• LIARS
    I shouldn’t be here, I thought to myself as I walked up the steps to Forest Hills Middle School. I should be in Providence. Why did I get sent to this planet? Why couldn’t one of my brothers or sisters? It was considered a great responsibility to get sent to Earth to my people. I had never had an interest in studying Earth in history class, I preferred learning about Providence, which was over a million light-years away from here. My sister, Philadelphia, loved learning about the Humans. But no, I had to be sent here instead of Providence.
    And they keep staring! What is with that? Is it a normal reaction when something new arrives? Had they ever even heard of Yormlick? I doubt it, we are superior beings in the universe and only explorers knew about us, and obliviously, no Earthling had explored past Mars and such, which we took over eons ago. I looked down at my schedule, the thin green paper about to crumple in my hand , when a brown-haired male walked up to me. “Hi I’m Justin Revlin. It looks like we have most of our classes together. I can show you around if you want, if you’re new.” He said, he seems pretty nice, I thought. “I would appreciate that, Justin. I’m June.” He looked at me funny, I guess he’d never heard of the name June. “It’s a family name, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
    “It’s not that…how’d your eyes get that color? I’ve never seen that eye color.”
    “Contacts,” I said. I had forgotten to put in the blue contacts before I left this morning. My eyes naturally had grey pupils and the rest was purple and white. From the planet I came from, our eyes were, normally, green. The people like me, the travelers, had purple or orange eyes. “That’s cool, I’ve never seen that color contact…” he started wondering in his thoughts. “We should get going,” I said, “we’ll be late for class. I don’t think that would be a nice impression on the first day.”
    “Good point. Let’s go.”
    Our first class of the day was algebra with Mrs. Vines. From what I had heard, she would be pretty tough. No problem for me then, I thought, tough for them is simplistic for me. “I will not allow writing in pens, unless we are checking papers, which we do not do often…” I was ignoring her, because I had learned all this before I left Yormlick, so that I could fit in. I would have to get some bad grades though so that no one gets suspicious…that might be difficult. Mrs. Barkley’s class went by quickly too. I had been the best in literature in my class. I thought this planet was special, had some potential for me, I thought, I know everything about it that I can possibly know. Of course I had to be shipped off early, because the Elders had a suspicion that something may come to attack the planet that one of us could prevent from happening, and they thought of Juniper Lumlinina.
    “Hey June,” Justin called for me as I was walking to an empty table in the lunch room, “you can come sit with us! Now guys, don’t say anything about her eyes, ‘cause they’re contacts ‘kay?” There were two other boys sitting with him, one with brownish-red hair and brown eyes, the other dirty blonde hair and blue-grey eyes, and a girl, she had curly red hair and hazel eyes. That wasn’t very normal for a human. “This is Paxton,” pointing to the brownish-red haired boy, “Seth,” the other boy, “and April,” she flinched when he pointed to her. I sat down beside the girl named April, I hadn’t noticed the scar that ran from the top of her left cheek to right above her chin. She noticed me staring at it, “I got it from a cat.” She said.
    “Yeah sure, April. She really got it from a bear! Can you believe that? A bear! It happened at the zoo. Her aunt works there, and some days she gets to help feed the animals. Well, one day, one of the grizzlies was a little tempermental, and it attacked her. She’s had that scar for almost her whole life.” Seth said.
    “I’m sorry about that April. I guess you don’t like camping now?” I asked.
    “I love to go camping! Why?”
    “I found this really neat place to go camping that’s near my house. I thought it would be cool if we could all go one weekend.” It didn’t seem that they noticed I had hesitated on the word cool. We didn’t talk like that on Yormlick, it was considered disgraceful. After that the rest of the day seemed to fly by, only stopping when I had to go to my ugly yellow locker to get a different book or to put something up. On the walk home, I started thinking about what might happen if I told Justin, Seth, Paxton, or April about what I really was. Not a human being like they were, but a well, we weren’t sure what we were yet. I could imagine somethings that could happen. The last time a Yormlickian told a human what they were, they were murdered at the site. That was what started the witch hunt. I shivered at the thought. I decided I would tell them, and if something bad was about to happen, I would pack up and leave. I would have to start with Justin, though. He warmed up to me the quickest, and if something would happen, it would be from the others.
    “Hey June,” a familiar voice called behind me as I was unlocking the door to my house. It can’t be, I thought. Philadelphia was going to be sent to Providence….what if, no that can’t be. “Philadelphia?” I asked, wondering if I was hearing things.
    “Philadelphia? Is that you?”
    “Why yes it is,” my sister said to me, “they sent me here so we could live here together! We get to be sisters on this planet too!”
    “Shh Philly! Do you want them to know?”
    “Oh yeah, I forgot that the humans don’t know yet. When do you think the Elders will tell them?”
    “I don’t know, but can you please solidify for me?”
    “I’m tryin’ sis. You know I’m not good at teleporting between towns, let alone planets.” She said, solidifying quicker than I had ever known her too. “I think we should tell someone atleast.”
    “I second that movement. I was thinking about this small group of humans I met earlier today. My plan was to tell them when I took them camping this weekend.”
    “Hummmmm….maybe we can tell them a little earlier? Possibly tomarrow?”
    “Philadelphia! We need to make sure we can trust them first!”
    “Come on sis…we need allies. The Elders said something is coming, and we’ll need the most help we can get…”
    Philadelphia stopped talking and looked down at her feet. I heard someone walk up behind me and I turned around to see who it was.
    “Hi June, what was that I heard about allies and Elders? Maybe I can help.” Justin said.
    “Okay Justin, come on inside, but this is a secret. No one, not even Seth can know.” I said. I saw Philadelphia snicker as she walked inside.
    “Justin, this is my sister Philadelphia. Philadelphia, Justin.” I looked at Philly, “Philly, do you want to tell him? Or would you rather me to?”
    “You can do it sis, he’s your friend after all.”
    I looked back at Justin and motioned for him to sit on our couch, “You may want to sit down for this. No freaking out, telling anyone…”
    “Spit it out Juniper!” Philadelphia fussed.
    “In the universe there are more planets than this. Providence is one of them. We came from Yormlick and that is why our eyes are a different color than ones you’ve ever seen. We were ment to come and find allies to help us.”
    He stared at me, his eyes filled with shock. “I told you it was a bad idea! We should have waited.”
    “No, it’s okay. What a-am I going to hav-have to be an ally for? Is there going to be a war?”
    “We aren’t sure yet Justin. We need to lay low for awhile though. The Elders believe there is something out in space that wants to attack Earth.


    Finding the Truth

    “Why were we ment to come here? Why not someone more experienced in human activity?” I asked my sister, “We should be in Yormlick preparing to leave for Providence shouldn’t we?” she looked at me sternly. I’d been saying that for days. Seth, April, and Paxton took it easier than Justin did. Justin still asks questions constantly. “June, relax. Nothing, and I mean nothing will happen while we are stationed here,” she said reassuring me while we packed everything for the camping trip, “we will be fine, and the humans will be better than fine.” Our plan was to leave early this morning and we should be in the clearing by noon. Justin had asked at lunch the other day about where we were going, and instantly, Paxton, April, Seth, and Philly all had to know. I told them it was a clearing, somewhat like a meadow where I liked to go to get away from society for awhile on the weekends. They all lived down the street from us, so they were going to walk to our house.
    “How much longer until we’re there?” April asked as we were reaching the opening to the clearing, “My feet are killing me! I knew I shouldn’t have worn heels.”
    “We’re here April,” I said, “and you shouldn’t have. I told you to wear good walking shoes.”
    For lunch we packed horned-beast sandwiches and cramblicales since we didn’t know what humans ate. Fortunately, they boys loved the sandwiches and everyone also loved the cramblicales, but we learned that April is allergic to horned-beast sandwiches. She had the largest rash I had ever seen from an allergic reaction.
    “April, you should really go and rest, you look horrible.” I told her.
    “I’m fine, I just need to stay away from the sandwiches.” She said.
    “Really, you look worse than the time we went to the Beast planet and our brother Robert put a leaf from a macklinbag bush, thinking it was a juniper plant. He was covered in bumps for three weeks.”
    “Wow, I never knew that, wait one minute! There are other planets other than yours and ours?”
    “Yes there are.”
    “Other than Mars and such?”
    “Yes,” okay, this was getting annoying. “There is Paxlin, Jaclonia, Liplona, the Beast planet, and Marchlin.”
    “Cool,” Seth said, I remembered that he had an obsession with foreign places, “maybe you can tell us about them all one day?”
    “Sure guys, but first, you all need to get some sleep.”
    “You don’t sleep?”
    “No.”
    As I was watching the stars up in the sky, a thought came to me:
    If something did happen and we had to leave, would the humans be safe? Or would the attackers harm them? I couldn't bare to think about that.. We were definitely sent here for a reason. We just have to figure out why. That was the problem, we didn't know and we had to figure it out.