Plan B

Dear ___________ ,

Whoever is reading this, I have no idea who you are. I haven’t even figured out where I’m going to stick this thing when I’m done with it, but it’ll be somewhere secret, somewhere hard to find, and it might be a long time before anyone reads it. A year. Ten years. Maybe more.

You can’t write a text or an email and hide it for someone to find someday. You need pen and paper for that. And opposable thumbs. Speaking of which, I should have started this letter hours ago, when I heard the key turn on the other side of my door. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold this pen.

Opposable thumbs. Let me tell you something, whoever-you-are: If you have opposable thumbs, you probably take them for granted. And if you don’t have them? Well, that would answer a lot of the questions I have right now. Let’s just say I hope you have opposable thumbs.

I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about us. Obviously. But when sixth grade started, I finally found a real friend. And I had kept this big secret inside me for such a long time.

Mom says I have “49 good friends,” and yeah, we have monthly Skypes with the others: Caleb from California, Isaac from Indiana, Toby from Texas, and so on. But the Skypes are awkward, with the parents looking nervous in the background. Part of friendship is hanging out with nobody watching, which is hard when the grown-ups are scrutinizing everyone else.

Evan is different. He moved here last year, and he’s a good friend, you know? He laughs at everything, even when the joke is on him. He’s not worried all the time, like I am. And one day this winter, I just—said it. I told him about us. All I wanted was for someone to know me, to understand me. I hate hiding and pretending all the time.

I knew Evan wouldn’t flip out on me, and he didn’t. And I’m so much happier, having someone I can talk to about real stuff. But right now I’m worried about him. He was supposed to come over after school today, after my appointment with the doctors. What if he stops by with a bag of Ms. Pena’s empanadas?

Did I mention I’m missing Foods of Spain Day? Yeah. While I’m locked in here, Señora Pena is bringing amazing food to school to share with our Spanish class and—

Man! I fell asleep. Second time that’s happened since I got locked in here! I haven’t heard anything in a while. I wonder if my parents are okay. I wonder what the doctors are doing right now. If Evan shows up with those empanadas, what will they do to him?

I’m going to tell you what happened now. Five days ago, when we got back from Florida, Mom was carrying the beach bag, with the sandy plastic buckets and shovels, the Kadima paddles, and the fake sunscreen, and she let the whole thing drop off her shoulder and spill out all over the floor, which was weird because Mom always pretends to be this perfect person with a perfect husband, a perfect son (that’s me), and a perfect house.

I watched the rubber Kadima ball roll under the hall table, where my schoolbooks were neatly stacked, ready for school on Monday. She didn’t even notice. I figured she was still thinking about the fish fry that we never made it to.

When we checked into the hotel in Florida, they told us about the Saturday Night Fish Fry Extravaganza and how it was free for guests who stay the full week. A big dinner with lots of families is just the kind of thing Mom loves. It proves she’s doing everything right. I knew she was thinking that the other mothers hadn’t even thought twice about our family: That we were—that Mom had made us—that good. And me most of all. I was perfect. Undetectable.

But apparently not perfect enough because when Mom saw what was happening to me on Saturday morning, we had to rush off before breakfast. We didn’t say goodbye to any of the other families, except for the one in the next-door cabin, and that was only because they saw us packing up our rental car in a hurry and asked if everything was okay. Mom told them I had a broken arm. Which made them look at us kind of funny because I was carrying two bags to the car at that very moment.

The cats came running as soon as we opened the door, except Toto, who always plays it cool, like, “Oh, were you gone? I’m so busy and independent, I didn’t even notice.”

Dad bent down and shook hands with the cats. Alex first, then Aidan.

“Steven!” Mom said. “You have to stop shaking hands with the cats!”

Alex and Aidan, who are only half-grown, started playing with the Kadima ball, batting it down the hall and then running after it.

“Check the cats’ water dish, Nathan,” Dad said. “Please.” I knew he was struggling to be nice, because what happened in Florida wasn’t my fault.

The kitchen was a mess of tuna cans and eggshells. There was a dirty frying pan on a hot plate on the floor. Toto rubbed against my ankle. Since he doesn’t show a lot of affection, I figured he was saying sorry for the mess. Still, I wished Dad never taught the cats to cook.

I filled the water dish, placed it on the floor, and sat next to it, letting Toto lie down on my legs. Toto’s real name is Bartolomej. I started calling him “Toto” when I was a baby because I couldn’t even come close to saying “Bartolomej.”

A few minutes later Mom came in wearing the sundress I knew she’d been saving for the fish fry.

“Sigh,” she said.

Uh-oh. Mom only said “sigh” when she was at rock bottom.

She started saying it when she was just a kid on the Boat because she had misunderstood the teacher. She didn’t get that a sigh was a thing you DID, not a thing you SAID. So whenever she wanted to express 1) frustration, 2) sadness, 3) happiness, or 4) sarcasm, she said “sigh.”

Mom is a top-of-the-class sort of person, always studying and practicing, so by the time someone noticed she was mixed up, it was hard to erase the habit. She did, though. Of course she did. So now when she’s 1) frustrated, which is sometimes; 2) deeply sad, which is not so much, luckily; 3) transcendently happy, which doesn’t happen so much either; or 4) sarcastic, which she never is, Mom sighs just like everyone else. Except every once in a while, when she’s really upset, she slips and says “sigh” instead. When that happens, Dad and I usually start telling her that her skin looks great and volunteering to help with stuff.

“I’ll clean all this up,” I said, waving toward the tuna cans, the upside-down egg cartons, and the cats’ omelet pan. “Your skin looks good, Mom. Really great. Wow.”

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks, honey.”

“I guess they’re firing up the fish fry about now, huh?”

Dumb. Why had I said that?

Mom slid down next to me on the floor. “Who cares about a fish fry? I mean, there are more important things than a stupid hotel party. You know?”

I guess I don’t always know what Mom is thinking after all. (And she said “stupid”!)

Mom started petting Toto, who pretended not to notice, and we sat there until Toto gave up his pride and started purring. After a while Mom took a breath and said, “sigh.”

We were still sitting on the floor when Dad came in and said, “We have an appointment with the doctors for Wednesday.”

“I thought they’d want to see him immediately,” Mom said.

Dad shook his head. “The Boat is on the far side.”

“They’re bringing the Boat? Is that really necessary?” Mom looked at me. “You look sleepy. Are you sleepy? You should go to bed.”

Mom stood next to me while I brushed my teeth, first with regular toothpaste, then with the special kind they send us from the Boat. She stared at my reflection in the mirror the whole time, like she thought it might start talking to her. I didn’t realize until I was getting into bed that it was only 5 p.m. I slept through the next day and didn’t really wake up until Monday.

Most people don’t really know how big Earth is compared to its moon. In case you’re one of them, it’s easy: Pretend you have a big ball of Play-Doh. Now, in your hand, divide that big ball into 50 small Play-Doh balls, all the same size. Pick up one of those 50 balls and set it aside. Now take the other 49 balls and smush them together into one big ball.

Hold the big ball in one hand and the small ball in the other. That’s pretty much the Earth and the moon. Now take the moon ball and divide it into 10 million smaller balls. Pick up one of those and you’re holding the Mothership. Also known as the Boat. That’s where my parents grew up, mostly, on the way to your planet.

Here’s the thing that happened last Saturday in Florida: In the morning, I reached for my swimsuit. I swam in the pool every morning with Dad, who is still trying to get over his natural-born hatred of water. What happened was I couldn’t get the swimsuit on. I stepped into it, one leg, then the other, but I couldn’t pull it up. There was something sticking out of my, um, lower back. I felt around a little. And started shouting.

When she rushed in and saw why I was yelling, Mom turned white. That’s what happens when she stops regulating her blood—it all falls straight to her feet. She gets pale and has about a minute to get it moving again before she faints. Because I’m a first-gen, I’ve been regulating since I was born, and I don’t have to think about it, but Mom lived a long time before she ever came here, and sometimes when she’s startled (or horrified) she forgets.

Dad walked in and barked, “Rachel! Blood!”

Mom nodded and her color came back.

“What is it?” I said, twisting around trying to see whatever it was on my back.

“It’s . . . well . . . ,” Dad said. “Son, your tail is growing back.”

At school on Monday, Evan was nice about it. “Dude, did I ever tell you my tonsils grew back? I had them out when I was 5, and three years later—boom! They’re back.”

I looked at him. “Did they grow out of your butt?”

“No, but I had to get them cut out all over again.”

Which I really did not want to think about.

One doctor was tall and one was short. When they showed up today (a.k.a. Wednesday, a.k.a. Foods of Spain Day), I thought they might be mad at me. They had not spent 12 years crossing the galaxy, training my parents and all the others, figuring out how to look less like cats and more like humans just for me to ruin everything by growing my tail back. But they didn’t seem mad. They asked to see my tail. Then they pointed out things that I hadn’t noticed, about the angle my eyes were taking and that I had orange fuzz on my arms.

“It’s working,” the tall one said.

“We can stay!” the short one said. And they hugged, which was weird because cats, even cats that look like humans, are not very huggy.

Mom looked confused. Dad cleared his throat and said he didn’t see how my tail was good news.

One of the doctors clomped him on the back. “This means that we can do it, we can transform the human race. Earth will be ours!”

“But—we’re trying to become human!” Mom burst out. “Not the other way around!”

They nodded. “We tried that,” the tall one said. “It didn’t work.” He looked Mom and Dad over. “You two still look good. But the others are looking distinctly—feline. We’ve had to take them back on board.”

“Back on the Boat?” Mom gasped. Her gasp is excellent.

“This is better,” the tall one said. “All cats, just like home. The humans will enjoy being cats!”

“This is crazy!” Mom said. “Nathan is one of us.”

“He’s simply reverting to his natural state,” Dad said.

Both doctors smiled. “What you don’t know,” the tall one said, “is that Nathan is human. All the children are human.”

Mom pulled me to her.

The short one nodded. “We’ve created many serums. None worked. Until now.”

“But—when did you give it to him?” Mom squeezed me harder.

“In the toothpaste. When it comes to the general population, the water supply will be more efficient. We’ll take little Nathan back to the Boat to complete his transformation—”

“Nathan has school,” Mom interrupted.

“That’s all irrelevant now!”

I don’t know exactly when during this conversation Mom forgot to keep her blood moving, but this is when she fainted. And then Dad freaked and started throwing punches. I tried to help, but the doctors wrestled Dad into a chair and tied him to it. Then they locked me in my bedroom.

Mom must have woken up because after that I heard her voice through my door. She was shouting “Toto, Plan B! Toto, Plan B!”

Toto, in case you don’t remember, is OUR CAT. It must have been the oxygen deprivation.

It’s funny to think of Evan and how much I wanted to be like him. It turns out that we’re more alike than I thought. We were both adopted. Wait—someone is trying to open the door.

^{Abridged from “Plan B” Copyright ©2013 by Rebecca Stead from Guys Read: Other Worlds edited by Jon Scieszka, Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.}

^{This story was originally published in the February 2021 issue.}