say that? If he wasn't careful, he was gonna let something slip.

"--Reach them," she finished, blushing a little in the moonlight too.

They walked on in silence, shoulder to shoulder, that little weird spark jumping back and forth between their bodies. It was weird. It was like they were connecting or something. As... friends.

Dammit. He swore he wouldn't do this. Not with humans. Not with anyone but Max and Izzy. But sometimes they never understood. They had everything. They had parents who loved them.

And he looked at the girl at his side, glowing like gold in the moonlight. She wasn't obviously pretty, like Isabel was. Or that kinda sweet, innocent pretty like Liz was. Maria DeLuca was just this... glowing ball of fuzzy energy that smelled funny. Like some sort of herb or spice, when Mrs. Evans was cooking. Or sometimes like the roses that grew wild at the end of his block in the trailer park, the only pretty thing about where he lived. She was a weird girl. But maybe...

He startled, when a hand slipped into his, as naturally as if he was Alex, or Liz. Izzy did that sometimes, when she was scared. But this wasn't Izzy's hand. This was a spark of a different kind-- not the 'we're not of this earth' spark, but something weirder. But still kinda cool-- not that he'd ever admit it to Max.

She shivered, and he stopped. "Cold?" Like he cared. She was just a dumbbunny girl. But if she got sick, then he'd be in trouble for sure, since they snuck off together. He always got blamed for everything. Principal Anderson had known him on a first name basis since his second day at Roswell Elementary.

Carefully letting go of her hand, he took off his too-big denim jacket and fastened it around her like Mrs. Evans always did when he went outside without his jacket buttoned. Sometimes the snaps on the jacket stuck, since he'd found out the hard way that brass melted like any other metal when he was angry. He gently pulled her hair out of the collar, and smoothed the jacket over her shoulders. "Better?"

Her voice sounded kinda funny-- almost hoarse. "Yeah, thanks."

She was so close that he could smell the shampoo she used on her hair, and almost count the number of eyelashes she had on each eye.

Without realizing what they were doing, his lips gravitated towards hers, because of that stupid girl-pull thing. And when they touched... her soft lips tasted like berry chapstick and s'more. And this time, neither pulled away. Not for twenty whole seconds.

And the spark...

When they broke away, she was as breathless as he was. She looked at him with a sense of wonder in her eyes. He stood there, quiet, waiting to see what she would do.

And then she socked him hard in the shoulder. "You stupid gross boy cheesehead! Don't ever tell anyone about that!"

And he howled in pain. "Smeghead! Why would I?" He hit her back. "If you ever tell, I'll beat you up so hard that your curls will look like Macaroni and Cheese with meat!"

"That's beefaroni, you dorkbuttface." She grinned that grin of hers, swatting him again.

"Gym-sock breath!"

"Smelly Diaperface!"

And she anchored him to earth again, pulling him away from the dizzy spinning of the stars above him. If only someone like her was waiting for him on the other side of all that. Maybe someday he'd find her, and his home.

She watched Maria walk off, and then Michael follow her. Again, she wondered what was going on between Michael and her best friend. Maria had said how much she liked kissing him, when Kyle had dared them to a few weeks back. And then Alex got a weird, kind of thoughtful look on his face all of a sudden, so he wasn't any fun to talk to. Maybe she could talk to Max again. At least he could hold an intelligent conversation. There was something different about him. He wasn't as loud as all the other boys in their class. She felt safe around him.

She looked over at Mr. Raddish, but he was making those ucky lovey-dovey eyes at Sylvia again, like her parents did sometimes. Maybe it was better that he was married and had a wife. By the time she grew up, he'd be old. And his head was kinda round like a radish...

She giggled softly.

All around the campfire, her classmates were starting to get up and go lay down on their sleeping bags. Even Isabel had gotten an old, battered teddy bear out. Somehow, that made Princess Isabel seem more human. And it made Liz feel less like a baby, since the blanket Grandma Claudia made for her was wadded up at the bottom of her sleeping bag.

And suddenly she felt lonely for that worn scrap of blanket, with the stars embroidered around the edges. She snuck off to her sleeping bag and fumbled around at the bottom of it. When she felt the worn cloth, she gently pulled it out, wrapping the faded blanket around her. It still carried a hint of Grandma Claudia's favorite rose perfume, like a comforting hug.

She walked back to the fire, looking up at the stars again. The sky had stopped crying meteors, so it was comforting to look up at the swirl of stars again. The Milky Way was bright tonight. She loved thinking that someone else on the spiral arm of their galaxy might be looking across at her star, thinking the same thoughts.

She sat close to the fire, leaning up against a rock, her head still tipped up to the sky. And then she felt the warmth of another person beside her. And heard that familiar voice. "Hey."

She smiled. "Hey, Max. Wanna sit down?"

The moon had risen, so she could see the shy smile on his face. "Okay."

He wore a sweatshirt over his flannel pajamas, and she couldn't help giggling as he sat next to her by the fire. They were two of the only ones left, except for Isabel, sitting with Gracie and Maggie and a couple of their group, yawning and laughing.

"What's that?" He touched the blanket over her shoulders with a light hand.

She could feel her cheeks heating up. "It's my blanket. My grandma made it for me."

But he didn't make fun of her. He smiled. And he pulled out a worn scrap of his own, about half the size of her blanket, from underneath his sweatshirt.

"It's all that's left of the blanket Mom made me. Izzy put it in the washer one day, and part of it disintegrated."

And she noticed the faded pattern on his. "Yours has stars too."

It was his turn to blush. "I guess when I was little I used to look at them a lot... so Momma made me this blanket, so that I could always have them with me."

They sat in silence for a while, shoulder to shoulder, leaning on each other. Liz felt an odd connection to Max, something she'd never noticed before. Something that clicked with him and her, like with Maria and Alex. But in a different way. Like the spark she felt when he kissed her cheek in the play.

As she stared into the fire, she felt her eyelids getting heavier and heavier. And Max's side was so nice and comfortable to lean against...

It was coincidence that she had a blanket with stars on it, just like it was coincidence that he felt the spark whenever he touched her. But he didn't have to tell Izzy or Michael that. They didn't need to know.

But the day was beginning to wear on him, and the stars were beginning to dance in the fire. He felt her head resting against his shoulder, and for once didn't care as he let his head droop against hers. He moved his arm around her, just like if she was Izzy, and she moved a little bit closer. He yawned again, letting his eyelids slide shut.

Mr. Raddish looked around the campfire, counting heads. 20 bodies lay completely still on sleeping bags clustered in a tight circle. And of course, the four that were missing were his demonic duo, Guerin and DeLuca,and Max Evans and Liz Parker. He began to whimper. Amy DeLuca frightened him, and if he lost her daughter...

"What's wrong, Jimmy?" His wife's arms slipped around him.

"Missing children..." He could feel his ulcers begin to fizzle up to life in his stomach.

"Well, there's two of them..." And Michael and Maria came walking into the firelight, pensive looks on each young face. And oddly enough, Maria was wearing young Guerin's jacket. But he didn't care about questioning. He was still missing two children...

"Jimmy, look..." Sylvia's voice was soft. He followed her hand until he saw what she was pointing at.

And curled up on the far side of the fire were his last two missing students, their dark heads bent together.

"Jimmy..." He tightened his arms around his wife, wondering how lucky he was to have found her. Liz and Max probably wouldn't realize it when they woke up, but they both had a look of peace on their faces as they slept there, leaning on each other.

Maybe someday they'd realize how lucky they were too, to have found each other in the vast sky full of stars.

Isabel sighed crankily, rubbing her eyes. Thank God Maggie and Gracie had finally shut up and gone to bed. All she wanted to do was go to sleep. She laid in her sleeping bag, pretending to be asleep for a while, even though she couldn't. She looked over at Max and Liz, still asleep together in front of the dying embers of the fire. Supporting each other. Keeping each other from falling onto the dirt of the desert floor. Sickening, Isabel decided with a haughty sniff.

Michael was still lying awake in the sleeping bag next to hers. "Not tired?" she whispered. She had seen him sneak off with Maria a couple of hours ago. And she had also seen them come back, Maria wearing Michael's jacket. She didn't even want to know what had happened while they were out together.

Michael startled a little as he turned to look at her. "Not really," he answered quietly, a strange look in his eyes.

"You feeling okay?" she whispered back.

"Pretty decent, actually," he replied as he got up and stretched lazily.

"Where are you going?"

"Shhh," he shushed her. "I'll be back. No one will even notice I'm gone."

"You are so weird," Isabel muttered as Michael walked off into the night.

Just then, she noticed something sitting on her pillow. A folded-up piece of notebook paper. She smiled sweetly. Her secret admirer hadn't written her a note in a long time.

She looked around and then carefully picked it up. And something weird happened to her. Max and Michael called it a flash. A rush of images entered her mind. And she saw... She saw... She saw Alex. Alex tiptoeing over to her sleeping bag before he went to sleep. Alex placing the note on her pillow. Alex smiling and walking away.

Her heart pounding, her hands shaking, she slowly opened the note. In the same scribbly handwriting that all of the previous notes had been scrawled out in, she read:

Dear Isabel,

I still think you're beautiful. And you're really nice when you're not around Gracie and Maggie. I had fun being in class with you this year. You're pretty, both outside and inside.

Love,
Your Secret Admirer.

Isabel blinked, tears coming to her eyes. All this time, it had been Alex Whitman. And he had seen right through her. He hadn't been fooled at all.

She crept quietly over to where he was sleeping next to a fitfully tossing and turning Maria, and kneeled down beside him. He wasn't a snorer like Michael, at least.

She gulped and leaned down, brushing her lips lightly against his cheek, and surprised at the spark she felt at first contact. He stirred slightly, but didn't wake.

Then she watched him for a while, wishing that things could be different. He had a soft smile on his face. He must've been having a really good dream. Maybe she could find out what he was dreaming about tonight.

She stood up quickly and walked back to her sleeping bag. She rooted through her backpack, looking for the almost-forgotten class photo she had impatiently shoved there a month earlier.

When she found it, she zipped herself into her sleeping bag, snuggling up against her old teddy bear. She reached out and lightly touched Alex's face in the photo and closed her eyes. At least she could visit him in his dreams tonight and be free, if only for a little while.

Michael walked along through the desert. He wasn't scared. He never got lost. Max said it was like Michael had a map in his head. So at least he was good for something anyway.

He hadn't been able to sleep tonight. He couldn't stop thinking about what he had done with Maria. When he had... kissed her. Why had he done that? Why had she let him?

He knew that he could never tell anybody. Max would kill him. And if Max didn't, Izzy sure would. He had promised he wouldn't do anything like that, and he had anyway. He couldn't do anything right.

But he hadn't been able to help it. When his lips had touched hers in the moonlight, it was the first time something had felt totally right to him. It was the first time that he felt like he didn't always have to look at the stars all the time. Maybe they didn't have all the answers after all.

But that was dumb. He wasn't from around here. He wasn't normal. And he couldn't even tell her that anyway. So he'd just have to forget about it. Forget her sweet tasting lips and that weird connection he had felt. Forget how he seemed to come alive whenever she was around. He was too young to feel this way anyway. Way too young. And besides, she was a just a stupid cowpie breath human girl.

She'd probably forget too. Eventually. Why would she want to remember him? It wasn't like he was special or anything. School was ending soon anyway. They'd be going into middle school in the fall. Maybe if he could scramble the class lists with his powers, he wouldn't have to be in any of her classes. They could go back to being perfect strangers, like nothing even happened.

Tears burned in his eyes. It wasn't fair... If only things were different. But they weren't. And it was foolish to think that they could be. He should know that by now. What had he ever got out of life from wishing and dreaming? Nothing, that's what. He was still here, after all. And all the dreams and wishes in the world wouldn't change anything. He was a freak. A total outcast. And nobody could ever love him the way he needed so desperately to be loved, least of all a chattering little monkeyface like Maria DeLuca.

He kicked at desert floor, watching the sand swirl up. There was something buried there. He could see it sticking out a little. A rock or something, probably.

He bent down to investigate, pushing the sand back with his fingers. He was rewarded with an arrowhead. Well, that was something kinda cool anyway. Better than a stupid old rock at least.

He picked it up and put it in his pocket. Maybe he'd give it to her tomorrow or something. As a goodbye maybe. Because it could never happen again. He couldn't ever let himself get close to another human again. He'd just have to close himself off even tighter.

But then he walked back to the camp and saw her get up and lay his jacket gently back on his cold empty sleeping bag before creeping back to her own warm and comfortable one and lying back down. He winced, feeling a pain he had never felt before down in his heart. His stupid human heart. It just wasn't fair, he decided as he kicked at the sand once more.