4. Would you recommend this reality to other students?
The answer is as complicated as a game of Cacklaw. This is a planet where the intelligent beings aren’t hatched to be raised by a community; they’re born live out of their mother’s body; they’re born hot-blooded, and there is no predicting what they’ll do.
I am fascinated by them! And terrified. Our old saying “Know an egg before you crack it” has no application here. The humans of Earth Orange are wildly unpredictable.
I hope this is taken into account when grades are assessed.
For example, I am now what they call an “outlaw”—someone who breaks the rules of a community and is therefore chased by armed enforcers. And while the mammals here claim to dislike outlaws, they make many entertainments celebrating them and retelling their stories.
I doubt they will make such an entertainment about me. Live Saurians evidently unnerve them. In fact, since the human named Howe tried to force me to stay, I’ve been reduced to sneaking around to fish meals of orange rinds and bird bones from the trash receptacles of private dwellings. I remain a few jumps ahead of them, but I don’t know how long it will last.
Still, I will attempt to finish my homework during these short rests. If I ever return, I’ll need all the credit I can get.
Especially since I will get points off for breaking nearly every school rule about time travel. Worst of all, I gave a non-Saurian use of my vessel and sent her home in my stead.
But in this case, I knew a little about the egg before I cracked it: There’s a reason I sent Thea, the librarian from Alexandria, to live with you on Saurius Prime. She wasn’t safe here on her own world, not in her own time, nor in Eli the Boy’s. But she is intelligent and has knowledge that is worth studying; she also has an interesting idea or two of her own about the displacement of time.
I hope she receives an opportunity to explain the scrolls I sent back with her, which were salvaged from her library: They contain amazing histories of ancient cultures on Earth Orange—many of which were gone long before Alexandria was ever built — surprisingly accurate predictions about dimensions and cosmology, maps of a place called Atlantis, which no longer appears to exist either, and a whole category of literature the Earth mammals call “love poems.”
I also hope Thea is afforded the opportunity to address the whole school at an assembly; not only is she fascinating, but it will help prove to everyone that I am not insane, which will be most helpful should I ever get back.
I have to stop writing now. One of the other Earth mammals — a “dog” in the local tongue—is sounding an alarm, and some humans are sure to come out of their dwelling to investigate. Better if they don’t see me, so I will move on.
I don’t know how I’m going to get home yet, or whether you’ll send a rescue party out for me when you realize I’m not going to make it back to class. If you try to land here, it may not be pleasant.
Still, there are plenty of good beings. I will try to figure out a safe way to make contact with Eli the Boy and his father.
Until then, I will travel this surprising planet in secret, gathering what information I can, attempting to put it all in this report. And hoping this report will someday reach you.
I am reminded of another saying I haven’t thought of in years, taught to me by one of my clutch-parents when I was still a nestling: “Keep both eyes open at all times — a million worlds surround you.”