Free Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen D. Randle Page B

balanced it on my palm.
    “This is stupid,” I said out loud. I chucked the asphalt into the street. I was still too mad to give in to depression. So I got up and walked back down the street toward my house. Okay, I said to myself, quoting Paul, What is it, exactly, Ginny, that you want? At the moment, that was an easy answer. I wanted to see the stupid movie. So go alone. Of course. Walk ten blocks in the dark and freeze to death on the way. So go with them. Unthinkable. Pride getting in your way. Maybe so. I'm just funny that way.
    I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, frustrated and angry and fed up with myself. I looked up and found myself glaring at the pale blue rectangles of the Tibbses' living room windows.
    People allow themselves to be defeated, Paul told me one time. Like the time I fell off that horse? I didn't have to fall off it. There was actually a moment—just this one, silvery little moment—when it could have gone either way. He'd opened his hands. I gave up. My choice was to let go. So, I ended up with my face in the dirt and a concussion. Of course, if I'd stayed on, I'd probably have broken my neck…
    “Okay,” I said to myself, and without any clear idea of what I was going to do, I marched up the walk and knocked on the door.
    Mrs. Tibbs looked a little surprised to see me. Alone, that is—without Caulder. She stood there at the door, smiling politely, waiting.
    “Would you tell Smitty I'm here?” I asked her. “Could you tell him I'm here by myself, and I need to talk to him?”
    She was obviously too polite to shut the door in my face. After a moment, she stepped back and let me in. Her brows were all delicately puckered. “Where's Caulder?” she asked me, peering out over my shoulder into the dark as though she thought he'd suddenly pop up there.
    “I believe he's studying,” I said.
    She sighed, but she finally showed me into the living room, putting out a hand to indicate that she expected me to perch myself on her brocade sofa.
    “And you want to see Smitty about…?” she asked. I could hear a TV on in the back of the house.
    “It's a personal matter,” I said. I said it apologetically. “I just need to talk to Smitty. I won't upset him.” Actually, I was lying. I didn't care if I did upset him.
    She laughed this tiny, half-exasperated laugh. “I think you can imagine how strange I find all this,” she said.
    I smiled at her. I didn't know what else to do. By this time I was pretty sure she was going to tell me to go home and leave her family alone.
    “Well,” she said a little helplessly. “I guess I'll get him for you.”
    When she left, I was so relieved, I almost forgot myself and relaxed against the back of that sofa, but then I started thinking about how embarrassing it was going to be when she came down and told me he wouldn't come. I straightened up, trying for a little dignity. That room was not exactly exuding hospitality—it looked like some kind of museum exhibit, perfect and eternally frozen. The piano was so polished, you could have seen the fingerprints a mile away—if anybody'd ever touched it. The only human things in there were the piled up newspapers in the corner, and a little picture of Smitty and his brother and his parents that sat in a gilt frame on the piano.
    Smitty came into the room.
    What had made him decide he could finally come down, I couldn't guess. His mother stood in the doorway behind him. “I'll be in the den,” she said, watching him until he sat down. Then she left us alone. Smitty lifted a National Geographic off an end table and opened it.
    “I'm here because I need to take charge of my life,” I started. The sound of my voice hung in the air for a moment before it got sucked up by the blue carpet and the sheer blue drapes.
    “I need somebody to talk to, and I can't talk to my mother, because she's working with my dad, and I can't talk to Paul because he's at college, and I can't talk to Hally because she's part of the