School by Nathaniel Hardman (top reads .TXT) 📕

Then Ushegg snatched the pencil and hurled it at Jeff. Jeff jumped back and held up his arms protectively, and no one could see very clearly whether the pencil hit him. But then they did it again more slowly, and they saw. While he wore Ushegg’s beads, Jeff couldn’t be hit by a flying object.

Soon everyone was throwing things at Jeff, testing the powers of the “bulletproof beads,” as they were soon dubbed.

“We’ve got to get some of these,” Peter said, as his math textbook rebounded off Jeff’s invisible shield. For once, Jeff completely agreed with him; these were awesome, and getting some could be just the thing to take their minds off their helpless situation.

To Jeff’s surprise, Ushegg didn’t seem excited about getting the humans some beads of their own. He frowned, and at first, Jeff thought the boy was angry. Then Ushegg said, “You can’t tath them in zaqush. And my dad won’t yux us jarx for them.”

He tapped his wand pensively on his hand, then brightened abruptly. He looked up at Jeff, nodded, and said, “I have an esuo.”

Ushegg came to their class again on Saturday[8]. He was more nervous than Jeff had ever seen him, but excited too. “Ready?” He asked the class at large, motioning them to the door.

“Not a chance,” said Tanesha.

“Yeah, no way am I going out with that kid again,” Jada agreed.

“Me neither,” said Prithi. Peter and Ryan said they should probably stay with the girls and make sure they were okay. This seemed to offend Suzy, who made a disgusted sound and stalked to the door where Ushegg stood. Ramon said he was feeling a little sick.

In the end, about half the class stayed. But the remainder followed Suzy’s lead and went with Ushegg and Jeff out into the courtyard.

Ushegg’s dad was there, but it seemed he had already okayed the outing. He only nodded curtly to his son and counted the humans as they filed through the gate.

Jeff looked back and was surprised to see that no guards were coming with them. Ushegg grinned and elbowed him, then leaned in close and whispered, “I xiys him we’re going to chyoth kixtoy.”

They walked through the city and out past the alien school into the woods. As they left the city, Ushegg handed around little leather cords with one or two of his own beads on each. Ushegg himself was left with only a single bead around each ankle and wrist.

The two beads Jeff wore on his wrist were a comfort to him as they went into the forest here. It was dark and dense, and noises of the insects and animals seemed especially loud. “Hey Nacho,” Jeff whispered, fingering the beads, “Try throwing something at me.”

By the time they stopped for their first rest, Jeff knew that if Nacho tossed a single pebble at him, and it was going anywhere near his right wrist, the beads stopped it. If Nacho threw several pebbles at once, or if he threw very hard at an area without beads – Jeff’s face, for example – he would make contact, though the beads still seemed to be slowing the pebbles down.

Jeff rubbed the sore spot on his forehead and wished the beads worked a little better. They had already seen at least a dozen of the porcupine squirrels in this part of the forest.

“Hey Ushegg, jib...yerc...” He was searching for the right word when a flicker of something pale caught his eye. He turned and looked up into the trees. All was still for a moment, and then suddenly a chorus of hooting and screeching broke out as a troop of what looked like monkeys came swinging through the trees.

The monkeys were moving fast, but Jeff caught glimpses of short, creamy fur on the bodies and scrunched up, hairless faces framed by darker hair on their heads. They were smaller than humans but bigger than most monkeys Jeff had seen, and he noticed as they disappeared past them that the darker hair on their heads made them look kind of like naked people.

“Quirguthz!” Ushegg announced cheerfully to the group, who had all stopped to watch.

“Wait a second,” said Jeff. “Quirguthz?! That’s what Quth Yurwush is always calling me! We thought that meant ‘alien’! He’s been calling me a monkey this whole time!?”

“We’ll have to change that on the vocab list,” Shen said, mostly to himself.

“You’re not a quirguth,” Ushegg patted his arm reassuringly. “You don’t have a xoey.” He pointed at the back of Jeff’s waist.

“Oh, I’m not a monkey ‘cause I don’t have a tail. Very nice.” Jeff scowled and muttered, “Just a big ol’ tail-less monkey.”

Jeff continued to fume as they walked, but gradually the sights and sounds of the forest distracted him. From the glow-in-the-dark butterflies that fluttered in the darkest stretches, to the willow-like tree Ushegg steered them away from because, “it will eat you,” the forest was full of cool things.

At one point, they startled a herd of giant, skinny frogs that went bounding away like deer. Jeff wanted to chase them, but Ushegg’s obvious wariness held him back. Porcupine squirrels scampered everywhere.

They passed through a place where a huge circle of the forest had been burned down at some time in the past, the fallen trees now overgrown with vines and mushrooms, little saplings growing up from where they had fallen. Ushegg seemed confused by it and muttered something about “Chushr”. But they walked through the area without incident, and soon, the dark forest swallowed them again.

It was more than two hours before they emerged suddenly and unexpectedly into bright sunlight, and Jeff saw they were standing at the base of a cliff that towered high above them.

“Almost nushu,” Ushegg announced. He looked up, enjoying the sunshine for a moment, then led them back just under the canopy of the trees to