The Stallion and the Girl, Part One
“I have a scene I haven’t shown you”
- Miho Hatori
“Going to be okay dealing with a new school?”
Sitting in the passenger’s seat, the teen sighed. He was hoping to go to school at Farragut High back on base, but unfortunately, his father retired, and both decided they were going to settle down in his mother’s hometown of Winchester, Virginia, which he already could tell he wasn’t going to be thrilled about. Why didn’t they move to his father’s hometown of Milwaukee? There were probably tons of things to do there in Beertown. Heck, there were probably tons of things to do here, like staring at apple trees, mowing the lawn, staring at apple trees, going to school and staring at apple trees – did he mention staring at apple trees yet?
Yeah, he thought to himself, it’s not like I’m going to find anything worthwhile in this small town.
“Yeah, I think I’ll like it here,” he told his father, a convincing lie. He got out of the car. “I’ll see you later, then?”
“Yeah. I’ve got that interview with the VA and then the IRS both up in Martinsburg, but I should be back in time to pick you up. Good luck, son.”
Well, here he stood. Winchester Christian High School, home of…whatever mascot it was, he didn’t really care. As usual for kids in new schools, he headed straight to the admin office to introduce himself and check in.
“Oh, welcome to the school, young man,” the secretary replied. “Your first period teacher is in the teacher’s lounge; I’ll let him know you’re here and he can walk with you to the first class.”
“Sure, that’d be great,” he commented, not really caring as the secretary walked off. After all, what interesting things happened here?
He got his answer a second later. “Crap crap crap!” A curly-haired girl rushed into the office, looking as though she was trying to stay clear of imminent danger. Seeing him there, she said, “You don’t want to go out there: the War of the Worlds just started up again.”
He looked at her, not comprehending. Some Stateside slang I’ve never heard before? “Sorry, didn’t get that.” In the background he heard several girls screaming at each other, and not politely, either; for that matter, they were using language that probably was best not uttered on school grounds.
“Y’know, the War of the Worlds?” When he stared at her again, she looked at him. “You must be new here.”
“Actually, I am; first day here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Probably hard to believe this, but I just moved here from Spain. My dad was in the Navy but just retired, so we moved here.”
“Really? That’s so cool!” she squealed.
“Well, yeah, I guess. To me, it was just another day at home – this is the first time I’ve been Stateside since I was born. I was originally born in Pensacola, Florida, at the Naval Hospital.”
“That’s seriously awesome. Well, welcome!” She offered her hand. “Marcy Balis.”
He took it and shook. “Mike Hengst.” There was some more screaming, followed by a teacher rushing off in the direction of the vociferous debate. “So, you were saying?” he asked.
“Oh, right – the War of the Worlds. That’s our local term for when the Valerie Squad starts fighting with the Alien Girl. They’ve been going at it since Sixth Grade when I moved here from Hagerstown, and from what I’ve been told, they’ve been at it since kindergarten, can you believe?”
“Alien girl? What, she’s an illegal immigrant?”
“No, I literally mean alien, as in, she’s not human.” He looked at her oddly, as if she’d lost her mind. “No, I’m serious – you really must have been overseas for years not to have heard about this.” When he nodded, she explained: “Okay, Twitter version: about fifteen years ago, a couple found an alien baby in their backyard. Since they had no kids, they adopted her and sued the White House to give her full rights. They won the case, so she’s legally considered the same as a human even if she isn’t one. But she definitely acts like one, that’s for sure.”
“So she’s a she?”
“Who knows?” Marcy replied. “I mean, that’s what she identifies as, genderwise, but nobody’s exactly been inclined to look under the hood, if you know what I mean.”
“So what’s she look like?” he asked, curious. If this girl was telling the truth, where he lived just got a whole lot more interesting. “What, some kind of gray-skinned big-eyed alien like ET or something?”
“You’re going to laugh,” she responded. “Do you know about a bunch of toys from way back when called My Little Pony?”
“I think my mom mentioned about something like that when she was a kid, why?”
“Well, that’s what this girl looks like: like one of those deformed horse toys, only in real life. She stands on her hind legs, wears clothing and such, since she was raised to be like normal, but nobody I know has a tail or anything like that. Everyone calls her a pony now, but from what I understand she hates being called that, especially since she really doesn’t know what she is.”
“She doesn’t?”
“No, as far as I know, no one’s found any existence of any other aliens like her, or at all for that matter. I’ve got an uncle that works for NASA and he told me once that every study they’ve done on her indicates, strangely enough, that she’s from Earth; that she might even be some kind of hyper-evolved horse created by actual aliens.”
The bell rung, and Marcy said, “Well, there’s the first period bell. I’d better get off to class. Hopefully I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah, sure thing!” he said as she scampered off. Looking forward, he saw the secretary returning with another adult in tow, his first period teacher.
Mike went through the introductions with his algebra teacher, his mind on other things at the moment. An alien? A real-life alien? Here, in the middle of Nowhere, USA? He made a note to email all his friends back in Spain to tell them about this.
And I thought not being able to go to school in Rota was going to be dull….
Lunchtime came around and classes turned out to be easier than he expected. Algebra was a cinch, as he’d always been good at math; likewise, English class was also easy, but that had more to do with the fact that the teacher was a busty woman in her mid-twenties who acted as though she was still in high school herself. By the time the lunch bell rang, he was ready for lunch, as it would certainly get his mind off of all that weirdness.
He bumped into a guy on the way to the cafeteria, a Hispanic kid with curly hair carrying what looked like lunch for two. Helping him right the thing before it went spinning off into the messville, Mike apologized. “Hey, sorry about that.”
The guy gave him a cheerful but goofy grin. “Naah, man, I shoulda been paying attention myself, ya know? But thanks for the help. Be seein’ ya.”
Mike watched as the guy walked off, headed towards the far end of the cafeteria. “Weird,” he said to himself.
“Here ya go, DJ,” Carlos said, dropping the lunch tray in front of her. “Cheeseburger, fries and a Coke for you, and pizza and a Coke for me.”
DJ grinned at her old friend as she briefly looked up from her laptop. “Thanks, Carlos, I appreciate it.” She stared evilly at her computer. “Internet’s crapping out again – I swear, whoever said 5G works in our area is out of their mind.”
“Yeah, you should,” he grinned. “Almost got knocked over by this big guy, but thankfully he helped me catch everything before it went all over the place.”
“You okay?”
The teen had a smile plastered on his face. “Heh, you know me: I bounce back from everything, given enough time. So, since I bought you lunch, can you give me a hand on my algebra homework?”
She returned the smile. “You’re so incorrigible, you know that?”
Mike grabbed a tuna sandwich, an apple and water; he wasn’t really hungry, but something light would probably help. As he walked away from the cashier, he noted Marcy waving him over. He sat down, happy to oblige.
“I see you survived the first half of your first day at school,” she said, grinning.
“Yeah,” he replied. “School’s going to be a lot easier than I thought it’d be.”
“Man, you must be an A++ student,” one of Marcy’s friends said.
“Yeah, and those muscles? Jock as well, I’m guessing,” she said, her voice carrying a dreamy tone.
“Down, girl,” Marcy replied. “Mike, don’t mind them. These are my friends. This is Todd Miles, Denise Munoz, and the silent one there is Beverly Stephenson. Everyone, this is Mike Hengst, who just moved here all the way from exotic Spain.”
“Really?” Beverly piped up. “God, I’d love t—”
“Hello, handsome.” Mike distinctly felt a feminine hand on him and the breath of someone on his neck. He looked up and into the face of a beautiful young woman, perfect blonde hair, clear skin and luscious green eyes, all focused on him. “So, when are you taking me out?”
He looked at her, then said nonchalantly, “You know, as far as I know, it’s traditional to at least say hello first.”
She laughed; it was clearly a practiced one. “So cute. Well, they’ll tell you who I am, and when you’re ready to take me out, just give me a call, okay?” She produced a business card – a business card! – from the pocket of a tight pair of pants, and then sauntered off calling out, “And now to put something in its place.”
“Dude! Score!” Todd told him. “Do you realize who that was?”
“Um, should I?” he asked.
Marcy grinned. “You’re just all kinds of special, aren’t you, Mike? That’s Valerie Anderson, freshman just like us, but the hottest girl in school – she’s got seniors drooling over her. And apparently, she’s got the hots for you, not that I blame her,” the girl said, looking at him appreciatively.
Denise sighed. “Some girls just get all the luck.”
Mike shrugged. “Meh, no biggie.”
Todd looked at him as though he grew a third eye. “Dude, you gay or something? Well, if you are, that’s understandable, but…if not, duuuuude – turning down a quality piece of tail like that?”
“Hey, I just moved here from Spain. Entirely different standards than the local girls, not that I did any dating with girls my age on base or off,” he admitted.
Marcy saw that this was uncomfortable for him, so she changed conversations. “So, tell me about Spain, Mike. Where’d you live? Madrid? Barcelona?”
“Little place on the Mediterranean coast called Rota. West of Cadiz and south of Sevilla, er, Seville, in English. That’s where the Naval Base is. We lived out in town, not on base, nice little apartment just outside of the castle.”
“There’s a castle there? Wow, man, you rea—”
There was a crash, and a bunch of students filtered around a group of students arguing.
“War of the Worlds,” Todd and Beverly said at the same time, while Marcy just nodded. Mike looked in the direction of the argument, curious to get a look at this alien living amongst them but all he could see of any of them was the Alien Girl’s tail, a well-groomed tail flickering to and fro in jagged, angry motions.
The lunch bell rang and all the students filed out. Not surprisingly, the alien was lost in the crowds headed out the other side of the room, and with Mike’s locker being on the southern end of the school, he had to head in the opposite direction. Now he was really interested in meeting the girl, if for no other reason than to just get his curiosity going.
Besides, who knows? he told himself. She might be actually fun to talk to.
“DAAAAMMMIIITTT!” a scream came, along with the sound of a locker door being punched. Hard. That caught Mike’s attention. It was already after class, and his father had called to let Mike know that he would have to get home on his own; there had been an accident by the West Virginia border and it was tying up traffic for miles in both directions. As his father was new to the area, it was going to take a while for him to figure out how to get back to Winchester using the roads connecting between the two states.
Mike sighed; he vaguely remembered how to get home, but that also meant that he was going to have to walk home at least. At least it would get him away from the school and from Valerie Anderson. He’d heard a few more things about her from his new friends and the more he’d heard, the less he wanted to deal with her; it turned out that she was probably going to try to use him to get back at her old boyfriend – Dylan, Cameron, or some other generic name like that – and Mike was in no need to be used as anyone’s boyfriend. Truth be told, he wasn’t really looking for a relationship anyway.
As he walked towards the school exit, in the direction of the sound of where the shout had come, he began to hear sobbing and a girl crying, “It’s not fair…it’s just not fair….” As he reached the doorway, there was a hallway to his right, where a bunch of lockers were. Leaning next to them, crying, was a young woman, wearing a coat, as it was an unusually chilly day for early autumn and winter was expected to come very early this year. Her back was to him, and she sounded as though her world had just gone askew.
His choice was to leave and mind his own business, or stick his nose where it might not be wanted and see if she needed help.
He chose the latter.
“Hey, is everything okay?” he asked, approaching her.
“No, it never is,” she responded. “Could you leave me alone right now? I really don’t feel like dealing with further derision.”
Mike wasn’t sure what to say next, so he was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth: “Hey, sorry about that. All I see is a cute girl crying and I have to do something – it’s part of being a gentleman, last time I checked.”
Her laugh was soft and musical; sadly, it was also bitter. “Cute? Me? You must have me confused for Valerie Anderson.”
“No,” he said, “I meant what I said.” My mouth’s clearly running ahead of my brain, he thought to himself. I’ve called her pretty and I don’t even know what she looks like. One thing he did notice: she was short, probably about 5’5” if his guess was correct.
“Really?”
I’ve got to be insane to say this. “Yes, I mean it.” The girl turned around and Mike suddenly found himself staring into a pair of large, purple eyes, the eyes being the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. But the eyes were also red, red from tears, and something deep within him suddenly wanted to reach out and remove the red from those eyes, a primal instinct to protect.
The pair just looked at each other for a moment before the girl was the one to speak. “So, now that you see who I am…you still think I’m cute?”
Of all the girls he had to say that to…it was the Alien Girl. And truth be told, she looked like something straight out of a Disney film. Big eyes, small snout, soft fur all over, and a full head of hair where her mane was supposed to be, framed by two pointy ears on the side of her head like an animal’s. She was wearing the coat, a jersey from some sports team that Mike wasn’t familiar with, jeans, and some sort of slippers over her feet similar to slip-on sneakers. Lastly, her hands were actually hooves.
“Well,” he said with a big grin, “I only see one beautiful young woman here—” That’s what she calls herself, right? “—or am I mistaken?”
She blushed. “You…you actually think so?”
“I know so.”
She laughed; the tone was actually musical and far more pleasant than the laughter he’d heard from the school hottie earlier. “You must be the new guy. I overheard someone saying there was one coming in today.”
“Guilty as charged.” He offered his hand. “Mike Hengst.”
“Daisy Jo Martinez. Just call me DJ.” She proffered hers, and things just stopped. She giggled. “Well, you’d think I’d learn by now. Make a palm.” He did, and she pressed her hoof against it. He felt something like a suction cup grab and shake; whatever she was doing, it had a very strong grip. Suddenly she let go and the pressure disappeared.
“Wow, what was that?”
“Part of what makes me me, I guess. The scientists who studied me named it ‘hoofspace’ for some reason. I have hundreds of micromuscles in my hands and feet – and yes, I know they’re technically hooves – that help me grip things or walk upright easier.” With a natural motion, she reached into the open locker and pulled out a pen; her hoof seemed to wrap around it not unlike a human’s fingers.
“Well, if you ask me, that’s cool!” Mike said, genuinely interested. She didn’t seem at all like some kind of alien thing at all, but more like a normal person, just…well….
“Pony-shaped,” she said, matter-of-factly. When he looked at her oddly, she grinned sadly. “I’m not offended; everyone I meet for the first time has that same thought. Just please keep in mind that I’m a person regardless of whether or not I’m human, and we’ll get along fine. I get enough grief from other people who can’t accept me for who I am.” She reached in her backpack, pulling out a trashbag – why was she carrying a trashbag?
“Like Valerie Anderson?” he asked.
“A lifetime of Valerie,” she said morosely, as she opened the bag and then slipped on some rubber gloves; attempted to, at any rate, as the fingers dangled uselessly on the gloves. “I’ve been dealing with this for years,” she said with a disgusted look as she pulled out a white tube that looked like it had dried blood on it.
Mike blanched. He had an older sister, and when she lived at home back before she went off to college, he’d seen that a few times before.
DJ sighed, her nose wrinkling. “She knows I can still smell this crap. Though I should be thankful; last week it was actual horse dung.” She looked at him, and there was sorrow in her eyes. “Do yourself a favor, Mike. Stay clear of me. Don’t ever be my friend unless you want to get painted with this same brush. Marcy, Denise, Bev and Todd were friends once – all it took was mud and a note shoved into their lockers by Valerie’s bestest buddies to get the point across.” She looked around. “There’s no one here but you and me – you still have time to run.”
She looked at him evenly, and at a casual glance, she looked as if she could care less if he stayed or left. But for those looking right into her eyes, just like he was, he saw the true message: don’t leave me. I need a friend. For a second his mind went to an image of a wounded animal, begging to be rescued, but he shut that right out – she’d proven she was anything but an animal, and if anything was a person in need of rescuing, a damsel in distress. He couldn’t let her down.
“I think,” he started, “that you need help cleaning this mess up, because of you can smell it, it must be bothering the hell out of you, huh? Then after that, I dunno about you, but I could use some coffee. Want to join me?”
If he’d earned a smile from her before, he really got her sunniest one now. “Like you wouldn’t believe. I know just the place.”
“Yeah, I admit, it’s a bit weighty for people our age, but I think it’s really important that we familiarize ourselves with the culture of the past, so that we can continue to grow,” she said, taking another sip from her coffee.
“You are entirely too smart for your own good, you know that?” he joked.
“I know, but my parents love me enough to make sure I got an education; I owe it to them to make sure I value that education. I love them too much to fail,” she said in serious tones before shaking her head whimsically and adding, “Okay, so Mom thinks I shouldn’t bother reading the Divine Comedy, either, but hey, I lost a bet with Dad, so….”
Mike sat there, listening to her, growing completely fascinated by the being in front of him. Apparently DJ was very smart, smart as in “probably would end up school valedictorian” smart. She was well read, voraciously taking in everything from comic books to Milton’s Paradise Lost…and now, it seemed, Dante’s The Divine Comedy. And she did it all, she insisted, because her adopted parents had loved her enough to fight against virtually the whole world to ensure their daughter had a future. It sounded archaic and strange in this day and age amongst Stateside kids, but DJ was very much the dutiful daughter, appreciating everything her parents ever gave her in a time when kids took too much for granted.
She wasn’t without her quirks, though: she had lousy taste in music. Her interest in anything musical apparently stopped right around the time when she was born; by her own admission the most recent album she owned was Telefon Tel Aviv’s most recent album, made back in 2015.
“So you don’t listen to anything modern? My Chemical Romance? The Beat Crusaders? Hey Ocean? Han and the Solos? Lord Winkiebappers?”
“Oh, please – Han and the Solos are just doing the same thing Siouxie and the Banshees did all the way in the mid-90s, and they did it better! And the Beat Crusaders? Hah – give me Flying Lotus any day of the week! And who the fuck names their band ‘Lord Winkiebappers’, for crying out loud, excuse my French – not only do they have a stupid name, they’re clearly trying to be a Duran Duran clone.”
“Well, I won’t argue with you on the name, but Sidney Gustav is pretty awesome, if I may say, in the ‘totally complimenting a guy’s looks without trying to sound attracted’ way. Guy totally has a way with the girls.”
“Eh, you could do better,” DJ said. A second later, she said, “Um…not that I’m…ah, crap. Sorry if that sounded awkward.”
“I’m presuming you meant that as a compliment and not as hitting on me, right?”
“Yeah.”
He grinned. “Well, I’ll take it as the compliment, then.”
“Thanks. I wouldn’t want to make an ass out of myself the first time we met.”
“Naah, from what I can tell, and for the record, this is not hitting on you either, you’re a far better pick than Valerie Anderson. You, at least, have a personality.”
“Yeah, but sometimes I think I’d trade in my personality for some tits and ass,” she muttered. “I mean, look at me! I’m not human, I’m completely into guys, being a female – and yes, I do have girl parts despite what some of the rumors say – but I’m alone. The kind of guy who would fall in love with me has got to be one crazy son of a bitch, you know?”
“You’re selling yourself short, DJ. I bet you’ll meet a guy someday,” Mike assured her.
“Yeah, if he can look past my fuzzy ass,” she said, grinning.
“I just noticed you swear like a Sailor,” he commented. “Very unladylike.”
“Well, that’s because I take after Dad in that regard,” she admitted, “and he’s a former Navy Chief Petty Officer.”
“Really? We just moved here from NAVSTA Rota, where my Dad, who was a Senior Chief, retired from being the second division LCPO on the USS Ross.”
“Wow, small world. My Dad was stationed at PSD Rota when he was just a YN2 in the mid-90s.”
“Who knows, maybe they know each other?”
“I dunno. Dad got out after he and Mom hit it big in their respective careers. I don’t mean to brag – because if anything I need is yet more ammo for people to use against me – but my parents are somewhat famous.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. My Dad’s an author: Matt Martinez. He writes a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. His big work’s the Covenworld Chronicles.”
“The name’s familiar, though I haven’t read the series. Kinda was a Harry Potter fan instead. And your Mom?”
“Anna Van Hoed. She’s the a—”
“181st Meridian!” he said, excitedly, reaching into his backpack and pulling out a printed version of the 7th volume. “So your Mom’s Anna Van Hoed? Wow! Well, yeah, now I can see why you keep it on the downlow.”
“Yeah. With parents like that, you can see why education’s a bit on the important side, plus, well, they’re my parents, and what parent doesn’t want the best for their kid?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“You know, you’re not at all what I thought,” she said.
“How so?”
“Well, when I first saw you, I thought you’d already hooked up with Valerie and just there to give me the next round of insults, so to speak; she’s got her hooks in a lot of people. Thankfully, the majority of the school doesn’t care about this whole ‘War of the Worlds’ bullshit, but she’s got her supporters, and they far outnumber mine.” She looked at him evenly, adding, “I just hope you won’t regret picking my side.”
“Hey, I like smart girls, and my friends back in Rota always said I found new and improved ways to get in trouble. So, you’re stuck with me. I’m just hoping people don’t hold it against me.”
“Oh, they will, if they’re tied to Valerie, I assure you, they will. But,” she said sweetly, “I’m very appreciative that you helped me.” Her eye wandered towards the wall, and then an embarrassed look crossed her face. “Oh, crap – I’ve got to get going.”
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got to take my friend Erica her homework – she’s currently hospitalized – and then I’ve got to get to the church tonight to help with the blood drive. Granted, I can’t donate any blood for obvious reasons, but I can at least help.” She rose from the seat, and then had a sudden thought. Leaning over, she gave Mike a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for everything. You really know how to make a gal feel special.”
As she walked out of the coffee shop, the barista looked at him. “So, interested in DJ, huh?”
“How so? Just met her today. But she seems nice enough.”
“She is, even if she’s an alien. Too bad she’s screwed…all alone in our world.”
“I take it you’ve known her for a while?”
He nodded. “Yeah, her family’s been coming here for years, so I know them pretty well. She doesn’t show it, but I think she’s lonely. She’s got two really close friends, but I think she thinks about the future more than she should; and unless someone finds out more about her kind, well, it’s like being the last dodo on Earth – not a real great place to be.” He passed another latte to him. “Here, on the house.”
“Thanks.” Mike sat there, thinking for a second. “Well, I think she’s nice, in any case.”
“Yeah, but ‘nice’ don’t keep you smiling at the end of the day. Do me a favor: keep an eye on her; she’s had a rough year with one of her friends in the hospital and the other one not speaking to her for a while. I don’t think her headaches are done yet and that’s on top of being what she is.”
As Mike left the café to head home, he thought about what the barista had said. Marcy and the three he’d met today were okay and kind of reminded him of Tommy, Ben and Rachel back in Rota, but…high school was a different game with different rules; the people you were friends with in middle school might be your worst enemy just months later. He was having to learn that game now, in a place with entirely different rules, and yet it was nothing compared to the life the Alie…DJ had to live with.
Poor girl, he thought to himself. Ah, well, I can at least say hi to her tomorrow – what’s the harm in that?
“Heya, Mom, I’m home.” DJ walked into their little home on Meadow Drive, dropping her bags on the floor. She was completely exhausted from working at the blood drive, but hey, she agreed to it, so…. She went over and gave her mother a hug and kiss on the cheek. “What’s for dinner?”
“Heya, furball,” Anna told her daughter. “Making moussaka for dinner tonight. So how was school?”
“Dad still in LA? Need his advice regarding a guy.”
“Your father’s supposed to be home tomorrow night.” Anna’s brow arched. “You have a boyfriend now?”
DJ rolled her eyes. “Please, as if I’d ever get that lucky. No, actually, we just got in a new transfer student. Navy brat from Rota, and I was wondering if Dad might have some advice on what I can do to help ease him into Stateside life.”
“That’s very considerate of you, sweetie.”
“Well, I know what it’s like to be lonely,” she replied. “I mean, I have the greatest parents that God could have ever given me, but…well, you know.”
“I know. Oh, before I forget, there’s a letter for you on the table from a Dr. MacLaren from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. There’s a questionnaire that they wanted you to fill out for their School of Biology.”
Her shoulders slumped; yet another science school wanting to use her as a virtual guinea pig – she’d had enough years of this. “Do I have to?”
“No, you don’t,” Anna told her, “but it’s your choice, DJ. I know you feel, and if you want to know the truth, I wish all these asshats would just leave you be, but so long as you’re the only one of your kind, it’s something you’ll have to deal with.”
She went over to the table and read the cover letter. “Well, at least it’s just a questionnaire. It’s not like those fucktards at the University of Seoul.” She shivered at their request from back in March; they actually wanted blood and cell samples so they could try to clone her outright instead of just medical cloning of tissue samples and the usual. But she was used to some people just seeing her as a well-trained animal, not much different from Koko the gorilla.
“Language,” Anna scolded her daughter.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Mom.”
“Well…you’re not, but you still shouldn’t be using language like that. Not ladylike.”
“Yes, because the boyfriend I’m never going to have is going to care about how I speak.”
“Sweetie, you’ll have someone to call your own someday, I’m sure. I just think he’d be more interested in a girl who doesn’t swear up a storm like your father.”
“Whatever.” DJ looked at the letter once more. “I’ll do it later,” she decided.
“If you’re sure….” her mother said with hesitation. “I don’t want you to feel you have to do it if you don’t want to.”
“Naaah, it’s just a fill-in-the-bubble. No biggie.”
From downstairs, a shout came. “DJ! I need help with my homework!”
Mother and daughter shared a bemused look before the younger woman said, “Well, I guess I should go help Sam.”
“I’d appreciate it – I’ve got to get back to my office to finish the renders for the next page.”
“Okay, will do.” Pausing by the fridge long enough to grab a Coke, she then went downstairs to help her kid brother.
“And yes, I think I’ve landed that job at the IRS, which I guess would be the Lord’s way of punishing me for all the times I’ve talked bad about them,” Carl Hengst joked in between bites of dinner.
“How was your day at school, son?” Lila Hengst asked.
“Well, I think I’m going to like it here. Far different than I expected.”
“Well, is it true what I heard, that there’s an alien going to your school – a real, live alien?” Hearing that, Carl dropped his fork, looking at his wife as though she were insane. Seeing that look, his wife explained, having heard it from their next door neighbor, whose daughter was a junior at Winchester Christian.
“Is this true?” Carl asked, completely confused.
“Yeah, only one of her kind,” Mike admitted. “I met her, DJ Martinez. She’s a nice girl—”
“How do you know she’s a girl?”
“Because she calls herself one and was raised like a human, so presumably her parents explained that to her.”
“Son, maybe you should stay clear of that alien, lest you end up some kind of pod person or something.”
“Uh, Dad, seriously – people have known her since she was a kid; I think someone would have blown a whistle by now if something was wrong.”
“Carl, you’re worried too much. Jackie says that her daughter has met…DJ, you said her name was, Mike? Anyway, Jackie’s daughter Deidre says that she’s just a normal girl, only that she looks like a pony walking on two legs instead of four.”
“A pony…as in a horse?”
“Actually, she doesn’t like being called that; she mentioned it’s like calling people ‘apes’. She just wants to be known as a person.”
“That’s fair enough,” Lila nodded. “So that being said, if you’re going to be friends with her, you should respect her wishes.”
“I’m still not sure it’s a good idea for him to make friends with something that could put a facehugger on him at any minute,” Carl warned.
Mike rolled his eyes. “Dad, I just met her today, okay? It’s not like I’m going to marry her or anything.”
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Ah, delicious irony. Just give it a few years friendo, it'll sink in.
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No words are needed to describe my approval
Famous last words, Mike.
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indeed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
anyway author is on a roll! AWESOME!
ERMAGGERD PRECULE!
Now that that's out of the way, I have one question. Why the hell isn't this in the feature box?
Reading this has made me realize just how much the foalnapping incident may have screwed her up. If Twilight had been allowed to slowly introduce DJ to her birth parents and acclimate them to each other, I'm sure that DJ would at least have a relationship.
i just started going to college, and whats with the tube?
Murphy's Law states that you will now marry the hairy alien!
oh Mike oh how wont know the truth to that
Valerie...knew lots of girls like her while going through middle and high school. Never had to deal with any of them directly though, thank Celestia, since there were so many of them and so were more interested with fighting with each other over stupid shit.
Carl is delightfully paranoid. Facehuggers . . . Yeah. Right.
Though, wow, they've really been out of the loop, haven't they? They don't even know about sapient non-humans being real. 
After re-reading this, I just realized how freaky your description matches how I'd describe my 11th grade English teacher to a "t". Although like Mike, I didn't complain since she gave me an A on a project that was admittedly half-complete (and what was done was half-assed) and was just a really nice person.
824795
In any other context, this would be a VERY scary reality. Good thing Mike was lucky enough to meet a nice pony and not the child of Bigfoot.
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She gave her life in an attempt to save Sandalwood (though it didn't succeed.) That's the kind of debt you can never repay.
823599
I think the feature box is allergic to my works.
824729
Valerie and her friends regularly break into DJ's locker and dump crap in there. The prior week, it was horse dung. This week, it was used tampons. Rather disgusting.
826761
Based on a story I'd heard from a cousin regarding her English teacher. Teacher was eventually fired because she was fooling around with the students.
825822
That's actually how bad it can get when you're overseas. With bases having access to internet it's probably not as bad as it used to be, but I had a six year period of my life (92 - 98, when I was stationed in Spain, Italy, and Japan, respectively) where I have no idea of what went on in the US. It's important to realize that AFN/AFRTS shows very little news since its main purpose is entertainment and morale; and the Stars and Stripes' various editions focus more on local news for the troops than Stateside information. So the fact of DJ's existence would reasonably be missed by a lot of overseas personnel; at most they'd hear that a major Supreme Court case was decided in 2022, but not much more than that.
Am I the only who likes the slice-of-life stories better than the political intrigue? I think the Shin could drop the changelings, Nightmare Moon, and magical plague altogether and the story would still be just as captivating. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm complaining though.
828170
Just for that, I'm penalizing you two pinto unicorns.
Seriously, I wanted a story that blended them all. I like long stories, and I had a definite plan as to where this is going, so both will alternate. The sidestories, however, focus more on worldbuilding, and so are more slice-of-life. I may add an action one here and there (in fact, one is planned), but I think SOL works better for the sidestories overall.
828196
Just for that, I'm penalizing you two pinto unicorns.
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I feel bad immediately skipping to this chapter when I learned you had a side stories compilation. But...
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This is just too much fun, and that ending quote.
Mike rolled his eyes. “Dad, I just met her today, okay? It’s not like I’m going to marry her or anything.”
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
On a reread I just spotted this.
Why is 5'5" considered short for a High School freshman? That is vey close to the average height of an American Women. Mike has some unusual standards for short.
You had to say it, Mike. You just had to fucking say it.
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Just saw this response. It's his perspective. When I was stationed at Rota, I noticed that a lot of the locals were taller than the norm. Maybe it was genetics, maybe just the population segment, but there you go.