PARSIDUS

Grilled Homo sapiens chops
Tuesday, 5 January

“But, sir, why would you be looking for carbon or oxygen? Or water?” fifteen-year-old Misha Greenwood challenged her teacher. “Maybe they are completely different from us. Or maybe they don’t want to be found. If they’ve been watching us, they’ll know our track record isn’t exactly perfect when we encounter new worlds.”

“Misha Greenwood,” James Ochre, who’d dedicated this lesson to the search for extra-terrestrial life as a break from the curriculum and a treat for his students, gritted his teeth. “I want you to stop this right now or I’ll need to ask everyone to open their books, page 37, motion with constant acceleration.”

“You’re spoiling it for the rest of us, Mish.” Jenny Waverly flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder. Then, eyeing her teacher pleadingly, she purred, “Sir, we really want to hear this, please.”

Misha rolled her eyes. Miss Goody Two-Shoes, tall and thin, with glossy, perfectly straightened blonde locks, and big blue doe-eyes thrown in for good measure. Everyone loved her. Until they came up-close and personal with her alter ego, miss two-faced-I’ll-make-fun-of-you-when-your-back-is-turned.

“But, sir, I only asked a question. Why would ET need oxygen and water? Maybe he thinks chlorine and sulphuric acid are yummier. Or something we never even heard of. And what if they are listening, and find us? Maybe they like grilled Homo sapiens chops for dinner. Like, hey, Jim,” Misha shrugged, “It's life, just not as we know it.”

James paled and clutched the edge of his desk, his knuckles a pale shade of yellow.

“Life on Earth is carbon-based, Misha.” James Ochre’s jaw muscle twitched. “It requires oxygen and liquid water to survive and evolve. That is what we are looking for. Now, about the SETI project—”

“But sir—”

“Out, Misha. Go and see Mrs. White.”

***

After having waited fifteen minutes outside the headmistress’s office, Misha fished a notebook from her bag, scribbled a note, pushed it under the door and left.

On her way to Gemma, and possibly a free snack, in the canteen, she thought about the SETI project. ‘Are we alone in the Universe?’ She hoped not. But if they weren’t ...

Mr. Ochre’s class had been pretty cool today. She’d only meant to ask ... She just wanted to know if they’d recognise life that was unlike anything here on Earth. If they weren’t dismissing planets because they couldn’t sustain human life. Sometimes, what she said didn’t come out the way she meant it. Or she said something she hadn’t meant to say altogether. Like the Star Trek thingy, It's life, Jim, but not as we know it. Mr. Ochre seemed upset about it, and it wasn’t actually that funny, even if his first name was James.

Misha glanced back at Mrs. White’s office. Mum had warned her she was only accepted at Blue Hill as a special favour. As if there weren’t any other secondary schools in Tunbridge Wells. Maybe, if she still had a dad, mum wouldn’t be so uptight. Or grandparents or siblings. But dad died when she was only three months old, and her grandparents before she was born.

Misha wrapped her arms around herself. Mr. Ochre should be the one reporting to the headmistress. He was such a stickler for the curriculum, normally. He had no imagination at all. Where would they be if Newton, Einstein and Hawking hadn’t dived headfirst into the deep, dark unexplored lake of science, instead of doing sedate laps in the sterile, chlorinated pool of the syllabus? There was truth to the adage, ‘Those who can, do; those who can't, teach’. Maybe she should mention that to Mrs. White, if she was ever granted the privilege of an audience.

Moving down the corridors, Misha listened to the sounds that trickled from the classrooms. Mr. Brent told his first years: “Je m’appelle monsieur Brent. J'ai les cheveux gris et les yeux marrons.”

“Je m’appelle Misha. J'ai les cheveux bruns et les yeux verts,” Misha mumbled to herself.

Three doors down, Mrs. Vogel told her class about her youth in Bavaria, and next, Mr. Davies recited King Lear to year thirteen.

Misha turned right, grinded to a halt and laughed. Someone put a grey, two feet tall garden gnome by the French doors in the courtyard.

“Yuck.” Misha crinkled her nose and peered into Mr. Early’s class. The room deserted, the windows open, the smell of rotten eggs wormed itself into the corridor ­– too much hydrogen sulphide, it happened every year.

Behind Misha, the gnome opened his eyes, its sclera, iris and pupils blended into one shimmering shade of silvery grey. Unblinking, the creature watched Misha until she reached the end of the corridor. Then it vanished.

In Mr. Ochre’s class, her classmates laughed. It is a measure of distance, Harry said. No, I am sure it is time, Jenny Waverly corrected him with a flirtatious honeyed voice. A light-year is the distance light travels through a vacuum in one year, Mr. Ochre said. How was she supposed to know, Jenny Waverly moped – Misha could just imagine her pout –, if they called it years.

Misha rolled her eyes. Physics was her favourite subject, and she loved astronomy. And astrobiology; researching extra-terrestrial life, maybe making contact someday. Meeting someone from a different planet. Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? If she’d asked why Stephen Hawking said alien civilisations might be hostile, and any one visiting Earth was probably way cleverer than humans, Mr. Ochre wouldn’t have got so angry. Next year, Misha wanted to join the astronomy club. But Mr. Ochre organised it and decided who was allowed to join. Fat chance then, Misha sighed, glancing at a grey boulder beside the door to the canteen. A grey dwarf and a grey rock? Someone had been redecorating.

“Hey, Gemma, any left-over doughnuts?”

Misha and Gemma – at nineteen, Blue Hill’s youngest dinner lady – had been friends since September, when at the first day of term, Jenny Waverly had with high-pitched innocence accused Gemma of short-changing her. It was a ruse Goody Two-Shoes played on every new member of staff, Misha had heard. This time, however, things were different. Gemma, a math’s student, knew her pounds from her pennies, and the persistent squeals of Jenny’s stooges didn’t impress her. Then, Misha ‘accidently’ bumped into Jenny, spilling hot chocolate, ‘accidently’, over Goody Two-Shoes’s brand-new white blouse and maroon-trimmed, light-grey blazer. Jenny’s tirade drowned out Misha’s quietly mumbled, “Sorry,” and her lackeys’ oohs and aahs drew the head cook from the kitchen. Armed with a ladle, supersized, and recollections of tears spilled over similar incidents, she stomped to the tills. At the sight of cookie’s bulk, a forty-something amateur bodybuilder, Jenny cut her losses. She slinked to a table in the corner, a train of friends in her wake, where they sentenced Misha to a lifetime ban in the outermost ring of Blue Hill’s social hierarchy. It hurt for a while. To be fair, it still did. Misha would have loved to have friends, but she wasn’t prepared to pay the price of pandering to queen Jenny.

“What was it this time?” Gemma grabbed a blueberry muffin from a wicker basket and marched Misha to a Formica table. “Here, that’s all that’s left. You really need to get your act together, Mish. Do you want to end up like me? You’re far too smart for that.”

Misha shrugged and bit into her muffin.

“Jimmy Ochre, he’s got it in for me. I asked a simple question and then—”

“Hey! What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Gemma said, curtly, pulling her sleeves down.

But Misha kept staring at the bruises, which like bracelets of marbled, red and purple and yellow gemstones encircled Gemma’s wrists.

“The door slammed, I tried to catch it,” Gemma crossed her arms, hiding her wrists behind her elbows. “What did Mrs. White say?”

“I didn’t see her, she’s on the phone.” Misha frowned; this wasn’t the first time Gemma brushed her off when she noticed her bruises.

“Mish?!”

“I left a note, I said I was off to lunch.” Rolling her eyes, Misha brushed crumbs of her skirt, and said, “But, okay, I’ll go and see if she’s got time for me now. Thanks, Gem, take care.”

***

Misha kicked off her shoes and dropped Mrs. White’s letter on the kitchen table. Her mum would find it when she got home from the office.

Mrs. White had given her a triple dressing down. One for challenging Mr. Ochre, one for the insolent note, and a bonus ticking-off for quoting the ‘those who can't’ maxim.

Balancing a tray with mini Battenbergs and a glass of coke, Misha stomped up the stairs of their semi-detached townhouse. On the landing, the backpack she dragged behind her, banged into the back of her legs and coke soaked the pink-and-yellow cakes.

“Crap.”

Misha leaned on the door handle and pushed down.

“Jeez!” Stumbling into the bedroom, her glass sailed across the metal tray. She caught it just in time, but sticky coke sloshed over her hands.

“You’re late.”

Her breath caught in her throat, Misha froze. Her mum’s favourite glass slipped through her fingers and shattered on the floor. And as the door closed behind her, soundlessly, coke drenched the cream-coloured carpet.

A job offer
Tuesday, 5 January

Staring straight at her, was a grey-haired, grey-skinned dwarf, who sported garments in matching shades of grey to complete its ton sur ton guise. The tiny-what-ever-it-was’s silver grey clashed spectacularly with the slate-coloured upholstery of the chair behind Misha’s desk. And as it sat there, glaring, unblinking, straight-backed, feet dangling of the edge, it resembled a drab garden gnome.

Her heart racing and her eyes on the creature – identical to the gnome she’d seen at Blue Hill, only this one moved –, Misha shuffled backwards, her trembling hands searching for the door handle.

“Sorry, I’m not supposed to frighten you. Is this better?” the thing said, morphing into a miniature version of Justin Bieber in his teens. “I was told this person is a trusted and admired figure amongst humans of your age group.”

“Get real, Bieb’s ancient. Nice meeting you, but I really have to go now,” Misha squeaked, as she caught hold of the door handle and yanked at it.

It didn’t budge.

She pulled again. This was a nightmare – dwarfs like that didn’t exist. But, whatever, dream, nightmare or hallucination, she wanted it to end. It felt too real.

While panic spread through her chest, filled her brain with cottonwool and turned her legs to jelly, Misha wrenched at the door handle. But the thing seemed welded in place, even when she tried hanging off it.

“Don’t bother, it’s locked,” mini-Bieber grumped, before it looked at a poster over Misha’s bed and morphed into mini-Einstein. “But enough time wasted, we don’t want to be late.”

With surprising speed and agility, the wild-haired-creature was at Misha’s side.

“Don’t do that,” it said, when Misha kicked at him and opened her mouth to scream.

“Help, I’m a damsel in destress,” it squeaked, mocking her. “That’s so passé, my dear. By the way, my name is Quade.” The dwarf bounded up, threw its short arms around Misha’s waist and, clutching a fistful of school jumper, clung on.

A kick, meant for the creature who’d identified itself as Quade, split air, and Misha lost her balance and tumbled back against the bedroom door.

Then her soggy socks sagged, as Quade lifted her off the wet carpet. Launched at the ceiling, her mouth agape and a silent scream caught in her throat, Misha folded her arms over her head.

But the impact stayed out. Instead, Quade drew her into a giant funnel that burrowed through the ceiling, through the roof, and way beyond.

The walls of the funnel twisted and turned like an errant kaleidoscope. The colours were dazzling. And dizzying. Misha wanted to close her eyes, but the polychromatic gallimaufry was hypnotising. The glow, the intensity, was both soothing and electrifying. Every colour, shade or tint Misha had encountered in the full fifteen years of her existence was there. And more. A rainbow enhanced with every colour on Earth – earth, sky and ocean – still wouldn’t come close. Despite her queasiness, Misha reached out. On her outstretched hand she felt the warmth of the ambers, the chill of the arctic blues, the sting of the neons.

The funnel widened, and with a dull plop Misha was spewed onto a rich brown-ochre stage-like elevation.

While Misha glimpsed at the vast, chairless auditorium in front of her, the world around her swayed. Clutching her stomach she dry-heaved. With the dwarf clinging on, the neckband of her jumper strained against her windpipe. Pulling at her collar, Misha thought this was worse than being carsick. It reminded her of a trip she and her mum had taken to France, on a ferry, in stroppy weather, but even that hadn’t been this bad.

“Everyone gets sick the first time.” The knee-high creature, back to its grey dwarf appearance, let go and landed beside Misha. He took a precautionary step back, straightened its jacket and bowtie, and added, “Just don’t be sick on me. And don’t eat before I collect you, you weren’t supposed to have that muffin. If they sign you on, it might be a good idea to stay away from Gemma anyway. Follow me.”

“What’s Gemma got to do with it? And I’m not sick.” Misha tried to breathe away her nausea. Trudging after Quade, off the podium and through tall double doors into a long, high-ceilinged moss green corridor, she left behind a trail of size-four, sticky-coke sockprints.

Misha looked around her. It smelled like a forest. She sniffed. Earthy and fresh, and unlike her mum’s plug-in air fresheners, it smelled real. Slowing down, she searched for a window in the tall green walls but saw none.

“This way.” Quade rushed ahead and, without slowing down, turned right into an azure corridor that smelled like the seaside – silty and slightly fishy, like freshly washed-up seaweed. “Don’t be slow. We have no use for loafers.”

“You shouldn’t have taken me then,” Misha, still queasy, gruffed. If she’d refused to leave the podium they’d arrived on, Quade would have had no choice but to take her home. Now she was left no choice but to jog along the dwarf, who was obviously in a hurry to get wherever he was supposed to get to.

When they reached a reception area, Quade stopped abruptly. “Wait here,” he instructed, before disappearing through a large door behind a semi-circular desk.

Misha looked around her. No receptionist, no papers, no screens. No phone, no company logo. Not even the obligatory Ficus or orchid.

“Where am I?” she demanded when Quade reappeared after a couple of seconds.

“Parsidus. BASTA, otherwise known as the Basic Audit Selection and Testing Agency, and I got you here exactly on time.” Quade glanced back at the door, stamping his grey-booted feet impatiently, “It’s the bobos who are running late. You’ll have to wait. Why don’t you park your bum ...” he nodded at a row of silver-grey wooden seats that lined the wall, “and wait like the good girl you’re supposed to be. I have better things to do than babysit applicants.”

“Applicants—?”

But the dwarf had vanished.