Free Angry Young Spaceman by Jim Munroe Page B

you,” she said. “You are very different from Jessica.”

    “Who?” I said, thinking even as I did so that the name rung a bell.

    “Jessica. She was the last teacher here.”

    Ah. I had seen the name on the class schedule across the room. I looked back at it, all written in Octavian except for the past teacher’s name spotting it here and there. I had felt a silly twinge of hurt pride that my name hadn’t been put up in its place.

    “She half-human. You all human,” the science teacher said. “You bletter teacher, I sink.”

    I smiled, even though it was bullshit. There were plenty of people of mixed species at the orientation and they spoke English as well as me.

    “Jessica very good friend me.”

    “Where did Jessica live?”

    “Same apartment.”

    “The whole time?”

    The science teacher furrowed her brow. She had the sheen of oil on her tentacles that older Octavian women wore, and her features were made-up in Earthling style. (Octavian faces being already quite humanoid, the make-up mostly consisted of darkening the hairless ridges above the eyes and shading the cheeks so as to de-emphasize the slightly different angle of the cheekbones.)

    “Did Jessica complain about the apartment?”

    The science teacher shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t... sink I understand.”

    Mr. Zik glided into the staffroom, a book curled in one tentacle and a mug in the other.

    “Time to go,” he said, taking a sip. “Ready?”

    I nodded, but what I was thinking was: There’s no steam coming from that mug. I won’t be able to stare at the steam curling from my coffee cup for a year.

    I had already stood up and put on my jacket on automatically when the science teacher’s awkward stance yanked me out of my odd funk.

    “It’s... very nice to meet you,” I said, smiling and waving perhaps too enthusiastically. But I would have felt like a jerk underdoing it, since she was the only person who went out of her way to be nice.

    Her face lit up and she waved a loose wave.

    As we left the room for my first class, I scanned the other teachers. Instead of the intense surveillance I expected — some part of me expected to be caught before I could impersonate a teacher — they were all going about their business. Getting ready for classes themselves, writing stuff down, and in one oldster’s case, drifting off to sleep.

    I imitated Mr. Zik’s regal bearing as nearly as I could, staying close in hope that his teacherial aura would encompass me as well. Out in the hallway, a cluster of girls turned to us like sunflowers. One of them, tall, wore a bow on her head. When we turned the corner to the stairs she called out “Hello!” and her comrades giggled and hooted.

    I looked back and waved. She buried her face in her tentacles and the giggling intensified.

    “You are very plopular, wow,” said Mr. Zik with a smile.

    On the ramp to the second floor there were boys playing with a yellow ball that disappeared when they saw us. Mr. Zik said something mild to them and they scattered, flowing down the ramp.

    “The science teacher is very nice,” I said.

    Mr. Zik nodded. “Yes. Her husband is a news-teller.”

    “Oh.”

    “Her name is Mrs. Pling.” He slid open the door with a flick of his tentacle.

    Pling, Pling, Pling I repeated to myself as the class saw me and started to froth over like a test beaker. Luckily, Mr. Zik was a stabilising agent.

    “Good morning,” he said to the students, a few of which were still running about the room to their desks. One student was cleaning the board, an expectant smile on his face. I heard someone gasp, “Handsomebloy! Oh!”

    I smiled and smoothed out my tie. Mr. Zik said something in Octavian. The class laughed. One girl asked Mr. Zik something, plucking at him.

    “Ask him,” he said with a smile, pointing at me. She buried her head in a tangle of tentacles and made an embarrassed-alarmed sound: waah!

    The boy cleaning the board handed the brush