By Reporter X
Like many human parents, Lozo Gozok struggled to get her son ready for the first day of school. Gozokâs struggle involved getting her son into her human suit.
âYou canât go to Bolingbrook High School with your tentacles sticking out.â
âBut my friendsââ
âAre going to meet the Men in Blue. If your friends passed an event horizon, would you follow them?.â
Gozokâs son protested as she pushed the last tentacles down and closed the suit. She smiled. âYou look like a handsome, typical human teenager.â
âWhy do we have to wear these suits? Why do we still call Clow a UFO Base when the new term is UAP? Canât we just be honest?â
âMost humans want to kill us because they canât see in a dark forest. Clow UFO Base is an acceptable name. Humans arenât honest beings. Why should we be honest with them?â
Gozokâs son is among the dozens of alien students attending classes in school districts 365U and D11. For decades, alien human students have intermingled at 365Uâs schools. Alien students learn about human culture and make connections with future leaders. Human students might get tutoring, if an alien likes the human.
âPeople wonder why aliens havenât annihilated us,â said Steve Quigley, president of the 365U school board. âI wish I could tell them itâs because of our visitor exchange program. Think of us as a light in the dark forest. If you can see the animals, you wonât fear the animals. Well, most of the animals. You still want to stay away from bears.â
D211 board member Tim McGowan also supports alien exchange students. âI believe in the benefits of a diverse student body, and having classmates from another world can only broaden our studentsâ experiences. There you go! Now, will you stop bugging me?â
Some human and alien parents are concerned about the programs in each school district.
One D211 parent, who asked to remain anonymous, said, âI want my children to feel special when they go to school. Having aliens in the classroom makes them feel like uneducated savages. Itâs almost as unforgivable as teaching students that slavery was bad, gay people exist, and itâs okay to read fiction. I canât wait to move to Florida.â
Zelgozot Olo, who runs an interstellar logistics company, worries when his children go to school. âObserving an event horizon spinning civilization is fun until someone shoots metal projectiles at you. Iâm not surprised some humans are afraid weâre going to obliterate them. Because theyâd obliterate us if we gave them the opportunity.â
One of Oloâs children up to his dad and said he was off to school.
âHave fun,â Olo replied. âAnd donât make the Fremd students feel inferior.â
âInferior? Fremd is just as hard as the hive mind. If a human can succeed at Fremd, they can succeed anywhere in the galaxy!â
âImpressive. I guess Fremd High School is humanityâs redeeming achievement.â
Also in the Babbler:
Bolingbrook man says aliens probed him because of his Uranus joke
Naperville City Council rejects Gunkata martial arts studio
Elon Musk offers billions of dollars to rename Joliet X, Romeoville Y, and Bolingbrook Z
God to smite Bolingbrook on 8 20/23
Note: This is a work of fiction. All opinions expressed are my own. They do not reflect the views of any organization I work for or of my employer.Â
Want to support my creative work? Check out my Urban Fantasy series, the Bolingbrook Babbler Stories. You can also buy me a coffee.